And director Eric Davis is confident theater members and the local audience will appreciate the vision he and his cast has brought to Spring Awakening.
#FREEFALL THEATRE SARASOTA UPDATE#
It’s time to update the way the LGBT community is portrayed on stage.”īut until those not-yet-created roles come along, all three young men, all of whom happen to be gay, are thrilled to be part of such a popular show in such an intimate theater. I understand why those plays portray that, but we’ve moved so far forward, especially recently. “Why isn’t there a Neil Simon-style play out there with two men as the leads? Look at Rent and Jeffrey-not every gay man is living with AIDS. “Where’s the story with two normal leads?” he asks.
My character is not.”Īnd while he understands the conflict of the gay characters in Spring Awakening, Daniel admits he’d like to see a mainstream play with gay characters that aren’t outcasts or presented negatively. “I am very confident in who and what I am. “It’s honestly a very big switch from my life (playing the character of Otto),” Daniel says. He says his character and his “preying” instincts on a younger, gay classmate doesn’t reflect so well on gay culture. The challenge is also presenting the LGBT community in a light that is not so flattering, according to Daniel. It’s fun to be pushed and the choreography and staging is difficult and we all emotionally invest ourselves. I’ve never played an adult character before this. “What’s not to love? But I was anxious at first, but not because of the content. “It’s an incredible cast and it weaves in rock music,” Chris Brent Davis laughs. They are learning who they are.”įor actor Chris Brent Davis, who plays Otto, an adult character, the bond among the cast members has helped create a comfortable atmosphere and a stronger united front to present material that many may not always feel comfortable with. Granted, not in front of an audience, but these characters are not in front of an audience. That moment, when we’re all supposedly masturbating together on stage, essentially doing a circle jerk, I’m not afraid. “There is some intimidation there portraying that scene,” Daniel says. But the adult content is strong, including a “masturbation” scene on stage, featuring Daniel and several other male members of the cast. While the show is by no means a children’s show, the characters are all mostly school age. “The show is a call to action for the audience to talk about subject matter they may not be comfortable with.” “The characters are an essential part of the story and its structure,” Carrero says. The young Carrero, who is a student at the University of Tampa, agrees. “We’re not schtick, but people will laugh.” “Their interaction is taken in a light way and it breaks up some of the score,” Daniel says. Their relationship can sometimes provide comic relief, but the two actors do not play their roles as farce. “Hanschen,” played by Scott Daniel, is a sexually aware young man who preys upon the younger Ernst, played by 20-year-old Emanuel Carrero. There is also, of course, an LGBT element to the production. How can we expect our youth to understand consequences if we’re afraid to talk to them about those very subjects that make us uncomfortable?” In this story we have a girl who is raised and not told where babies come from. “Questions about sexuality and its consequences still exist today among youth. Despite it being a large Broadway production originally, Spring Awakening will work perfectly as an intimate production, he says. The audience sees the theatricality and the audience watches the audience watch the play.”Īnd the beginning of theater, Davis adds, began with circles of people around campfires, which provided the most intimate atmosphere. “This is a very exposed room and no culture to hide anything.
“For this production, the theater space is set up as a round, which seemed the most appropriate, the most intimate, for this show,” says director Eric Davis.
It has also gained traction among local theaters and this July, freeFall Theatre will take on the now famous production and restage it for its intimate space on Central Avenue. Since it debuted on Broadway in 2007, Spring Awakening enjoyed a bevy of Tony Awards, a successful Broadway-style tour that continues today and huge record sales of its rock-infused soundtrack.
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