Portland State University to Open SPRING AWAKENING February 27

Portland State University's Theater Arts program will present the electrifying Tony Award-winning rock musical Spring Awakening, with book and lyrics by Steven Sater and a score by Duncan Sheik.

A live seven-piece band will perform with the cast.

Spring Awakening runs February 27 through March 7, 2026 (preview February 26) at Lincoln Performance Hall in Portland.

Based on the then-scandalous 1891 play by Frank Wedekind, this coming-of-age rock musical pulses with the urgency, defiance and yearning of adolescence. Spring Awakening introduces us to a group of young teens who are busy navigating the terrain of growing up in a repressive society — while desperately longing for guidance and reassurance from the adults in their lives. As their bodies mature and societal expectations increase, they find themselves confronting the mysteries of sex, pregnancy, love, and loss, while enduring the suffocating pressures of school and family. Juxtaposing the straight-laced, stifling social constraints of this world with a raw-edged, exuberant rock soundtrack, Spring Awakening offers a poignant, often-cathartic theatrical experience that resonates with audiences across the generational divide.

"Spring Awakening reminds us that even in our darkest moments, hope endures, and most powerfully through the voices of our young people," said Theresa Robbins Dudeck. "Our dynamic ensemble brings this story to life with passion, skill and raw honesty."

"This is the first musical produced by our School of Music & Theater in over a decade, and diving wholeheartedly into this challenging and deeply satisfying art form has been a joyous process for our cast and creative team," Dudeck continued. "Our audiences are in for a big treat."

Spring Awakening premiered at the Atlantic Theater Company off-Broadway in the summer of 2006, surprising audiences with the unusual pairing of its prim, old-fashioned setting and searing alt-rock score, belted out with passion. The cast, many of them in their teens and not much older than the characters they were playing, made their Broadway debut later that year when the production moved to the Eugene O'Neill Theater. With Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff in the lead roles as Wendla and Melchior, the musical won 8 Tony Awards at the 2007 ceremony.

Charles Isherwood, writing for the New York Times, called the play "a straight shot of eroticism," and a "brave new musical, haunting and electrifying by turns."

"Under their girlish frocks and constricting uniforms, the souls of incipient rock stars squirm and throb, bursting forth whenever a riff from a guitar signals the unquenchable force of their flourishing ids," he wrote.

The creative team for PSU's production of Spring Awakening includes Theresa Robbins Dudeck (director), Zach Galatis (music director), Franco Nieto (choreographer), Jonathan Cole (fight director), Caitlin Lushington (intimacy choreographer), Solomon Weisbard (producer/scenic and lighting designer), Rory Breshears (sound designer), Devon Wells (Costume Designer), and Luna Delvauz (dramaturg).

Evii Anderson (Wendla), Richie Olson (Melchior) and Callum Cassee (Moritz) head up a cast of talented young performers.

Theresa Robbins Dudeck, Assistant Professor of Theater in the School of Music & Theater at PSU, works internationally as a theatre practitioner with expertise in improvisation. She is a Fulbright Scholar (Brazil), author of the biography on impro pioneer Keith Johnstone, co-editor of two books on applied improvisation (Bloomsbury), and co-director of the docuseries "On Keith: Artists Speak on Johnstone & Impro." She is the co-founder of an international symposium focused on theatrical improvisation, the Global Improvisation Initiative (GII), that will be coming to PSU in July 2026. Before Portland, home was Los Angeles, where Theresa worked professionally (Actors' Equity, SAG) as a singer, dancer, actor, and as director of a youth musical theatre company.

The PSU Theater Arts program mounts three productions per year on the stages of two unique theaters in Lincoln Hall. Directed by world-class faculty, these shows provide hands-on experience for students of every focus within the program, from acting to dramaturgy to technical theater. In the selection of dramatic and other works, the school seeks to reflect vital contemporary issues, personal and public, in varied and challenging forms, both new and classic, thereby creating a forum for cultural and social concerns. The program actively pursues the development of new works, collaborations with urban arts and educational institutions, and the expansion of cultural exchange.

The Portland State University School of Music & Theater production of the 2006 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Spring Awakening runs Friday, February 27 through Saturday, March 7 (with a preview on Thursday, February 26). The February 27 performance will be followed by a post-show reception.

Showtimes are Thursday, February 26 at 7:30 p.m. (preview); Friday, February 27 at 7:30 p.m. (opening night); Saturday, February 28 at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, March 1 at 2 p.m.; Wednesday, March 4 at 7:30 p.m. (community night); Thursday, March 5 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, March 6 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, March 7 at 2 p.m.

Performances are at Lincoln Performance Hall (Lincoln Hall 175).