Broadway awakens to musical

“Spring Awakening,” the rock musical by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik, bowed on Broadway Sunday, with more than one critic proclaiming the show a new kind of Rialto tuner.

But at the opening-night party at Tavern on the Green, Sheik said he and Sater didn’t ignore legit history when they set out to make something new: “We went to see ‘Porgy and Bess.’ We listened to ‘West Side Story.'”

The opening was the culmination of a drawn-out, seven-year development process. “It feels great,” the indie popster said. “We’re here — somehow!”