
PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY THEATER ARTS
PRESENTS



BOOK & LYRICS BY
STEVEN SATER
MUSIC
BY
DUNCAN SHEIK
BASED ON THE PLAY BY FRANK WEDEKIND

Dramaturg's Note
It's a profound pleasure to welcome you to the world of Spring Awakening, where language is both power and absence. Words are rationed or ambiguous, leaving young people to navigate desire, fear, and identity without a map. Questions go unanswered and curiosity is met with silence. In that vacuum, misunderstanding takes root. Not because these characters feel too much, but because they were never taught how to name what they feel.
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When spoken language fails, music steps in. The score becomes a parallel voice that tells the truth the characters aren't able to say out loud. Longing, confusion, despair, joy... These emotions surge through melody when conversation breaks down. It insists that what is happening inside these young bodies and minds is real, urgent, and worthy of being heard.
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This musical asks us not just to witness adolescence, but to interrogate the systems that demand silence from it. As you watch, notice where spoken words fall short, and sound takes over. What rises when no one is listening? What might have changed if someone had? Spring Awakening reminds us that repression doesn't protect innocence... it fractures it. And that listening, truly listening, has an impact that carries on long after the music has stopped.
-Luna Delvaux, Dramaturg
From our Director
Oregon ArtsWatch interviewed our Director, Theresa Robbins Dudeck, about the relevance of this musical for audiences today. To read the full interview, go to: https://www.orartswatch.org/dramawatch-memory-meta-theater-and-musicals/
