Springtime for Sheik on Broadway

Duncan Sheik is not a name typically tossed around in casual conversation. In fact, the average Columbia student would probably say, "Wait, Duncan who?" But hum a few bars of the chorus and say the magic words, "Barely Breathing," and you're in.

"Oh yeah, that guy!"

Lately, this master of alliteration, who put "Breathing" on the Billboard charts for 55 straight weeks back in 1996 and '97, is turning heads in an entirely different sector of the arts, as he is responsible for the score for Broadway's Spring Awakening. Currently playing at the Eugene O'Neill Theater, it is the only musical with half a dozen strapping school boys in britches singing about "the bitch of living" into handheld microphones.

"Spring Awakening is for all the people that love going to theater, but don't always love musicals," asserted the musical theater neophyte. "My initial goal was simply to do something cool and different in the theater ... really, to see if it was possible to create a new way to use songs in the context of a narrative."

"In general, you know, I felt the form was not relevant to people of my generation and certainly people younger than myself," Sheik said, as he sipped a glass of Pinot Grigio at the bar in 7 Square. With his seat facing the window, he watched theatergoers escape the cold and rush into the box office adjacent to the restaurant. Shiny red billboards hailing his work as "revolutionary" were within view.

In composing Awakening, Sheik was looking for a hybrid between a traditional musical, where spontaneous song and dance numbers punctuate a narrative, and a traditional concert, where four or five musicians sit on a stage and play a set. He suggested that both forms fall short of engaging the audience to its fullest extent.

"You know, I'm the one who's most guilty of just standing there with a guitar and singing a song and doing nothing," he offered. "And it doesn't get much more boring than that."

Sheik, a big fan of '70s progressive rock bands-citing Yes, Genesis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and King Crimson among his favorites-wanted to revive the theatrical experience that those bands created with their songs and performances. "If there was a way to combine alternative rock music with this really intense theatrical experience..." He paused, as his face came alive with energy, and then continued: "Now that, I thought, that could be amazing."

Sheik credits lyricist Steven Sater with bringing clarity and definition to his vision. It was Sater who proposed that Duncan read Frank Wedekind's 1891 drama The Awakening of Spring. He believed that Wedekind's story concerning adolescent sexuality and the gaps in communication between the worlds of children and adults would offer an interesting springboard from which to create a musical. Seven years later, Spring Awakening emerged.

The unique collaboration between Sheik and Sater began years ago during Sheik's recording of his third album, Phantom Moon. Prior to that point in his career, Sheik had never worked with a lyricist before, but ever since then, he has turned to Sater for words and advice.

"We never get into a room and kind of write stuff together with anybody or each other," Sheik stressed. As far as Spring Awakening was concerned, Sater would write lyrics and e-mail them to Sheik. Sheik would then compose the music, record a demo on an MP3 and send it back to him. "For both of us, it's a pretty solitary pursuit," Sheik said.

But the end result is something that many are calling ingenious-a breath of life for the genre.

"I think there have been shows- Hair is probably the best example-that periodically will bring the musical theater world and rock-pop music world back together again ... and, every once in a while, you'll have a show like Hair, like Rent, like Tommy, and now I suppose Spring Awakening, that bridges that gap," Sheik said.

Throughout the creative process, Sheik has learned to appreciate musical theater without losing his footing. When "Barely Breathing" jumped to the Top 40 charts, Sheik sought to leave the limelight just as quickly as he had entered. Fame in the pop music sector was never something he found becoming. Stylistically, he had identified with English alternative rock bands like The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Talk Talk and New Order since he was 15, and he felt he couldn't relate to Top 40 artists. "Consciously and unconsciously I did everything I could to run away from that world," he said.

Now, as his talent is displayed via energetic teens and 20-somethings on the Great White Way, Sheik feels much more at ease. Whereas the overwhelming response to his single was unexpected, the cast and creative team impatiently awaited the critics' reactions to Spring Awakening.

The opening night party was held at the Tavern on the Green, and "all the agents were there with their blackberries waiting for the reviews to come in," he explained. When they received the review from the New York Times, "the energy in the room just totally changed, and then everyone really started to party."

"We're bringing britches back, single-handedly," he said jokingly as he slid off the bar stool, picking up the wrinkled coat on which he'd been sitting. "Everyone loves those suits the guys wear [in the show]," he confessed with a boyish smile. "I want one of them myself."