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style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt; BACKGROUND: white; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"
class=MsoNormal align=center><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Beck
Center/B-W partnership leads to a passionate ‘Spring Awakening’<?xml:namespace
prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
/><o:p></o:p></SPAN></B></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Bob
Abelman<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">News-Herald,
Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times,<o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The
Morning Journal, Geauga Times Courier<o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Member,
American Theatre Critics Association <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">This
review will appear in the <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">News-Herald
</I></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">on
2/10/12<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Teenage
angst is no stranger to the stage.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>In fact, there is no better, more universal, and less time-sensitive
source of dramatic s</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-ansi-language: EN"
lang=EN>turm und drang</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN"
lang=EN> than </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">raging
hormones hitting the wall of societal norms while under strict parental
supervision. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Hope
may spring eternal, but angst is not far behind.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">As far back as the
5<SUP>th</SUP>-century BC, Euripides was relaying the tragic tale of tormented,
teenaged Electra.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Shakespeare’s
romantic rendering of adolescent anguish,</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">
“Romeo and Juliet,” was published in 1597.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">“Spring
Awakening,” currently on stage at the Beck Center for the Arts, may very well be
the most intensely passionate musical portrayal of tortured young souls.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Arriving on Broadway in 2006, the
musical is based on an 1892 play by Frank Wedekind that was so controversial it
wasn’t produced for 15 years and only after significant censorship and under the
threat of closure.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Playwright/lyricist Steven Sater and composer Duncan Sheik went back to
the original text and set to modern music their treatise on sexual repression,
religious rebellion, physical abuse, and suicide.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">With
a relentless rock score set against the incompatible backdrop of a provincial
19<SUP>th</SUP>-century German secondary-school, “Spring Awakening” exists in
the same state of contrast and tension as its subjects.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Staged with minimalist production values
void of theatrical pyrotechnics and the distraction of elaborate sets, the play
focuses its full attention on its young, troubled storytellers.
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Doing
so makes for a particularly profound and moving piece of storytelling, for the
angst depicted in this play was once ours and this play’s bare, bold, and
haunting presentation stirs memories of the </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">agony and the ecstasy
of our own teenage self-discovery. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Not bad for a night
at the theater.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The
primary problem with putting on this musical is finding performers young enough
to pass as teenagers but old enough to have the maturity and stage training to
do justice to a show that won eight Tony Awards and catapulted the career of Lea
Michele, now on TV’s “Glee.”<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">To
their credit, the brain trust at the Beck Center struck an alliance with
Baldwin-Wallace College, whose Music Theatre program is one of the nation’s top
repositories for young, talented performers. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Seventeen B-W students comprise the cast
of </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">obedient
schoolchildren biting at the bit controlled by their severe parents and
Machiavellian teachers. </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black">The entire ensemble is
phenomenal.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Featured performers
include </SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Kyra Kennedy,
whose inquisitive Wendla struggles to understand the physical and emotional
desires her mother won’t explain.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Zach Adkins plays the brilliant anarchist Melchior, and does so with
incredible passion and appeal.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As
Melchior’s best friend Moritz, James Penca is angst personified.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Every word, every reaction, every hair
follicle is an explosion of pent-up energy and wayward
emotion.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><FONT size=3>Everyone on stage has a
voice and presence as powerful as they are expressive.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Every performer, surrounded by caring
classmates, takes daring, creative risks that pay off big time.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Andrea Leach as Ilse, Rachel Brawley as
Thea, Nick Varricchio as Hanschen, and Chris Cowan as Ernst deliver particularly
riveting performances.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><FONT size=3>Equity actors Scott Plate
and Laura Perrotta play all of the assorted adults in the lives of these
children.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They do so with
incredible dexterity and distinctiveness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">In
addition to tapping B-W students, the Beck Center has procured the services of
several faculty, including Victoria Bussert as director.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Bussert brings to the table a proven
track record for turning large-scale productions into very personal journeys,
including last year’s on-campus renderings of “Rent” and “La Boheme.”<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Her “Spring Awakening” in an intense and
intimate affair, facilitated by B-W colleagues in other key production positions
who share her vision, attention to detail, and expertise.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Choreographer
Gregory Daniels reworks all that was </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">inventive in the
show’s original staging and creates movement just as potent and equally
reflective of the rapid pulse of impetuous youth.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Set and lighting
designer Jeff Herrmann surrounds his simple, stripped-down, two-tier set with
hanging blackboards.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Their
chalk-drawn textbook diagrams of genitalia serve as effective representations of
the omnipresence of budding sexuality and the sterile formality with which it
was approached in Victorian era Germany.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><FONT size=3>Despite some opening
night sound problems that tended to neutralize intricate harmonies and
orchestration, particularly during the hard-rocking “The Bitch of Living,” “My
Junk” and “Totally Fu*ked,” the seven-piece on-stage orchestra under B-W senior
Ryan Fielding Garrett’s direction, is superb.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Clearly, not everyone
will find this play’s subject matter appropriate, be moved by its driving
rhythms, or feel comfortable taking a sentimental journey back to
pubescence.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Those that do will find
this production to be just as professional and passionate as the national
Broadway tour that came through Cleveland in 2009. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Maybe even more so. </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">“Spring
Awakening” </SPAN></I><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">runs through March 4
at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For tickets, which range
from $10-$28, call 216-521-2540 x10 or visit <A href=""><FONT
color=#0000ff>www.beckcenter.org</FONT></A>.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>