“Spring Awakening" at the Center for Living Arts -- October 9 through 18.
Friday, October 9, through Sunday, October 18
The Center for Living Arts, 220 19th Street, Rock Island IL
From October 9 through 18, Rock Island's youth-theatre venue The Center for Living Arts (CFLA) will present Spring Awakening one final time, closing a chapter with this Tony-winning musical drama that has become part of the organization’s history.
Set in Germany in 1891, Spring Awakening follows young people coming of age in a world where the adults around them refuse, or fail, to speak honestly about the questions that matter most. They wrestle with identity, sexuality, faith, family, grief and the need to be understood. More than a century later, those struggles remain painfully familiar.
“This is one of those pieces that never really becomes a period piece,” said CFLA Creative Director Dino Hayz. “The clothing changes. The language changes. The world changes. But that need to be heard, understood and loved does not.”
With music by Duncan Sheik and book and lyrics by Steven Sater, Spring Awakening transformed Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play into a contemporary rock musical. The Broadway production won eight Tony Awards including Best Musical, and gave voice to characters trapped inside a rigid, repressive world. Its score moves from anger and longing to intimacy, loss and hope through songs including “Mama Who Bore Me,” “The Bitch of Living,” “Touch Me,” “I Believe,” “The Guilty Ones,” “Left Behind,” and “The Song of Purple Summer.” And this production, said Hayz, carries added weight following the recent death of composer Duncan Sheik.
“His music gave these characters a voice the world around them would not allow them to have,” Hayz said. “The scenes are restrained and controlled, and then the music begins and everything they have been holding inside comes pouring out. That is the heartbeat of the show.”
For the Center for Living Arts, the losses connected to Spring Awakening are also deeply personal, as the company lost two troupe members who were part of its history with the show. Tim Cook performed the role of the Adult Male in two CFLA productions of Spring Awakening; he died in 2018. And Aaron Lord was part of CFLA’s original Spring Awakening cast in 2012 and later returned to play Moritz in four productions. Lord passed in 2025, and his and Cook's absences now lives inside this final production.
“When you work in theatre together, people become part of the story of the place,” Hayz said. “Tim and Aaron are part of our story. They stood on these stages, told this story with us, laughed with us, worked with us, and left something of themselves behind. There is no way for us to do Spring Awakening one last time without feeling their presence.”
That loss gives new meaning to a musical already steeped in grief, memory and lives cut short.
“There are words in this show that we have heard hundreds of times,” Hayz said. “Then life happens, you lose people you love, and suddenly those same words mean something entirely different.”
For CFLA, this final production is more than another revival.
“There are shows you produce, and then there are shows that become part of the history of a theatre,” Hayz said. “Spring Awakening has been one of those shows for us. We knew this would be the last time we would take this journey, so we wanted to give it everything we had.”
The production features performers ages 17 to 24 and combines intimate storytelling with lighting, projections, movement, and the show’s driving rock score.
While Spring Awakening contains mature subject matter, its difficult moments are not included simply for shock. The musical examines what happens when shame replaces education, silence replaces communication and young people are left to navigate enormous questions alone. Yet Spring Awakening does not end in despair.
“The show can be devastating, but that isn’t where it leaves us,” Hayz said. “After everything these young people experience, we arrive at ‘The Song of Purple Summer.’ There is still another season coming. There is still growth. There is still the possibility that the next generation can listen better, speak more honestly and love one another more completely.”
For the final performance on October 18, Center for Living Arts is inviting anyone who has ever performed in one of its productions of Spring Awakening to attend and join the current cast at the stage for the final singing of “The Song of Purple Summer.” It will be part reunion, part farewell. For one final moment, performers from across CFLA’s history with the show will stand together as the company closes a chapter shaped by years of work, friendships, loss and memory.
“At its best, theatre lets us sit together in a room and recognize something true about being human,” Hayz said. “This show does that again and again. It asks difficult questions without pretending there are easy answers.”
The final performance will also honor Tim Cook and Aaron Lord, carrying two members of the Spring Awakening family into the last telling of the story.
“There will be a moment when that final note is sung and we know we will never tell this story here again,” Hayz said. “That is going to be difficult. But there is something beautiful about knowing when it is time to say goodbye to a piece you love. You honor it. You honor the people who helped you tell it. You tell the story as truthfully as you can, one last time.”
And before the story is laid to rest, Hays said, CFLA will remember two of its own. “We will read their dreams to the stars.”
Spring Awakening runs at the Center for Living Arts October 9 through 18, with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 1:30 p.m. Admission is $18-19, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)340-7816 and visiting CenterForLivingArts.org.
