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Facebook met Broadway in ‘Spring Awakening’ Part 1

By michael barnes | Thursday, October 15, 2009, 09:55 AM

For those who missed other editions of my 360 article on ‘Spring Awakening’.

Andy Mientus might be the American theater’s first Facebook hero.

In summer 2006, the drama student attended the off-Broadway production of “Spring Awakening” at the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York City. The musical, based on an 1891 German drama about teen sexuality, was buoyed by the kind of alternative rock music Mientus preferred, on and off-stage.

Looking for more information online, he discovered that the show hadn’t yet attracted a Facebook fan group. This, remember, was way back when the now-ubiquitous social-media site was restricted to college and high-school students, before adults amplified - or ruined - it, depending your perspective.

So, independently, Mientus, who grew up in Pittsburgh, created a group page. In December 2006, its readers multiplied by thousands when “Spring Awakening” moved to Broadway, earned delirious reviews and, eventually, a Tony Award for Best Musical. Discovering his online championing, one of the show’s producers asked Mientus if his fan page could become the musical’s official Facebook presence.

What had been to Mientus a personal crusade was now becoming a pop phenomenon.

“Maybe people were just ready for it,” Mientus thought.

On a parallel track, the producers were already pushing the show to young audiences through viral marketing, encouraging super-fans like Mientus to attend regularly, seated with the performers on stage during the action. Like “Rent,” “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and other such shows - not coincidentally Mientus’ favorites - “Spring Awakening” established its downtown street credentials before it cranked out the commercial marketing. The hit eventually spun off “The Guilty Ones,” a volunteer fan group that promotes the musical, cross-platform, everywhere it journeys.

“Every show uses the Internet now,” Mientus says. “But ours was one of the first to attack the opportunities on all fronts.”

More to come …

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