Cast Announced for East West Players Production of Spring Awakening

East West Players (EWP), the country’s longest-running Asian American theater and the largest producer of Asian American theatrical works, will present the Tony-winning musical Spring Awakening from October 26 through November 19 at the David Henry Hwang Theater in Los Angeles, with an official opening night of October 29. Tim Dang, former artistic director of EWP, returns to direct the production.

Based on the play by Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening depicts adolescence in 1891 Germany by using contemporary music by Duncan Sheik (book and lyrics are by Steven Sater) for the teenage characters to express themselves.

Tamlyn Tomita (Waverly Jong in The Joy Luck Club, Kumiko in The Karate Kid Part II and Cobra Kai) plays the Adult Women roles. Tomita’s husband, Daniel Blinkoff, plays the Adult Men roles. The rest of the cast is Mia Sempertegui (Sister Act) as Wendla Bergman, Thomas K. Winter (The Secret Garden) as Melchior Gabor, Marcus Phillips (The Prom national tour) as Moritz Stiefel, Madison Grepo as Ilse Neumann, Jaylen Baham as Georg Zirschnitz, James Everts as Otto Lämmermeier, Genki Hall as Ernst Röbel, Sarah Marie Hernandez as Martha Bessell, Justine Rafael as Thea, Eric Renna as Hänschen Rilow, and Leianna Weaver as Anna, with CJ Cruz, Evan Pascual, and Kay Sibal as the production’s understudies.

The rest of the creative team includes choreographer Preston Mui, fight director Cesar Cipriano, intimacy director Carly DW Bones, music director Marc Macalintal, scenic designer Christopher Scott Murillo, properties designer Glenn Michael Baker, costume designer JoJo Siu, hair & makeup designer Gillian Woodson, lighting designer Derek Jones, and sound designer Cricket Myers.

A Pay-What-You-Can performance is scheduled for Monday, November 6 and an ASL interpreted performance is scheduled for Saturday, November 18.