At the risk of letting my really interesting, extra fascinating, edgy, hip blog slip into the realm of super lame parent-bloggery I'm going to say a thing that I hesitate to say, but...producing a show is like raising a kid. In nearly all ways from conception (ha...wordplay) to casting (birth/naming) to rehearsals (potty training?) to opening (starting school, surrendering care to others) and running (watching the thing with no real control to keep it safe and sound..) UGH...There are a lot of parallels.
Like child rearing...when a production or show first starts it might have been because you had a few too many drinks one night, or got carried away with a new exciting idea, or you might have thought and planned and tried and wished... for years...but in any respect, there's a show on the way and you're "excited - well excited and scared" (...thank you Mr. Sondheim...)
And then, as you start to work on the show, raise the kid, you become surrounded by, and engaged with, a bunch of people, the village, who are influencing the kid...aunts, uncles, cousins...designers, assistants, staff...
Choreographers...
and that is who I want to talk about today.
Our choreographer for Spring Awakening received her earliest dance training at the Princeton Ballet School, she did her undergraduate studies at Arcadia University, but of course, you know all that, because you've read all the content on this website and you've seen her bio...for those who haven't...here she is: Lauren Suchenski.
Lauren is a super important resident of our village of weirdos who are raising this baby of a show. Lauren was chosen as our choreographer not just because she's an excellent theatre maker with a lovely dance aesthetic. She was cast as the Adult Women because she's a versatile, reliable, subtle performer. She's also our Spring Awakening historian. She saw the original Broadway production over twenty times. Lauren waited at the stage door and became an absolute fixture there. She always wore the same jeans to the show and, eventually, got autographs, messages, and graffiti from the entire original cast and creative team on those jeans. John Gallagher Jr., (Broadway's original Moritz) even hugged her, with his Tony in hand, after winning the award. She was mentioned in an article in Rolling Stone Magazine in an article about the show...she's the mother of all Spring Awakening fanatics.
We're incredibly proud and lucky to have Lauren working with us on this show. But she's got much more going on than merely performing and choreographing for us. Aside from being our Spring Awakening Mama/Historian she just closed a production of The Philadelphia Story with Newtown Arts Company in Newtown PA, in which she played Tracy Lord. Most importantly, Lauren is the proud, ACTUAL, mother of her awesome three year old son Jamie. But also, in case you're more of a reader than a watcher of theatre...Lauren recently published a volume of poems, Full of Ear and Eyes Am I which is currently available on amazon or barnes and noble dot coms
(or wherever fine books are sold...like...the button right there---------------------------------------------------->)
We're so glad she's aboard because as we're learning, it really does take a village to raise a child, or make a show. The village for this show has worked incredibly hard, and are really transcending what should be possible at our scale, scope, and the level on which we're operating. This village is up late, and up early. They're working hard and reaching far above and well beyond.
They are a real village of weirdos. And in our village of weirdos, few are weirder than Lauren!