Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known Is A Love Letter To Broadway’s Teenage Rock Stars

Before Hamilton turned Broadway actors like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anthony Ramos, Daveed Diggs, Leslie Odom Jr, and Ariana DeBose into household names, there was another musical full of rockstars: Spring Awakening.

Now fifteen years after the hit Tony-winning Broadway show’s run, the original cast and creative team have reunited for the HBO documentary Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known. The documentary follows the spectacular one-night only reunion concert to benefit The Actors Fund, as well as the whirlwind journey the cast experienced to Broadway, the Tony Awards, and reconnecting years later.

An emotional reunion, Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known brings everyone back together, including Lea Michele (Glee, Scream Queens), Jonathan Groff (Hamilton, Mindhunter, Frozen), John Gallagher Jr (Westworld, The Cow), Skylar Astin (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, Pitch Perfect), Gideon Glick (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Krysta Rodriguez (Daybreak), and more, who were thrust into superstardom as teens everywhere became obsessed with the show.

Directed by Michael John Warren, the film delivers a behind-the scenes look into the musical combined with talking head interviews and performance footage splicing together the anniversary concert with footage from the original 2006 run of the show. Actress Lauren Pritchard, who played Ilse, initially had the idea for the reunion: “I don’t know that I ever thought we would ever do this again. There was never fucking anything like this that’s ever happened on the Broadway stage.”

Adapted from the 1891 Frank Wedekind play, Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik brought a punk rock style to the 19th century German time period of Spring Awakening as teens pulled out microphones to sing about sex, suicide, and other controversial material. It’s even more poignant as you see the parallels that the cast faced in their own lives, including Pritchard opening up about abuse and Groff coming out after the show’s run.

Fans of the musical will love how sentimental the cast gets about their experience and the peek inside the lifelong friendships they’ve developed, including a surprisingly endearing story of female anatomy between besties Michele and Groff. The musical numbers are incredible, raw, and emotionally charged as we go back and forth between current and older performance footage. At its heart, Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known is a love letter to Broadway and the power it has to impact people, reminding them that they’re not alone.

Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known is now streaming on HBO Max.