Spring Awakening
When the indie singer-songwriter and musical-theater composer Duncan Sheik died suddenly in September, he was on the brink of a career-spanning autumn season: the world premiere of his newest show, Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen; the West End debut of Nero, which expands a 2006 piece he wrote with librettist Steven Sater into a full-fledged musical; and finally a major revival of his earliest and most successful theater work, 2006's Spring Awakening, which he and Sater adapted from Frank Wedekind’s still-shocking 1891 drama about teenage lust and its casualties. The last of these, directed by Danya Taymor and choreographed by Celia Rowlson-Hall, stars Tyler Jordan Wesley, Ashlyn Maddox and Ryo Kamibayashi in the principal roles, joined by George Abud and Lilli Cooper—the youngest member of the original ensemble 20 years ago!—as all of the adults. (At least two other parts were cast in a much-publicized open call this summer.)