Sleeping Beauty Wakes

A delightful twist on a classic Grimm’s fairy tale is revealed in the new musical Sleeping Beauty Wakes, by Brendan Milburn, Rachel Sheinkin, and Valerie Vigoda. The musical features the indie pop/rock sensation GrooveLily onstage with both hearing and deaf actors in this loose adaptation of the tale of a beautiful young princess who, cursed by a spiteful fairy, pricks her finger on a spinning wheel needle on her 16th birthday and promptly falls asleep for 100 years.

But is the heroine of Sleeping Beauty Wakes a fictional character from another time and place or is her story the product of fitful dreams at a real, modern sleep disorder clinic? This beauty seems to have a problem getting to sleep, not sleeping too much. But when sleep finally comes, her dreams take her and the audience on a journey to discover what it means to be truly awake. Jeff Calhoun directs and choreographs this co-production from Center Theatre Group and Deaf West Theatre.