Spring Awakening
Written by Frank Wedekind
Translated by Jonathan Franzen
Directed by Jack Tamburri
CMFT Performance Theatre (0061) Lower Level
Fri, 11/22 @ 7:30pm
Sat, 11/23 @ 7:30pm
Mon, 11/25 @ 7:30pm
Weds, 12/4 @ 7:30pm
Thurs, 12/5 @ 7:30pm
Fri, 12/6 @ 7:30pm
Sat, 12/7 @ 1:00pm
Sat, 12/7 @ 7:30pm
CAST:
Karim Angulo | Melchior Gabor
Leah Bloom | Professor Brockenbohn, Mrs. Gabor
Anthony Costello | Hansy Rilow, Professor Fitztongue, Mr. Stiefel, Dietholm
Oona Gladding | Moritz Stiefel
Imani Jones | Professor Starver, Ilse, Dr. Procrustus
Darren Kinzler | Mrs. Bergmann, Georg, Friend Ziegenmelker
Issa Malik Bernard | Lämmermeier, Ernst, Professor Schmalz, Uncle Probst, Reinhold, A Masked Man
Nora O’Donnell | Martha, Headmaster Hart-Payne, Helmuth
Misa Love Smith | Robert, Fetch, Rev. Bleekhead, Locksmith, Ina
Em Rose Stern | Thea, Professor Blodgett, Gaston, Dr. Seltzer
Leanora Octavia Tapper | Wendla Bergmann
Myles Windbush-Soules | Otto, Professor Killaflye, Rupert, Mr. Gabor
PRODUCTION & CREATIVE:
Claire Frawley | Production Stage Manager
Ella Griswold | Assistant Stage Manager
Baylie Bird | Assistant Stage Manager
Cara Giordino | Run Crew
Ian Pivovar | Sound & Lighting Designer
Ethan Rodda | A1 & Board Operator
Scenic & Props Team
Bailey Bird
Leah Bloom
Anthony Costello
Nora O’Donnell
Costume Team
Issa Malik Bernard
Ella Griswold
Imani Jones
Misa Love Smith
Lighting Team
Darren Kinzler
Ian Pivovar
Leanora Octavia Tapper
Robert Marshall | Poster Designer
Maggie Surovell | Voice and Speech Coach
Mitchell McCoy | Intimacy & Violence Coordinator
Christian Bailey | German History & Culture Consultant
Content Advisory
This production of Spring Awakening contains: suicide, gun violence, domestic violence, sex, masturbation, abortion, and sexual assault.
Director’s Note
Sometime in early 2002 — late in my first year of college — a senior boy gave me a reading list. The Maids, Miss Julie, Salome, La Ronde, Spring Awakening. All plays by European Modernists and all, more or less, about sex. The plays made an impression, as did the senior boy.
Spring Awakening stayed under my skin. What the kids in this play go through is still breathtakingly explicit and devastatingly truthful. There are images in this play that have been on my mind since the first time I read them. The 2006 musical adaptation brought the play into modern cultural consciousness but also nailed it down, defined it, and that new definition didn’t fully contain the play’s potential, its weird comedy and disturbing magic. I’d bring it up pedantically in late-night discourse with theatre compatriots: “But have you read the Wedekind…?”
I approached and reapproached Spring Awakening over the years, putting it in the middle of a list of grad school thesis options, half-heartedly pitching it around, always hedging, always fearful. It took me til now to find the courage. I needed to get old enough to stop feeling like one of the kids, to notice how different the kids suddenly are from me, to have kids of my own. And I needed to believe that I was ready to lead a cast into the emotional forest of this play: unmapped, full of treacherous terrain and malevolent predators.
