Original Cast of SPRING AWAKENING Reunites for NYC Premiere of HBO's THOSE YOU'VE KNOWN Doc

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

Fifteen years after the groundbreaking musical Spring Awakening took Broadway by Storm

the cast and creatives reunited for a one-night-only concert to benefit the actors' fund

Now on May 3rd, the new documentary called Spring Awakening, Those You've Known

will debut on HBO and HBO Max. It chronicles the evening and the creation of the musical

and I caught up with the cast and creatives at the New York Premier. That's anschall

Well, first of all, the New York premier, how do you three feel? I call you the Three Musketeers, because I knew you from the very early days

How does it feel tonight? I love the Three Musketeers. This feels incredible

I mean, John and I were just saying, like, this feels like we're in a dream. Like, I can't believe we're on a carpet with the word spring awakening behind us

Like, this is so wild. But really, we owe this all to Jonathan and Lauren Pritchard, who put this all together

who worked so hard, who not only performed and did the show

but they made this all happen, and radical media for being so incredible and making this beautiful documentary

This is so surreal. I mean, it is completely surreal. I mean, it was a miracle that we got the entire original cast

to come on November 15th to perform the show, and now everybody is here again, like a several months later

I'm still, I'm in shock. I'm in a state of shock. Yeah, it's entirely surreal

I remember like a few months before the reunion show, we all got on a Zoom together

and Lauren and Jonathan were like, yeah, we want to try and do this show. And I remember thinking like, oh, good luck, you know what I mean

I don't know. We're going to be able to come together. Will we be even able, will we be allowed to get on stage at a theater

And so every single step of the process has been very dreamlike and so surprising and so fast

You know, it was, you know, less than a year ago that the ball really got

got rolling. So the fact that we're here premiering a documentary that, you know, the world's going to be able to have an opportunity to see is really stunning

You're making me cry. This is one of the finest documentaries ever made on the theater. I've seen them all. And like I said, I'm seriously, the cameras were so unobtrusive to all of you

The first time you saw it. You two saw it together. You three saw it together. What was that evening like

Oh, my God. It was honestly, I'm not even just, it was really one of the best nights of my eyes

entire life, getting to sit with these two men that are more than brothers, more than friends

they're my family, and I have so much fun with them. And we watched this documentary that means so much to us, shared a lovely meal together afterwards

And it's like, I can't think of a more perfect, perfect evening, truly

I mean, I just cried the whole time. It was like, it was just, it was so emotional to watch together

Here he goes. No, I'm not. I'm going to pull it together. Did you put a little pocket square

No, I should have. I should have. Yeah, I feel like it was all happening so fast when we were interviewed for the documentary

The cameras were there. Gallagher said they were so like shadows. It's like we didn't notice them

And to see what this team put together that, I mean, we shared our stories

but the way that they edited the whole thing together and they're like genius of how they put the songs

with the stories of our lives, with the stories of the show. I mean, theater is life-changing, and you really see in this documentary how the show not only

changed all of our lives, but has this ability to heal and to, there's something so deeply

profound about this show that saves lives. And that really comes across in this documentary, which I'm so happy about, because the show

is so ephemeral and so expressionist. It's hard to really pin down what it is

And now I feel like there's finally. a record of what it is. You just say watch the documentary

That's my good. Couldn't say it any better. Yeah. Do you remember that first day you were all together when you were all cast that

first day going through that first read 15 years ago what that meant to each of you

I just remember thinking to myself, I hope they want to hang out with me after this at the end

of the day. Like they so cool and so talented and like I hope that they going to become my best friends I just remember thinking I don know what anyone going to make of this I thought it was so special I thought the music was amazing I never heard anything like it I never seen anything like it on a stage

And I just thought, I don't know. I mean, this is a little bit of a shot in the dark as to whether it's going to resonate

with people. And that was when we were about to just go do it for 200 people at the Atlantic, let alone where it went after that

It's hard to even reckon with how far it went, you know

I remember sitting with Lauren Pritchard, actually. We were somewhere in the West Village having dinner

after we read through the script on like a Friday, and we were like, this is going to be huge

We just felt like it was really special. I'm very excited. I can't believe it's been this long since it came out

Yeah, that's kind of it. I consider myself pretty articulate, and I'm at the moment, I'm kind of like

oh, I guess they're already making a documentary about how this happened. a while ago. I remember when it came out. It was kind of a huge game changer for

dudes like me that I was in bands and I played rock music and I like musical

theater but I don't think my voice or my abilities had any sort of place in

popular musical theater. And then the show came out and that kind of changed the

conversation. So I also didn't know that I would end up being friends or doing work

with any of the people from that show that was so famous that I waited hours in line with a student rush ticket to see when I was, you know, Leah's age

