Cast of Broadway's `Spring Awakening' reunite and reminisce
NEW YORK >> While many of John Gallagher Jr.'s peers went to college, he didn't. His university became “Spring Awakening.”
Gallagher spent much of what would have been his prime college years — from 20 to 23 — starring in the original, envelop-pushing Broadway show that musicalized teen angst.
“It was an education,” he said. “It was a social education. It was a professional education and a personal education in so many respects.”
Gallagher recently got a chance to go back to school by reuniting with the cast for the first time in 15 years during a one-night benefit concert.
The new documentary “Spring Awakening: Those You've Known” airing Tuesday on HBO and HBO Max captures that concert and adds interviews, candid moments and home movies, as well as performance footage from the original 2006 Broadway show, often beautifully melting into the benefit concert.
“It's been profound to be together again and look back,” said Gallagher, who went on to have Broadway roles in “American Idiot” and “Jerusalem” and on TV in “The Newsroom.”
Filmed in just five days and edited in a mater of weeks, “Spring Awakening: Those You've Known” follows four major plot lines: the musical itself, its 2006 road to Broadway, the reunion 15 years later in 2021 and the special relationship between breakout stars Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele.
“This was also an opportunity to uncover what `Spring Awakening' really was and still is today — an unapologetic examination of teenage angst and the timeless desire to find acceptance for who you are and what you are going through,” said Dave Sirulnick, of Radical Media, which produced the documentary.
Set in provincial 19thcentury Germany but using modern rock songs, “Spring Awakening” tells the story of a group of teenagers trying to come to terms with life and their sexuality. It won eight Tony Awards in 2007, including for best musical.
“They were in this lightning-in-a bottle moment together,” said documentary director Michael John Warren.