Parkland Shooting Survivors Believe 'Spring Awakening' Is a Timely Musical That Can Show Their Pain
The group of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who were already cast in the community theater production of Broadway's "Spring Awakening" musical is using the show to deal with the trauma of the tragic shooting that happened in their school.
The cast members from the Parkland, Florida high school talked about their struggles to go on with the show after 14 of their schoolmates and three adults were killed in the shooting incident that took place on Valentine's Day, in a documentary titled "Awakening: After Parkland" that will be released Monday on Topic.com.
In the clip that was provided in a report by People, lead actress and student Sawyer Garrity said that she and her schoolmates who were part of the cast return to rehearsals two weeks after the shooting incident, and they all contemplated on continuing with the show.
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"But I think we all unanimously felt like, yeah, we have to do the show, because we need this show now more than ever," she stated.
The musical, which centers on an event that took place in Germany in the 19th century, became more relevant to the Parkland students because it tackles the themes of teenage angst and confusion because the adults opted to ignore their fears and questions.
According to Garrity, the entire musical shows the plight of the teenagers who are rising up against adults who do not believe that they can make a change in the society just because they are young.
Garrity's co-star and fellow Parkland high school student Cameron Kasky also believe that the musical has a very significant theme. "Spring Awakening is a lot about young people paying for the negligence and dishonesty of their elders," Kasky stated in the 17-minute documentary.
Both Garrity and Kasky are part of the #NeverAgain movement of the March for Our Lives organization that aims to seek better gun violence prevention to avoid incidents like the one that took the lives of their schoolmates.
