Advances mark busy year for arts community

Excerpt from Evanville Courier and Press
By Roger McBain (Contact)
Sunday, December 30, 2007

'Spring Awakening'

Evansville native Steven Sater scored a big Broadway hit this year with "Spring Awakening," a contemporary rock musical adaptation of a late 19th century drama set in Germany. Sater translated the original German text and wrote the lines and lyrics for the musical, which won eight Tony awards, including Best Musical, Best Book and Best Score.

The Broadway stagehands' strike shut the show down for a few weeks, but it's open again, and plans are coming together for overseas and national touring productions.

All the attention piqued the interest of Christopher Tyner, education director for Evansville Civic Theatre. After reading another translation of Frank Wedekind's script, which deals frankly with teenagers grappling with their awakening sexuality in a society that refuses to discuss such vulgarities, Tyner directed a production of the drama using high school and college students as part of Civic's Next Wave educational program.