NY DAILY NEWS "Great news for theatergoers who have craved a new musical with attitude, youthful exuberance and a fresh, gutsy sound: "Spring Awakening," which opened last night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, is what they've been seeking. ...any misgivings I had then have made way for immense enthusiasm. ...Director Michael Mayer has cast the show impeccably and matched his ensemble with equally inventive staging....Sheik and Sater's lush pop-rock ballads stir your senses so much that they often become hypnotic..."Spring Awakening" is a serious show that raises provocative issues. And if Broadway audiences are lucky, it will run for many seasons to come. " USA TODAY "Beautiful, messy, exhilarating, awkward, vital: They're all adjectives you might use to describe first love.  So it's fitting that you could also readily apply them to Spring Awakening, the imperfect but transcendent new musical that opened Sunday at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre....In doing so, Spring's composer manages to deliver lovely, graceful pop melodies that work in a theatrical context — that is, to propel a story and elucidate its characters....Spring Awakening offers a trip unlike any other you're likely to experience this season" AM NY 4 Stars: "When Broadway history is being made, you can feel it." So said Frank Rich in his review of the original Broadway production of "Dreamgirls."   Now, twenty-five years later, anyone who enters the Eugene O'Neill Theatre will be privileged to behold the wonder of theater that is "Spring Awakening," arguably the most breathtaking American musical since "Rent" or even "Sweeney Todd."    Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater's youth rock musical, based on an obscure 1891 German children's tragedy, is far more edgy, sexy and contemporary than of the lame jukebox musicals and movie adaptations that Broadway has recently suffered...trimmed to perfection...performances that are deep, joyful and ultimately cathartic and unforgettable...The score is sensational...Its invigorating energy runs through you like a bolt of lightning... "Spring Awakening" is a visceral, funny, beautifully brilliant experience that threatens to change the world and maybe save musical theater." NYTIMES "A straight shot of eroticism steamed open last night at the Eugene O’Neill Theater under the innocuous name of “Spring Awakening,” and Broadway, with its often puerile sophistication and its sterile romanticism, may never be the same. ....  ravishing rock score by the playwright Steven Sater and the singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik, ...this brave new musical, haunting and electrifying by turns, ...Spring Awakening” has been created with such care and craft that the voyage back is a deeply rewarding one. ...Mr. Sheik’s music, spare in its simple orchestrations, lush in the lapping reach of its seductive choruses, embodies the shadowy air of longing that infuses the show, the excitement shading into fear, the joy that comes with a chaser of despair. The singing throughout is impassioned and affecting, giving powerful voice to the blend of melancholy and hope in the songs." NY POST 4 stars: "The good is rare enough in the theater, but the excellent is . . . well, just excellent. And so it was at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre last night when the gritty, groundbreaking "Spring Awakening" gave an unexpected jolt of sudden genius to wake up the hidebound Broadway musical...Sater and Sheik have taken Wedekind's basic text...and given these adolescents from more than a century ago a fresh, 21st-century voice...staged with a cool efficiency...inventive vitality of the choreography ...costumes are period-perfect...The young actors - each and every one - take the text and music...that etch in the memory.  This is a must-see musical, and not the least for the way it's performed."