When Covid-19 didn’t go away after winter break (as some people thought it might), I started to get anxious about how my school was going to pull off the musical this year.
The Audition Process
Does anyone else hate auditions? I’ll try to keep this short, but OH MY GOSH. First impressions terrify me in this kind of setting - I used to be really shy when walking into an audition, and it seriously affected what the directors thought of me. I would try to read the room way too much (and still do sometimes), which would totally screw up my performance out of nervousness no matter how well I had done when rehearsing. I find that performing in front of a sold-out audience onstage is less scary than being in front of the couple of casting directors - they’re so much closer and I guess interacting with them directly freaks me out. Luckily, I found that auditions for Spring Awakening were actually really easy to get through! Probably because I hadn’t done a musical in over a year…
Auditions for the show took place right before winter break (frustrating because we had to wait until mid-January to find out about our roles!). They were pretty standard, with acting, singing, and dancing, and we only auditioned with content from the show rather than material from other productions. I sang “Mama Who Bore Me” (side note - being part of this show made me realize how obsessed I am with the “Mama Who Bore Me Reprise” HAHA) and I also did some scales. For acting, I used a scene between Ilse and Moritz (the one right before “Don’t Do Sadness”/“Blue Wind”), but after I did it they asked me to try a scene between Herr Knockenbruch and Fraulein Knuppledick! Although I ranted above about how much I detest auditions, I actually enjoy the ways they might put you on the spot. I think actors feel a constant pressure to fit into a box of what characters they’re supposed to play, aka their “type” (the girl next door, the bad boy, the leading lady, etc.). These categories can be helpful when deciding who to audition for, but I find it can sometimes leave little room for stepping outside your comfort zone.
Performing live during Covid-19
We were lucky enough to be able to perform the show live onstage - the audience streamed it on Zoom but the whole cast was able to be together. Each of us had our own station between two huge pieces of plexiglass onstage with a microphone and a camera set up in front of our individual seats. It was definitely different from any show I’ve done (and will probably ever do) because of our setup onstage. Since we were individually on camera, we all had to be looking at our cameras whenever they were on. It worked great when we sang, but we weren’t able to look at each other when acting. Overall, it turned out fabulous, but the only thing I’d fix if I could would be the ability to truly interact and communicate with our scene partners, since this is crucial to scenework.
We performed the show as a concert reading rather than the full-on 2 hour production because of some of the questionable content and, let’s face it, as much as we wish it wasn’t true, not many people want to stare at a Zoom for that long. We ended up not having individual roles; for example, in one scene I played Wendla, but in another I played her mother! I think it was initially a little disappointing that we weren’t going to have our own parts, but I felt like it gave us a good opportunity to learn more about the show as a whole through a lot of different characters’ perspectives.
Our director cut the show down to about an hour, keeping most of the songs and any scenes that came before or after them. We were told that if anyone in the cast got Covid, it would be difficult to rework the show. And, because we do a winter musical, it’s not like we could perform it outside in the snow, so I was most stressed about the question of if the show could even be performed!
There were also some concerns, especially around the singing aspect, because we were not going to wear masks for the performance. However, when we got onstage to test out the protocols, it was incredibly safe; we wore our masks whenever we weren’t on camera, and we were able to sing because we were sufficiently distanced and had dividers.
Rehearsals
Although our final performance was in the theater, our time was very much split between live and Zoom rehearsals, especially early into the process. We did most of our acting rehearsals on Zoom to start, which was actually nice so that we could work with the other actors before getting on camera. Meanwhile, all singing was done live because it’s impossible to sing with a group online! The show had a few dance numbers; I was in “Mirror Blue Night” and “Totally F*cked,” but there was also choreography to “The Bitch of Living.” In one of my other articles, I talked about how I am not a dancer at all but we could not perform the dances live so I was able to actually learn all of it well before we recorded them hehe… The dances were the only part of the show that was recorded, because we couldn’t clear the stage of all our equipment between scenes and it would’ve been rather chaotic!
Content issues?
In addition to some controversy about doing a show during Covid-19, some people were also concerned about the content of the show. If you know anything about Spring Awakening, you probably get why people might be nervous about letting us perform it! If you don’t know the show, I suggest looking it up before reading the rest of this :) The community was actually pretty divided on this - some didn’t want their kids having anything to do with it, while others thought it could be a good opportunity to open conversations about the topics it addresses. I know most people were worried at first in one way or another, but our director actually made really great cuts that made it a bit more appropriate while not completely shredding the plot. We also had an announcement at the beginning setting an age restriction for high school students and older.
We cut some of the songs but actually ended up keeping “Totally F*cked.” Initially, we weren’t going to censor it at all, but rethought that because we could still get a message across without it. We did what the Broadway cast in their performance at the Tony Awards, where they cover their mouths in place of the actual word. Personally, I wasn’t mad about this cut because it didn’t really take anything away from the song (it probably made people think about the word even more!).
The cut that I think should have been discussed more than dropping the f-bomb is Wendla’s death. In our version, we kept the scene where she got pregnant, but went right into “Purple Summer” after the song “Whispering,” with no mention of an abortion. I’m not saying whether it should have been kept or not, but I do think it’s beneficial for the audience to have known the original story before seeing our shortened version so they understood what the original writers wanted to get across.
We are in serious need of live theater right now - being able to do a show during the pandemic was incredibly uplifting and gave me hope for future shows and the reopening of Broadway!
Xo,
Weezy
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