New Spring Awakening Tour Ready to Launch This Fall

Spring Awakening will hit the road again when a new tour of the Tony Award-winning musical launches October 14 in Carbondale, Illinois. Christopher Wood and Elizabeth James will star as young loves Melchior and Wendla in the production, with Lucy Skilbeck and JoAnn Hunter recreating the original Broadway direction and choreography of Tony winners Michael Mayer and Bill T. Jones. The tour will stop in 60 cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Memphis and Nashville.

The cast will also feature Coby Getzug as Moritz, Courtney Markowitz as Ilse, Rachel Geisler as Anna, Jim Hogan as Georg, Aliya Bowles as Martha, George E. Salazar as Otto, Emily Mest as Thea, Devon Stone as Hanschen,  Daniel Plimpton as Ernst, and Jamie Rea Billings, Erin Burniston, William J. Lewis, Michael Linden and Jeff Ostermueller in the ensemble.

A re-imagining of Frank Wedekind's 1891 play with music by Duncan Sheik, book and lyrics by Steven Sater, Spring Awakening depicts how a group of German teenagers navigate the mysterious time of their sexual awakening. The story centers around a bright young student named Melchior who falls for the sweet and beautiful Wendla, while his troubled friend Moritz falls victim to the overbearing pressures of his environment. Spring Awakening opened on Broadway on December 10, 2006 and received eight Tony Awards including Best Musical. The Broadway production ran for 859 perfromances before closing on January 18, 2009.