And now you're one of her best friends. Yeah, now we're all we're all homies. It's a big family. I mean, John and, I mean, God, Gideon, and both John's

But there's, you know, it's a lot of people that have been in my life that I'm very grateful for and have always been in awe of. So. Before you're running, how excited you be back on Broadway

again? You just said it. I mean, it's, it bears no mentioning it. Being back on Broadway is

I'm living the dream. A literal dream. I couldn't be happier. It is the New York pre-bier. How do you feel tonight, Steve? Richie, I can't even express it. My little girl

is here who was like, everyone's like you were a little girl now. She's a grown-up human being

It's, we all went through such a spring awakening creating this show, and that's what the documentary documents, is the incredible growth in all our lives through doing the show and to where we are now

It's really remarkable to have this one, Jonathan and Leah and Lily and Lauren, everyone's so close, and we're all still so close

It's amazing. It's a really remarkable night. What was that reunion night like for you, that whole entire evening

It was like being transported backwards and forwards in time at the same time

to think what a mark we made on each other's lives, and then what a mark we made on the world

and that we're all still determined to keep going. You know, we were, as you know, we raised so much money for the Actors Fund

to help so many out-of-work actors, and that our show began with the shootings of Columbine

and then here we are in the middle of a pandemic. You know, reviving it for one night was amazing

It was a completely out-of-body night. Everybody took their bow that night, including yourself

How did you feel? Like, what were you thinking that night? Wow

That we had done it. That against all odds, against all the COVID protocols

that against all the everyone's schedules, that we had pulled it off

And that, in a way, how remarkable that we put this show into the world

and that this show is still done. And now the show that they said couldn't, you know, go anywhere

That was that every nascent. there was like this will never get a theater. And here we are, all these years later

with people around the world performing our show. And this is one of the finest documentaries made that I've ever seen on the theater

You've seen the documentary, right? Yes, of course, I've seen it. We couldn't get over it. We were at a private screening

I guess, two weeks ago, something like that. We were all screaming each other's names

John and Leah Duncan and John and Lauren couldn't make it. She was out of town

I think it's astonishing. I think it's really beautiful. Again, what we went through, the cauldron of creating it

and then what we've lived through since and what it means to us to bring it back again

Well, here we are. It is the New York premiere of this, one of the finest documentaries

I've been watching theater documentaries for a long time. This just wiped. Oh, I've seen it yet

Wow. So, have you gotten? We haven't seen it. No, no, we haven't seen it

It's our first time. Oh, do you have tissues? No. No. I haven't cried in years though. Yeah

You going to cry tonight I excited Aw I better What this night mean to you I mean seriously who would have ever thought that this could have been pulled off during COVID to get the entire cast and creative team together

What was the night like for you? For me, the reunion concert, I mean, I honestly, I thought that I would be, I thought that I'd be more relaxed

But in the moment when we were actually singing those songs together, I was pretty emotional

Yeah, it got to me. So I'm curious to see what translated to the actual documentary

Things resonated differently, I think, that night than they did when we were doing it

because we were so just in it during that crazy whirlwind of a time

And now we've had a lot of space and years apart from it, and then coming back now in my 30s

and hearing certain lyrics, it was just profound in a different way. Yes, I agree

I think it's also crazy. Music is so nostalgic. It always brings you back to a place even as a listener, but not only were we listeners

but we were like reenactors, and I felt that whole process was pretty trippy

Yeah. I remember being in that first press day down at the Atlantic

Get in here, you come on in here. We're talking about being in the first press interviews that you all did at the Atlantic

and then on Broadway and everything else, which we're going to take you back to like when you first started doing this what it meant to you early on

Wait, what did you, what are you asking? At the Atlantic, when you first were in that rehearsal room, like, what was that like

you then? Honestly, it's very funny because we were so young that it kind of just felt like we were doing

the thing that we do. Like, it didn't have, like, it didn't have a

yeah, weight or a precedent to it. So we just kind of felt like we were just young kids

folding around. We grew up doing, yeah, we grew up doing theater

and honestly, a lot of people were telling us, a lot of, like, theater legends

were coming up to us after the show being like, you will not understand the gravity of what you're doing

for maybe 15, 20, 10 years or whatever, and now here we are. I think we do understand its impact

I remember seeing the show at the Atlantic, and I did not know, like, a few months later that I would be in it

So that was pretty trippy. Yeah, same, same. I saw it, kind of not knowing what I was getting into, and I left just, like, floating on air, being like, I got to be involved in this somehow

I'll sweep the stage if they let me, and here we are. But you did more than that

She was going to go to work. Thank you. We've got to add Lily into this, too

I'm also here. What is it like just being together with everybody

It's okay. No, it's really fun. I was actually dancing behind the camera before I stepped on

