Final Weekend Reflections

So this isn't really a review...I can't quite bring myself to write one yet. But I wrote this for my blog, and figured I'd post it here as well.

Last night, Spring Awakening closed on Broadway.

I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to the city on Saturday for the matinee, and again on Sunday for the last matinee ever.

Over the course of this weekend, I have met some Guilty Ones, some of whom I've been talking to via TGO for almost a year but had never met, cried my eyes out, shook uncontrollably, had the biggest grin plastered on my face, froze my ass off, met an Original Cast Member, and eaten at Sbarro's three times in two days.

I have walked down 8th Avenue in the snow and literally did a double take when I realized that John Gallagher Jr., Krysta Rodriguez, and Lilli Cooper were walking the other way.

I have sat in the Eugene O'Neill and realized that my life has been completely changed by a little show called Spring Awakening.

I am not the person that I was a year and a half ago, before I read about a new show on Broadway on Zach Braff's blog from February 2, 2007:

"I implore anyone reading this to immediately make plans to go see the new Broadway show, "Spring Awakening". It is the most inspiring piece of art I have seen in far too long. I have yet to lead you astray thus far. You will be blown away! It's about growing up and loneliness and puberty and sex and lust and struggling not to drowned in an ocean of other people's opinions about who you're supposed to be. It's like "Dead Poet's Society" on extacy set to music. It is quite simply a masterpiece. Call 212 239-6200 for tickets. Trust me."

Going to New York by myself for the day of closing was no doubt the pinnacle of this crazy ride. Some might even call it rebellious, considering that my parents didn't even know, and most certainly would flip a shit if they ever found out. But I don't regret one minute of it. Not the four hours of sleep in 48 hours, not the 17-degree-weather, not the toll that this weekend has taken on my bank account. And certainly not the gorgeous view from my seats way up in the mezzanine.

At this point, I'm not sure I can accurately reflect on what exactly it is that Spring Awakening has given me. I am planning on writing a combined review of both shows from this weekend at some point, but right now I am too emotionally drained to possibly put my thoughts accurately into words. What I do know is that, during each show this weekend, I did not cry as much as I thought I would. Instead, I shook uncontrollably. On Sunday, I made it to Left Behind before my mind started thinking, "OK, you're going to lose it now." But then Thad kicked off those guitar riffs, and Totally Fucked left me with the biggest smile on my face, and I knew that this thing that some might call "just a show" has given me some of the best memories of my life, hands down.

I want to close out this post with transcripts of the speeches given at the final curtain call. Until I can write a review, I am going to be thinking about and listening to Spring Awakening nonstop. But I know that my emotions are nothing to rush away; it's the FEELING in life that makes everything worthwhile.

Duncan Sheik: "As I sat in the audience tonight, I realized how much this is a show about partings, about saying goodbye and how beautiful and cathartic that can be, and I can't thank you all enough for sharing this moment - one of the best moments of my life."

Ira Pittelman: "We've played almost 900 performances; we've played more than two years on Broadway, and though this is the last night in New York, this is not the end of Spring Awakening. Over the next three years, our tour will play 45 cities in the U.S. and Canada. Spring Awakening will be produced in 18 countries, in 14 different languages, so our beautiful, loving passionate transformative show will, in fact, run forever."

Steven Sater: "So I guess it really was ten years ago in February of '99 that I proposed to Duncan that we take this fearless children's tragedy written by Frank Wedekind and turn it into a piece of musical theatre. Shortly thereafter, Michael and Duncan and I really determined that we would touch the troubled heart of youth around the world and tonight at intermission this young man Tom came up to me and said, 'If you and Duncan hadn't decided to do this, I don't know what I would have done, I don't know what my life would have been,' and I just think we never could have dreamed - who can say what dreams are? — that we could touch this many hearts and have our own hearts touched in return. I was thinking much like Duncan; I was thinking this is a play filled with ghosts and learning to live with our ghosts, and it's only in the final scene, really, that we see that the ghosts in our minds and the ghosts in the moonlight can become a source of nurture and encouragement for the ghosts still left behind. Tonight, in some way, Spring Awakening on Broadway is becoming a ghost. It's a series of performances and actors and songs we've known, but I think for me — for many of us — those songs, those performances, those audiences will walk with our hearts and be a source of nurture through times of darkness and light and so in that sense the dream will never end. And for two-and-a-half years, for all these incredible performances and for tonight most of all, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart."

Tom Hulce: "I love you Ira. . . . Here we go. Ten years ago, Steven Sater had this genius, crazy idea, and he invited his friends Duncan Sheik and Michael Mayer to join him in making this seemingly impossible idea into something incredibly gorgeous. Along the way there have been many people who have given their support. We want to thank La Jolla Playhouse, we want to thank the Sundance Theatre Lab. We want to thank Todd Haimes and the Roundabout Theatre Company. A special thanks to John Nakagawa, who I think is here tonight, and the American Songbook series of Lincoln Center. And now we come to the heart of this adventure: the Atlantic Theatre Company. . . . You gave us your guidance and your support and most of all and most crucially, you gave us your home: a spectacular and safe place where Spring Awakening could find itself and become itself and grow into the world, and for that we are forever, ever grateful. And, especially, you gave us a most remarkably, exceptionally talented cast of young people.

Believe me, we are saving the best for last but before we do, the other thing the Atlantic helped us with was to assemble a brilliant creative team, and with us here tonight is our extraordinary music director Kimberly Grigsby. Our resident director Bea Terry is here. But most noticeably absent tonight is our design team - our choreographer Bill T. Jones, his associate, and our director Michael Mayer. They are in London in final tech rehearsals for the launch of Spring Awakening, the British version, so they couldn't be with us, and we send them our boundless thanks for their inspired work and in return they sent their love to all tonight in the form of a lyric, which before we turn this over to the founders of our feast, I will read. It's written by a theatre songwriter — it's from 'Anyone Can Whistle:'

'With so little to be sure of,
If there's anything at all.
If there's anything at all,
I'm sure of here and now and us together.
Thanks for everything we did,
Everything that's past,
Everything's that's over too fast.
None of it was wasted,
All of it will last:
Everything that's here and now and us together.
It was marvelous to know you
And it isn't really through.
Crazy business this, this life we live in-
Can't complain about the time we're given-
With so little to be sure of in this world,
We had a moment.
A marvelous moment.'

Thank you, Spring Awakening, from the bottom of my heart.