click to enlarge - Luke Awtry
- Evan Reichelt and Anneka Shepherd in rehearsal for Spring Awakening
Maybe life should imitate art.
When Hanschen leans forward to kiss Ernst in Full Circle Theater Collaborative's production of teen rock musical Spring Awakening, the anxiety, fumbling and embarrassment that might mar a real-life first kiss don't exist. Hanschen knows exactly how to proceed.
"We seek eye contact," said Daniel Gibson, the 18-year-old Burlington actor portraying Hanschen. "And then, on a three count, I bring my upstage hand to the back of Ernst's head and drag it down to the nape of his neck." Ernst closes the distance between them by half. "And then, with my other hand," Gibson continued, "I basically cup his face." They bring their noses together — "the upstage side of my nose is going to the downstage side of his nose ... And then we kiss."
And hold eye contact for a count of four.
Intimacy choreographer Laura Roald has spelled out every beat for the actors of this Chittenden County-based theater education and performance company. Directors have long employed fight coordinators to choreograph combat, but the need for similar facilitators to help with sex scenes wasn't widely recognized until after the #MeToo movement gained momentum in 2017. Roald's work, informed by a series of classes over the past three years, is designed to portray accurately the most sensitive moments of the show while respecting the actors' boundaries and comfort levels.
Spring Awakening, based on the once-banned 1891 play by Frank Wedekind, is set in late 19th-century Germany. It follows 11 teens whose attempts to navigate their growing sexual awareness in a censored, repressive society lead to both tragic and uplifting outcomes.
The characters navigate homosexuality, a first sexual encounter, abortion, suicide and masturbation. The Broadway show — with book and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik — won eight Tony Awards in 2007, including Best Musical.
Full Circle company cofounders Amy Halpin Riley and Gina Fearn, who are also the show's codirectors, like to present shows that spark artistic conversations around challenging themes, Riley said. They chose Spring Awakening because "it's crazy relevant," Fearn said.
"With gender-affirming care being stripped away and women's rights being backtracked, it feels as though this play could have been written within the last year," Riley said.
Wedekind wrote the play to protest keeping children ignorant about sex, Fearn continued. "And where are we right now? We're banning books, and we're banning sex education in schools."
She and Riley detailed the show's mature themes in the audition form. The cast includes two professional adult actors and 11 teens, ages 15 through 19. Many of the teens already knew the musical, Fearn said: "Most of them came to the show because they love the show."
Roald worked with the directors and actors to determine a shared vision for the production's most sensitive scenes. She explained the actors' rights to them and stressed the importance of advocating for those rights. Then she wrote choreography so detailed that it includes characters taking breaths.
"If you can track every single precise movement, you can replicate it" — without requiring personal emotion or inspiration, Roald said.
Such detailed choreography acts as a contract between actors; each knows exactly what to expect, Roald said. She uses specific, desexualized terms and asks actors to do a "boundary check" before each rehearsal and show, acknowledging that their boundaries may change from minute to minute. The show uses "fences and gates" terminology — a fence means no touching; a gate means ask first. Actors name parts of their body and say whether it's OK to touch or whether it's a gate or a fence.
If they choose not to rehearse a specific move, such as a kiss, they can insert a "placeholder," such as touching hands. If they need to step away, they can pause and walk out at any point, alone or with a friend.
After rehearsing a challenging scene, Roald asks the actors to "de-role." The actors playing Wendla and Melchior, who have a sex scene, do a silly handshake at the end to check in with each other and signify they're no longer portraying their characters.
Roald, a playwright, actor, dramaturge and director who teaches at Vermont State University, had very different theater training in the 1990s. Actors in sensitive scenes, she said, were taught to power through: "Just do it."
Eating lunch during a break in rehearsal last week, Full Circle's young cast members said they felt completely supported by Roald and their directors and stage manager. "They want the show to be able to make a difference ... without it being at the expense of us as people," said Essex Junction actor Calvin Ku, 18, who plays Otto.
Riley hopes the young actors apply the skills they've learned from this production in their own lives and know "that every space that they go into, these are words and options that they have."
Fearn added, "These kids are going to have tools that their peers don't have because they've been taught to express boundaries and given language around it."