We're all friends. Like, in real life, it's crazy. You've all done shows that you moved on to the next one

but there's something very special about Spring Awakening because you guys have stayed connected through the entire journey

haven't you? We stay connected to all the entire journeys. I don't think we ever didn't, we were always in touch

Yeah. The group chat is strong. You know? And gross. Yeah, and it's just such a significant time for all of us

It was our first big thing, and it'll always be one. Aw

Yeah, I think it's that. No, it's that kind of thing where it's like family

Like you see someone at a party for some other random thing, and you're like, oh, it's like you just understand something about each other

after doing the show together, I feel like. Yeah, absolutely. It's like an unspoken connection

Right. Yeah, we kind of grew up together in a way. And so that's like another element of being family

We hate and love each other. Oh, I have no hate for you

Well, I also do want to point something out. Everyone always talks about how emotional the reunion was

but honestly, you and I were laughing the entire week. I don't think I've ever laughed that much before

It was wild. I heard from, like, laugh. It was wild. Yeah

And we were, like, we were friends back then, but I think coming back, it, like

we're closer. We exploded. We did. Skyler and I got to work together a few years

years ago and I remember our first person being like it's nice to meet you as an

adult yeah and like we all got to do that again we got to meet each other again we got to

reintroduce ourselves to each other yeah yeah and your babies and babies you got a show to do tonight

like in 30 minutes yeah I kind of got to go like my half hours in like 20 minutes so I

enjoy you'll see what you're opening this is an exciting night yeah it's really a really

wonderful night I mean this is this is a story 15 plus years in the making

a landmark musical that touched so many people in so many ways

It an underdog story of how you if you persevere and you keep at it and you don give up and you just keep trying there a chance that you find a way

And this musical, and I think the story of this musical, should hearten many, many artists around the world who get to see this and who may feel like

should I keep trying? Should I keep going? And when you hear this story that happened to the Spring Awakening musical

it ends in a really tremendous place, but they had their ups and downs. And this crew of people and this team of people who made this musical persevered

And they did a magnificently brilliant job at making something that, you know, has had a lot of impact

We, as radical media, we love filming and being part of Broadway

We've had the opportunity to produce and film various Broadway shows over the years

We produced Rent many years ago. We produced Oh Hello on Broadway

Hamilton, the film and Hamilton, the documentary for PBS. for PBS, come from away, and most importantly, American Utopia with HBO, and you just don't get better partners than HBO

You know, they know the importance of this. They know the importance of supporting this kind of art and these kinds of films

And in this case, this is a documentary about Spring Awakening with a lot of the performance in it, a little bit different than some of the other ones we've done, which is the pure performance

But I think the story here is so profound. And I think what you learn as a viewer and connects you in such a way to the material

And we certainly hope that people will then go out and want to hear it and see it and, you know, and find their own way to it

So we're really just pleased and so excited to be part of it. And, you know, when you work on something like this as a documentary filmmakers, you really want to collaborate

You want to collaborate with the cast. You want to collaborate with the people who you're documenting

And there's not a better cast. You've seen the documentary. And you know how giving and how open they are

And that's a matter of trust. and we really appreciate that they trusted us with their story

And we wanted to honor this incredible work that they've done by bringing it to life

For me, the greatest meaning of this entire film is the story within the play

And I keep saying it, but it really means a lot to me. I think the whole, if you distill what Spring Awakening is about, you're not alone

There's a lot of people who are marginalized, people who have gone through traumas, a whole variety of them

and capturing this on film and getting into send it out to the world means a lot to me

because there's a lot of kids out there who don't know who might be in the closet and hear Jonathan's story

who might have experienced some of the terrible things frankly that happened to a lot of the characters

and some of the cast members in the story and I hope this film finds those people and touches them

and helps them understand that you can get through this you're not alone maybe you need to move to New York City

I don't know but that's that's what I love so much about this movie and once I dug into this

this actual script and of course the songs are beautiful but when you really dig in

and then when we started getting the interviews of the actors I was like this weave in between what the actors went through and what the show's about is going to be

powerful and I'll use your word you said it's flawless thank you for that

I think it's pretty good and I hope that everyone else likes it too

Oh, you're going to go out. Oh, you're going to go out, yeah

I'm trying to track one now. All my friends are busy. Thank you, guys

Oh, thank you. You're so. You're not crazy. You're the awesome one

This is the best first firm we've ever had to be a good

I've never feeling like rock stars in 2011, like the ultimate rock star that's a day

Oh my god. Have you seen the other? Wait, I'm seeing that. Yeah

The moment's not. I don't want to see it. That's the... Oh. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Yes! Oh! You

Here he is. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Here he is! So, thank you

Oh, geez, I look! Are so..