The Tufts University Department of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies presents the first of six performances of the musical “Spring Awakening,” directed by Barbara Wallace Grossman. One hundred years after Frank Wedekind’s “Spring Awakening” (1891) shocked audiences at its 1906 Berlin premiere, “Spring Awakening” the musical electrified Broadway. Proclaimed a “Rent” for the 2000s, the Tony Award-winning show combined Wedekind’s searing story of adolescent sexuality and longing with the urgent vitality of rock music.

Just as the play’s dreamlike interludes contrast with the conventional realism of its provincial town setting, the musical’s rock anthems and iridescent ballads channel the pain, confusion, and yearning of its teenage protagonists battling hypocritical adults and raging hormones. Through song and dance, they can express their innermost thoughts and turbulent emotions, finding temporary release from a repressive society that claims to love them, fails to understand them, and nearly destroys them.

Tickets for tonight’s public preview performance are $5 through the Tufts Online Ticket Office.

Additional performances will be at 8 p.m. on Friday, March 4; Saturday, March 5; Friday, March 11; and Saturday, March 12; and 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 13.