By Sheryl Flatow
27 Jan 2009

	Christy Altomare and Kyle Riabko
	photo by Paul Kolnik

Many critics have pointed out that a major difference between the play and the musical is the treatment of two of the leading characters, Melchior and Wendla. In Wedekind's version, Melchior beats and rapes Wendla. In the musical, the sex is consensual. Sater says the "greatest critical misconception" is that the musical is simply the play with a few changes and a lot of songs. "I wanted to honor the spirit of Wedekind and be faithful to the original material. That said, we truly have transformed the play. I found that when we introduced songs to the original material, they took you into the hearts and minds of these young characters in a way that the play did not. Once that happened, you wanted to go on journeys with these characters. You cared about them. So I had to really refashion the material a great deal to create a hero's journey for Melchior. We added the Romeo and Juliet story of this boy and girl. The original material is shocking. But that wasn't the story I wanted to tell.

"We also created a different character in Wendla, because I wanted her to be meaningful to young women today," Sater continues. "So, for example, in the first scene, Wendla asks her mother how babies are born, and her mother is silent. In the play that scene happens much later, and is a very different take. I wanted to create a girl who is a searcher, who wants answers, who is frustrated trying to get these answers. I wanted to understand where she's coming from, what she's yearning for."

Just how much Spring Awakening resonates was never more apparent than when the national tour officially opened in San Francisco in September 2008. The presidential campaign was dominating the news, and much of the buzz was about the governor of Alaska and her family. In Spring Awakening, a bewildered Wendla is told she's pregnant; she doesn't understand how it's possible. "A child? But I'm not married!" she says.

"When Wendla said those words," says Sater, "everyone started to laugh. Then they cheered. Then it was like an ovation, that we were putting this out there. It couldn't have been more timely. That's why I wanted to write the show. I wanted to be part of the culture and have a voice."