Skip to main content
Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Fifteen years after they rocked Broadway with a raw, honest, and pissed-off musical about the perils of adolescence, the original cast of Spring Awakening reunited for a one-night-only concert to benefit The Actors Fund. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this group of actors back together—including Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, John Gallagher Jr., Lauren Pritchard, Lilli Cooper, Skylar Astin, and Gideon Glick—brought these now-adults back to a place of both raw honesty and adolescent silliness. And luckily, that was all captured on film in Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known, which is airing on HBO tonight.
By now you’ve probably heard, whether you wanted to or not, at least one intimate story that Michele tells in the documentary: that the Glee star once showed her “whole vagina” to her co-star and friend Groff using a desk lamp, because he was curious, and they were just that close. As inconceivable as it is that Michele would tell such a tale to a documentary film crew, once you watch the film, you can almost understand why she did it.
For the cast, crew, and fans alike, Spring Awakening was something special. It was about being painfully, excruciatingly honest about all the messy parts of growing up, and for the young cast, almost all of whom were teenagers when they first joined the show, it wasn’t just a role they were playing—it was their life. For Groff and Michele, who played the two lead roles of the young, tragic lovers Melchior and Wendla, it cemented a life-long friendship. It’s clear, watching Groff tear up as he hears Michele sing “Mama Who Bore Me” during rehearsals for the benefit concert in 2021, how sincerely they love each other.
With footage from the reunion concert, interviews with the cast and crew, and archives from the original production, the documentary is a rich treasure trove for Spring Awakening fans (featuring much more than just Michele’s stories about her genitalia). Here are five big takeaways from the Spring Awakening reunion documentary.
Before the Tony nominations, 'Spring Awakening' nearly closed due to poor attendance.
Groff recalls director Michael Mayer telling him not to decorate his Broadway dressing room: “He was like, ‘Honey, I wouldn’t decorate it, I don’t think we’re going to be here for very long. Don’t get too excited.'”
Though it had been an underground hit off-Broadway, the Eugene O’Neill Theater was huge—and the show frequently would sell less than half the seats in the theaters and was losing money, fast. Groff recalls the stage manager telling the cast they would see “a lot of purple velvet,” before shows, which was the color of the seats.
But then Spring Awakening got 11 Tony nominations, and won 8—including Best Musical—and from then on, they were sold out.
Lea Michele is "still pissed" she wasn't nominated for a Tony for her performance.
In the documentary, Groff and Michele recall that the night before the Tony nominations were announced, the two leads raced across the street—during the show, still in their costumes—to the church across the street from the theater. Both Michele and Groff prayed, but Groff took it a step further, by donating $50 to the church’s donation box.
“I was like, ‘I didn’t bring any money!’ Michele says with a laugh. “You’re giving money to the church?”
Groff confirms: “She still is so pissed that I put more money in, and that’s what got me a Tony nomination.”
“Sure enough, he got nominated, and I didn’t,” Michele says, with a heavy sigh.
Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, and John Gallagher Jr. had an illegal sleepover in the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. (And also peed their pants?!)
Before Gallagher’s last performance as Moritz, Michele and Groff decided to bid him farewell by hiding out in the theater to have a sleep-over there, after-hours.
“There was going to be no light. We brought candles, we brought alcohol, and we brought food,” Michele recalled. “We had to hide under the desk for about two hours. We all peed our pants. We got so scared. And then we heard the front door just, [claps.] And the power went thwooop.”
The three actors recall running around the stage, having a picnic, and telling each other secrets—normal sleepover things, in a not-so-normal setting.
The entire 'Spring Awakening' cast camped out in Jonathan Groff's family farm.
While the original cast was on Broadway, Jonathan Groff’s mom picked up the young actors in a school bus and drove them from New York to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to the Groff family home. Home video footage shows the kids—as if at summer camp—sleeping out in tents in the backyard, running around in bathing suits, playing volleyball, and just goofing off.
In the present day, the entire cast reminisces on the trip fondly—though Michele jokes that “the farm was the worst time of my whole life. I am just not meant to sleep in a tent with no bathroom. I was like, ‘I have to just truly make Julie Groff believe that I am Jonathan’s girlfriend because if I do, she’ll give me an extra pillow and a blanket.”
Jonathan Groff credits Melchior for giving him the strength to come out.
Groff spoke candidly about the fact that he was a gay man in the closet when he was cast in Spring Awakening. “Coming from a religious background surrounded by the Amish, I felt ashamed of who I was. I also I guess was afraid that if people knew who I was, they wouldn’t find what I was doing believable,” he said.
Later, in the documentary’s most emotional and touching scene, Groff, through tears, articulated how playing the role of Melchior helped give him the strength to come out. “Playing Melchior was such a gift, because he was everything that I wanted to be but I wasn’t. He had this ability to not let the world define him, to speak his mind, and to be strong. I still struggle with this, obviously,” the actor said, wiping at his eyes. “A month after I left the show, I came out of the closet. And I started my life.”
