Spring Awakening Assignment

The Spring Awakening creates an interesting world that the audience quickly learns about.  It's evident that it's focused on teenagers within an oppressive school system that avoids talking about sex rather than educating about sex.  It's also a musical so people express through feelings through song and hide them in regular dialogue.

The scenic design for The Spring Awakening brought to my mind the idea of fall rather than spring to me.  The leaves missing from the tree, the reddish-yellow background, and the appearance - if on purpose or on accident - of leaves on the ground through the lights gave me this idea.  The use of chairs on the stage was used for maximum effect as they were basically the only "design" on stage using them for a classroom, or to hide characters outside of a scene.  The three "doors" in the back of the stage was used effectively to bring characters in and out.  Also in one scene, they used the doors combined with the lighting to make the parents seem separated from the students.

The costumes made it clear that this was a world where creativity or individuality was shunned.  All the girls and boys in the play had the same uniform on for most of the play.  Girls wore spring dresses, only different in color from the rest of the girls.  Boys wore "prep school" clothes indistinguishable from the rest of the boys.  The clothes included high black socks, dress shoes, a button down shirt with a loose tie (unsure of what kind of tie), and a black coat.

The lighting design also contributed to the world of the play.  For one, the lighting dictated where the audience was supposed to look.  With many characters on screen and seemingly random times when the actors would start to sing, the lights gave the audience a clear idea of which part of the stage to pay attention to.  The best example of this in the play is when one of the characters is writing a letter to another on one side of the stage, and on the other side of the stage is the person reading the letter.  The lights alternate between both sides of the stage when one of the characters' mother interrupts her to talk to her while he's reading.  In another scene the parents ask a character to go to bed and they stand right behind the visible doorways.  The light intentionally hides the faces of the parents to show how distant they are from their kids.  They are in shadow as if they don't really understand what is going on (and the play would support that they don't).

Review
With limited resources, scenic designer Jon Dritna does the best with what he's got.  He surrounds the stage with a red and yellow background including trees without leaves.  It seems like it's meant to convey the fall season.  Costume designer James M. Miller creates preppy school uniforms for the students to show that this is a world focused on unity rather than individuality.  The adults in the play wear professional clothes that help show they have long since resigned themselves to the "follow the rules" conformity of the world.  Overall, the costumes and scenic design work together to provide a clear, dystopian world.