By: Myleigh Lanham
Western presented Spring Awakening to open its spring theatre season.
The mature musical takes the audience into the lives of teenagers who are going through a confusing time in their life and learning about their bodies. Spring Awakening delves into the experience from adolescence to adulthood through school and pressure at home.
The production was strong in presentation, including comedic parts despite its very serious tone. Spring Awakening has a lot of cursing, physical violence, a failed abortion, a suicide, an attempted suicide and other mature scenes.
Mycah Williams, who played Wendia in the show, has been in past theatre productions but landed her first lead on the Western stage.
“As a performer you are always learning as you go along from your actors and directors,” Williams said. “It is less about you being onstage and being the star and more about the relationship and what is happening between the other character onstage.”
While a show has actors performing onstage, it also has a stage manager who helps prepare the show. A stage manager is the hub of communication, having to attend every rehearsal, production meeting and then speaking through a headset to technical operators telling them when to change everything from set, to lights and to sound.
Rachel Segbawu, the stage manager for Spring Awakening, had to prepare herself for long hours, a lot of social interaction and a calm leadership role with this production.
“To prepare you get to know the show. Read it several times over, listen to the music and watch other performances of it. You want to know what to expect,” Sigbawu said. “The more you know the better you can serve the production.”
The musical is dark with a lot of emotion and a lot of going on. Some of the topics are uncomfortable, however, the cast was mature and had a passion to tell the story.
Williams added that she hopes the audience could place themselves in the character’s shoes. Remember when they were in high school wondering what was going on and their life between home and school.
“I want everyone to go back to that place and realize we have all went through that,” Williams said. “Look at us now and how we’ve grown and how we’ve taken that and used it for the better.”