What I still didn’t know about Spring Awakening until I got into the room with the extraordinary students of the Purchase Acting Program is that its true power is actually not in its provocations or its historical importance or its formal boldness. It’s how actable it is. Spring Awakening is a play for actors, loaded with deeply strange but deeply recognizable characters experiencing thrilling beats of interpersonal discovery through dialogue that still stings after a century. Wedekind was an actor — he insisted on playing the Masked Man himself in every production of Spring Awakening that he was aware of during his lifetime. So I shouldn’t have been surprised. But it took a company of profoundly skilled, inspiringly rigorous, and frankly ingenious young theatre makers to finally explain to me this play that has been freaking me out for more than twenty years. For that, I will always be grateful to them.
I am very proud of what we’ve made out of Spring Awakening, and I hope that now that you’ve seen it, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it either.
–Jack Tamburri
Creative Team Profiles
CAST
Karim Angulo is an actor from Washington DC and a senior in the SUNY Purchase BFA acting program. Past roles of note (to his mother) include Peter in Luna Gale, Bernard Nightingale in Arcadia, and Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing. He hopes you enjoy the show. He’s giving me two thumbs up. I think he really means it.
Leah is excited to be in Yerma with her good talented friends. Her favorite Purchase credits were Gint (Hog Woman) and Luna Gale (Cindy). She is so grateful for her teachers and her classes and to be a senior actor.
Anthony Costello is a third year BFA actor from North Carolina. Purchase Rep: Intimate Apparel (Mr. Marks), Socrates (Plato), Gint, Back County Crimes. Regional: Master Class and the world premiere of Double Helix at Bay Street Theater, A Christmas Carol with Triad Stage. Shoutout to the production team and Jamie Leonhart!
Oona Gladding is a fourth year BFA actor from NYC. Previous purchase credits include Orpheus Descending (Sister Temple) Back County Crimes (Mrs Scott/Mrs JP Simpson) Gint (Runaway Bride/Devil Woman) Socrates (The Boy) and Luna Gale (Karlie/Lourdes). She would like to thank her wonderful company and her family for their support!
Imani Jones is a fourth year BFA actor from Prince George’s County, MD. Purchase Rep credits include: Yhings I Know to Be True (Rosie) Intimate Apparel (Mrs. Dickson) Socrates (Anytus / Eryximachus) Gint (Older Man/ Ensemble), Back County Crimes (Doc Autry). Other credits include: The Government Inspector (Anna Andreyevna) Three Sisters (Olga/Maria) She is grateful for all of her family and friends for the continuous support. Much love!
Darren Kinzler (they/them) is a fourth year BFA actor from Hillsborough, New Jersey. Previous Purchase Repertory credits include Back County Crimes (Ensemble), Gint (Pete Gint), Socrates (Socrates), and Luna Gale (Cliff). As Clifford Anderson in Deathtrap, Darren garnered an NJACT Perry Award Nomination. Many thanks to the cast and crew for their support.
Issa Malik Bernard
Nora O’Donnell is a fourth year BFA actor from Brooklyn, New York. Purchase Rep credits include: Luna Gale (Caroline), Socrates (Diokles, Archon, Meletus), Gint (Sally Vicks), and Back County Crimes (Multiple characters).
Outside credits include As You Like It (Rosalind) and Oedipus (Chorus). A million thank you’s to her awesome amazing parents!
MisaLove Smith is a fourth year BFA actor from The Bronx and raised in Harlem. Love from 22! Credits include Esther (Intimate Apparel), Socrates (Xanthippe) and #25 (The Wolves). Shoutout to everyone that has supported me on this journey! Only Up From Here!
Em Rose Stern is a fourth year BFA actress from Brooklyn, NY. Purchase credits include Yerma (Yerma), Intimate Apparel (Mrs. Van Buren), Socrates (Crito), and Gint (Oldie Mama). She would like to share her gratitude for her director, Alex, as well as the cast and crew for their love and guidance throughout this journey of Yerma. Additionally, she’d like to share her gratitude for her friends, family, and the rest of Company 49 for their love and guidance throughout this journey of life.
