Sun. May 24

“Spring Awakening,” the hip and hot musical that won scads of Tonys on Broadway, is in Boston, at the Colonial Theatre through Sunday May 24. Recently, we spoke with Duncan Sheik, who wrote the music along with friend Steven Sater, who wrote the lyrics and the book. It’s based on Frank Wedekind’s play of the same name, and still set in 1891. It’s produced by actor Tom Hulce (“Amadeus,” “Jumper,” “Parenthood”). Theme: Sexual frustration, teen angst and adult repression. Timeless.
   Now, if you recall Duncan Sheik, the singer-songwriter from about a decade back, you’ll remember a brooding alt-folk/rocker, who scored with the song and album “Barely Breathing.” He kept making albums, but his audience didn’t grow and he was feeling marginalized and frustrated in a world geared toward dance-pop and Top 40. And, so, he more or less re-invented himself. He met Sater in 1999 through Buddhist circles in New York, and they combined to create “Spring Awakening.” We talked with Sheik foron line at www.thephoenix.com. Please check it out. We also had terrific out-takes from the interview, interesting stuff that we’re publishing here for the first time.
    With his “Spring Awakening” success, Sheik has two more musicals in the works, “The Nightingale,” based on a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, and “Whisper House,” which came out on CD in January. The play, written by Kyle Jarrow, is being work-shopped and should open next January.

 For “Spring Awakening,” you surrendered writing lyrics to “Spring Awakening? Was that difficult to relinquish?
No, writing lyrics had always been the more painstaking part of the process for me, in some ways less joyful. And I’m prolific as a composer of music and less so as a writer. I think having worked with Steven, interestingly, I feel I’m a better lyricist. I absorbed a lot from working with him and enjoy writing lyrics now more than ever. Working with him is something I’ll continue to do for a long, long time.
“Nightingale” is something that’s been developing a very long time. We started working on that in 2002 and we’ve four or five workshops already. It’s pretty much ready to go, I’ve must been e-mailing back and forth with the director James Lapine and we’re just trying to organize one last workshop before we do a real production next year. A couple of great theaters on the West Coast who are very excited to put the piece up, at the end of 2010. I'm really crossing my fingers that that can see the light of day.
You must be our generation’s Stephen Sondheim.
That’s very flattering. Sondheim is amazing and [Sondheim’s music is] something that I’ve discovered more recently, but in truth, Steven and I talk about this a lot: We want to create a body of work on our own that’s not necessarily from any specific tradition. The people I listen to for example are in different mediums, like the Coen brothers, they have some eccentric and unique more often than not it’s really amazing. Those are the kind of creative people I like.

You met Steven through Buddhist circles. When did you start practicing and what effect has it had on your work?
I started practicing in 1989, so I just realized it’s exactly bisecting my life. I’m 39 now. So, half of my life. It affects every part of my life. It’s one of those things where it doesn’t matter you ‘ve been practicing for 20 years because you can get up one morning and chant for an hour and have an amazing day and get up and not chant and your day is full of disaster and depression. It’s not a superstitious thing. It really does have an effect on your moment to moment existence. I was raised Catholic. Like many kids in their teenage years, you get lost. I don’t know if it ever had any hold over me. I think my thinking about things is more scientific than not, [rejecting] this whole idea of accepting a lot of ideas that weren’t verifiable.
I’ve always liked Denis Leary’s line about being a Catholic until he reached the age of reason.
I’ve been watching “The Tudors” on Showtime DVD and it’s silly, but interesting to see the workings of the Catholic church and the breakaway from it and how the Reformation was just as silly as the Catholic church.
What’s the audience like for “Spring Awakening?” Is it both tens and adult theater patrons? Does it appeal to both audiences?
It does, in equal measure. I think we brought a different group into the theater, people who became of the show who were not necessarily fans of musical theater, but I think a lot of traditional theater goers got into it as well.
How many times do you think you’ve seen the play?
I’m into triple digits at this point.
Does it still have an emotional tug for you?
If I take a break from it, it definitely exerts a pull on me. Also, I’m pulling my hair out: Did she really have to sing it that way? It kind of goes both ways.
Going back to Duncan Sheik, not the Broadway composer. What’s next?
We started work on a covers album of some songs written by ‘80s English bands of a certain ilk, like Depeche Mode, New Order, Tears for Fears, and the Psychedelic Furs. I’m trying to put together a record of that, with my own sound of songs that were important to me as an adolescent.
You’ve got a version of Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumors” up on your MySpace.com page. Will that be on it?

“Blasphemous Rumors” was released on a mini-EP that came out in 1998, that’s 11  years old. But stylistically it’s not too far away from this record.  I plan on doing things along those lines. I guess the issue is not me, Duncan Sheik putting out a record as a singer-songwriter, but what does it mean to put out a record in 2009? Does one bother doing that? Or do you release songs in another form? That’s the bigger question. Maybe nobody has figured it out yet.
Will you be touring?
I just finished a tour. This time there was nine of us in the band, and it was a lot of fun. It may be a little while before I do that in a large scale way again. It’s such a relief to say “Wow, I’ll jump into this thing and not forced into doing a certain kind of work just because I have to pay the bills, which of course I still do.
You recently released “Whisper House,” which certainly has a melancholy about it. Like the song “It’s Better To Be Dead” with lines like “His father flew to heaven on a fiery aeroplane” and “When all the world’s at war it’s better to bed … It’s good to be a ghost.”
Melancholy? “Whisper House” more so than the rest of the body of my work? It’s weird because some people say ‘Whisper House’ is a lot of fun and your other work all really sad. Because the truth is “Whisper House” is all kind written with kind of a wink. It’s meant to be whimsically malevolent. It’s also sung from the persona of this person who died in 1912 and is now haunting this lighthouse in Maine. It’s kind of sardonically making fun of the pathos of these human beings. That’s really the tone that should be operational and perhaps will be more in evidence in the stage production than the record by itself.The show is up Tues-Sun. Tickets: $84 - $22.50. Check websites below for times.

106 Boylston St., 617-931-2000 www.ticketmaster.com www.broadwayacrossamerica.com