Last night David and I made our way to the Ahmanson Theater in downtown LA for the red carpet premiere of Spring Awakening, the hit Broadway musical that is currently on tour in this region of the country. Both David and I have seen the show in NYC with the original Broadway cast so we had high expectations for this touring production:

I feel I must preface my comments about the show we saw last night by saying the original Broadway production and cast managed to win 8 Tony Awards including Best Musical … that is tough to compete with. That said, this touring version of the show is good … just not great. Kyle Riabko, a pop singer who recently released his debut album (which features a duet with Liz Phair, BTW) and reminds me a bit of Jesse McCartney plays the male lead role of Melchoir and Christy Altomare plays the female lead Wendla. I’m sorry to say that, while each is very talented, I didn’t feel the passion that their roles require. I found them both apt singers but, again, there was no power to their voices to drive the emotionality home with the audience. I was very impressed with Blake Bashoff who plays Moritz and Sarah Hunt who plays Martha. They were each able to connect with their roles and offer the powerful performances to exude that emotional connection required of the story. There was a bit of “high school musical”ness to the performance but it could’ve been a result of opening night jitters. Also, the audience was an atrocious one for them to play to. The audience riotously laughed at the violent interplay between Melchoir and Wendla when he beats her (some in the audience thought it was “funny”) and, appallingly, someone let their phone ring for about 40 seconds without silencing it during a very quiet part of the performance. The gentleman who was sitting behind David and me was so obnoxiously loud that we really did not enjoy ourselves very much. I fear the rude audience may have had an effect on the players’ performances. In any event, I’m grateful for being able to see the show again. I’m sure diehard fans of Spring Awakening will be very pleased with this production. The show, itself, is spectacular. This time around I was able to really get into the story and found the whole experience much more enjoyable than the first time I saw it.

David and I were not able to stay for the VIP afterparty because we had to bolt for the airport to pick up his sister Eden who flew in for the weekend. We had to leave the theater as soon as we could. Much love and thanks goes out to Jason for inviting us out to the show, we had a great time!!

Tonight is Halloween … and I’m still not entirely sure what we’ve got planned. Steph and Alek are home so we will be seeing them for sure. Beyond that, I dunno … I do have a costume to wear tho … I’ll have pics tomorrow :)