Emiliano Cáceres Manzano

Spring Awakening

by Steven Sater & Duncan Sheik

(january 2026, yale university production)

“Cáceres Manzano is no stranger to Yale theater. He is an ambitious director, daring repeatedly to put up beloved Broadway classics under the tight constraints of an undergraduate Creative and Performing Arts award budget. One thing I have always appreciated about his stagings is his innovative use of motion. There is something quietly remarkable about the way he allows actors to move and mill about onstage without the action ever feeling busy or distracting.

I saw it in his productions of “Company” last January and “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” in May, and I saw it again at the opening night of “Spring Awakening.” His staging has a fluidity, an elasticity, that allows characters to drift through the plot rather than march through it. Just as the characters are encountering their bodies and desires for the first time, the actors seem to be doing the same, inhabiting their physicality as if arriving in it anew.”

- Cameron Nye, Yale Daily News Review

Cast

Wendla / Sasha Fedderly
Melchior / Abram Knott
Moritz / Thomas Kannam
Ilse / Evie Kissinger
Marta / Zaida Rio Polanco
Thea / Josie Reich
Anna / Iara Nemirovsky
Hanschen / Crawford Arnow
Ernst / Alastair Rao
Georg / Gbemiga Salu
Otto / Parker Mednikow
Adult Man / Julien Abbosh
Adult Woman / Hazel Dye

Production Team
Director / Emiliano Cáceres Manzano
Producer / Annabelle Hee
Stage Manager / Alex Shadman
Music Director / Justin Wang
Choreographer / Amara Neal
Set Designer / Malcolm Grant
Lighting Designer / Dhruv Bhalla
Costume Designer / Isabelle Ruppe
Hair & Makeup Designer / Aabi Whyte-Spence
Props Designer / Owen Pinhasi
Puppet Designer / Quincy Rosenzweig
Sound Designer / Dorothy Ha
Sound Engineer /Sophia Williams
Dramaturg / Will Sussbauer
Graphic Designer / Reese Weiden
Photography / Sebastian Gervase