Spring Awakening

Set Designer

Spring Awakening is a play about the struggles of adolescents. The three main characters are all 14, and beginning puberty. Because of the era in which the play takes place in 1890, the children and adults have very little knowledge of their bodies and by not being aware of the consequences of their actions. This ignorance leads to terrible actions and mistakes. Spring Awakening is about the repercussions of suppressing natural development. It shows the problems when humans attempt to control their natural thoughts and hide them from others around them. In doing this, the character’s sexual nature exposes itself more. I wanted to incorporate the theme of the play into the set by comparing sexual nature to that of a flower and plants. A greenhouse is a man-made structure, built to cultivate and control plants. I’m choosing to set Spring Awakening in an abandoned greenhouse to show that you cannot control nature, no matter what you do.