Leanora Octavia Tapper is a fourth year BFA actor from Harlem, New York. Purchase Rep credits include Things I Know To Be True (Pip), Intimate Apparel (Mayme), Socrates (Meno) and Gint (Older Sally Vicks). She gives many thanks to her family and friends who support her unconditionally no matter what.
Myles Windbush-Soules
PRODUCTION & CREATIVE
Claire Frawley
Ian Pivovar
Playwright Profile
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind (July 24, 1864 – March 9, 1918) was a German playwright. His work, which often criticizes bourgeois attitudes (particularly towards sex), is considered to anticipate Expressionism and was influential in the development of Epic Theatre.
In the English-speaking world, before 2006 Wedekind was best known for the “Lulu” cycle, a two-play series—Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box, 1904)—centered on a young dancer/adventuress of mysterious origin. In 2006 his earlier play Frühlings Erwachen (Spring Awakening, 1891) became well-known because of a Broadway musical adaptation.
Director Profile
Jack Tamburri’s work includes the recent world premiere of Drawing Lessons at Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis, the short films Sophocles in Staten Island and Clifford Odets in Staten Island produced by Ma-Yi Studio, queer clown solo I Was Confused From the Beginning with performer Jenson Titus, feminist comedy trio A Hard Time for Pig Iron Theater Co, community-based glam musical Twelfth Night for Shakespeare in Clark Park, and the rock music adaptation PEER GYNT & the Norwegian Hapa Band for Ma-Yi Theater Co. Jack co-created and produced fringe comedies Not For Profit and GAYZE with writer MJ Kaufman, directed the experimental play Parrot Talk for writer/producer Julius Ferraro, and is co-creator (with Terry Brennan) of School Play, a physical theatre solo for young audiences which was showcased at the 2018 IPAY conference. He has developed new plays with playwrights R. Eric Thomas, David Jacobi, MK Tuamanen, and more. Jack served as the Director of the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Purchase from 2019 to 2024. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Yale School of Drama, and is a 2018 alumnus of ArtEquity’s national facilitator training for anti-racist activists in the performing arts.
About the Conservatory of Theatre Arts
In our teaching and art, the Conservatory values inclusiveness, equality, and excellence. Upholding all of our training is our aim to train and graduate citizen artists: multifaceted people with a strong sense of purpose in approaching an arts education.
What is a citizen artist? Citizen artists seek to discover how their unique voices can contribute to our world. They understand what it means to be an artist, and what they are here on earth to say and do and make.
The Conservatory trains future citizen artists in three degree programs:
+ BFA Actor Training. The BFA is an intensive professional training program offered to a highly select and diverse group of students. The professional training is anchored in four years of study in acting, voice, speech, and movement, complemented by offerings in dramatic literature and analysis, history of the theatre, stage combat, improvisation, mask work, acting for the camera, and the business of acting. As one of five schools in the Consortium of Professional Theatre Training Programs, Purchase is one of a handful of colleges in the world capable of training artists at this level—and of drawing a faculty from the ranks of professional theatre
+ BFA in Theatre Design/Technology. Emphasizing studio and classroom training, our professional training program in theatre design/technology gives students the guidance and support of established and theatre industry professionals. Many of our alumni are recognized at the top of their field, and have received Tony, Emmy, Obie, and Drama Desk Awards, among other honors. Quite literally, Purchase grads are working in or have worked in every theatre on Broadway, in all tristate venues, and with countless touring productions
+ BA program in Theatre and Performance. From traditional theatre to cutting-edge interdisciplinary work, the theatre and performance major encourages creativity, intellectual curiosity, social engagement, and critical thinking. The core requirements combine scholarship and practice to provide students with a strong foundation in theatre history and dramatic literature, with mandatory stagecraft/production courses. Theatre and Performance majors are encouraged to expand the scope of their education by studying abroad, as well as pursuing coursework in other programs of study within the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Purchase College.