Spring Awakening

I went down to Bloomington last night to see Spring Awakening, which won the Tony for best musical in 2007.  I always watch the Tony awards show, so I remember seeing the performance for that, but I have to admit it came back onto my radar because two of the actors on Glee were in the original Broadway production.  The music was all written by Duncan Sheik, whose songs I liked back in the day.  And after happening across the soundtrack at the library one day, I fell in love with some of the songs.  Interestingly, the show did not come to Indianapolis during its tour, but it was down in Bloomington at the IU Auditorium for several nights.  I managed to shift my day off this week, so it worked out to go down and spend the night afterward.

The show is interesting, because it really contains almost every taboo topic you could think of, all wrapped up into one show.  This is the short blurb from Wikipedia...

Spring Awakening is a rock musical adaptation of the controversial 1891 German play of the same title by Frank Wedekind. It features music by Duncan Sheik and a book and lyrics by Steven Sater. Set in late-19th century Germany, it concerns teenagers who are discovering the inner and outer tumult of sexuality. The original play was banned in Germany for a while due to its portrayal of abortion, homosexuality, rape, child abuse and suicide. In the musical, alternative rock is employed as part of the folk-infused rock score. Spring Awakening received eleven 2007 Tony Award nominations, winning eight, including Tonys for best musical, direction, book, score and featured actor. The show also won four Drama Desk Awards, while its London production won four Olivier Awards.

There was also masturbation and sex, including some partial nudity.  Being on a college campus, there were a lot of students there.  (One girl in the row in front of me was texting throughout the entire show, which annoyed me greatly and served to remind me that I am now old enough that this person truly was from another generation.  Personally, I think that generation should still be able to figure out how to sit through a performance without using their cell phone, but that's just me.)  It also bothered me that there seemed to be a lot of inappropriate laughter during the show.  I admit that there were a lot of exaggerated scenes that were meant to be comedic, but they often fell during scenes dealing with very serious topics, so I didn't feel they were necessarily meant to be funny.  Rather, they were meant to balance the scene and keep it from being so dark.

Overall, I'd say it's not my favorite show, but it was good, and I do like a lot of the music.  And this was the first of my new shows (#95)!

On a lighter note, it's been a week since I last logged on to Facebook (with the exception of the two e-mail messages I received/sent) (#13).  I feel like I'm over the stage where I was feeling like I'd lost some sort of lifeline and was craving it.  Now I can see a little more objectively how much it is a habit to log-in.  A couple of times I accidentally clicked on the link to open it and had to close out before the window opened.  And last night while I was in my motel room in Bloomington, I had to consciously remind myself not to log-in from my phone when there wasn't anything to watch on TV.  I still find myself thinking of things I would post, but where last week I would be frustrated with not being able to post, now I just let it go.  I kind of wonder what I've missed... what's going on with the people I usually pay attention to on there, but I'm not dying to find out.  Of course, now I'm on the downside, and I know I'll be back on it next week!

Oh, and I spent an hour this afternoon working on a new PSAP chapter (#68).  The topic is heart failure, which I'm much more familiar with than the other topics I've worked on recently, so it's going much faster and easier.  I am debating over whether to skip the chapters on pediatrics, since that's a population that I never deal with.  Somthing to think about.  I wrote a letter to my grandparents this week (#43).  I have gotten so out of the habit of letter writing, that I forgot how much I enjoy it.  It really forces you to slow down and really think about what you want to say.  I've also been in much more regular contact with my father (#61) via both e-mails and phone calls.  Much more, even than the two weeks that I specified.  Like I mentioned before, it's not that I don't like talking to him... it's just that it's so easy for too much time to go by between talks.  And he will let quite a bit of time go by sometimes before contacting me if I haven't called or written him.  I think it probably bothers him that I seem so much closer to my mom than to him, but it has to be said that it's partially due to the fact that my mom calls if she hasn't heard from me in more than about three days.  So I think it is fair to say, that some of the blame for our distance lands squarely on his shoulders.