Based on the real life drama teacher, Lou Volpe, of Truman High School in Levittown, Pennsylvania. Volpe's story follows his accomplishments of bringing a diminished high school drama program in a blue collar, middle class town to international prominence.
The real life Lou Volpe was gay, but was portrayed as straight in the show, as well as adding subplots about his family, especially Gordy and Maashous, in order to make him "more relatable". This change caused significant backlash from the LGBT community, although the backlash died down considerably when it was discovered that the arc of homosexuality was not removed completely but instead just given to Simon instead of Lou. In addition, when he was a younger teacher -- for instance, the age that actor Josh Radnor was at the time of filming -- the actual Mr. Volpe was married to a woman, and living a heterosexual life. In that way, the character's depiction as having a heterosexual marriage was completely accurate.
In the show, the cast puts on a high school version of the musical "Spring Awakening." Truman was the first to perform the musical at a high school.
The original creators of Spring Awakening came back to write another song for Rise (2018), titled 'All You Desire'
It is sung in the final episode of the series, Opening Night (2018)
It is sung in the final episode of the series, Opening Night (2018)
The actor Sean Grandillo was previously in the Broadway production of Deaf West's Spring Awakening. However, on Broadway, Grandillo played Otto, while on Rise, he plays Ernst.
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