Being as authentic as possible, realistic, organic, the way that you can depict things on the stage, the projections we have on our show are not something you would have seen in a show even two or three years ago. And especially with the pain. The "Dear Evan Hansen" Trailer Just Dropped, Featuring A Very 27-Year-Old Ben Platt. What happens? I started producing about 12 years ago, and had a real passion to find young authors, and pair them with some of the veteran directors of our industry. I hope its a conversation starter about so many issues, but mostly I hope its a catharsis for the people who come to see it, because its a catharsis for me every night. There is haptic touch. He described the set design to Architectural Digest: "I wanted to create a design that would feel as complex, encompassing, and dimensional as the cultural impact of the films themselves.". SM: The extraordinary thing that happened with this show right from our very first production at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., was that people organically found us. Gain full access to show guides, character breakdowns, auditions, monologues and more! He'll hold on and he'll keep going. New York, NY, Linda Ray It was actually really meaningful. We had bands of teenagers come in the beginning who loved Ben Platt, our star, from the Pitch Perfect movies, but they want to come back with their parents, and talk to their parents afterward. 21 terms. This election, fake news everywhere kind of thing, and now the president just uses it as a catch phrase. I have been for so many years, and people come up to me and say, Im Evan. We have seen kids leave. At first, you dont want anything to do with that mother, but then you realize that there are people who are like that walking around our world today, and they have picked themselves up and kept going. Right. Talk about that idea of how you get that, because it does. You got involved with this, and what were you thinking, Steven? SL: Its a very weird net of thing where people are really, really responding to that idea of you will be found, which is actually when Evan is saying it in the musical, its not true. Its also a very traditional show, if you think about it. His life is compounded by the fact that he has social anxiety, although I think we have found that people look at him and bring their own problems to him. Jared pretends to be the guy whos got it all figured out, but all of these characters are lost and alone in different ways. SL: Yeah, Ben Platt who plays Evan Hansen, who weve been discussing. This is in the song "Sincerely, Me". That problem, its the plot point. SM: No, as a matter of fact, we spend a lot of our time trying to get bootleg tapes of it off of YouTube. SL: It feels like there must be a middle ground, because I do feel like ultimately what is going to separate theater from everything else is not the content. Sometimes, lessons were learned, and youre like, Oh.. I used to tell my kids to take it off the dinner table, but sometimes I have to have it at the dinner table. 22. I mean, of course its the heart of Any show with heart does resonate, and obviously, it becomes a phenomenon. The new single "Found/Tonight," arranged by Alex . Today is going to be a good day, and here's why; because today, no matter what else you are you. It was a smart way to talk about hard things. Filled with a murderer's row of talented musical actors all chewing into meaty roles while singing their hearts out, Dear Evan Hansen is an ode to sincerity . He has just done incredible work, and its so exhaustive and so detailed. EVAN: (don't forget to TALK FAST) Dear Evan Hansen, Today is going to be an amazing day and here's why Because, Because today um all you have to do SL: Theres going to be a moment when those feel like dinosaurs. Other sets by this creator. Snowballs, and then social media is the key snowball, or as it amplifies and creates the situation that improves his life, and also makes the horrible situation worse. And interesting. Just weaponize. But also confident; that's super important. What do you think of things like that? I think she is an incredible depiction of contemporary motherhood, whether youre a single mom or not, busy, under pressure, trying hard, absolutely love your child, but in the daily rush of things doesnt always get everything right. Then your other extra characters are also very interesting, like the girl who SL: Alana, who is our voice of social media in a lot of ways. That was me in high school. Maybe they didnt tell the lie. I was looking at the social media on the show. Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of a high school student suffering from extreme social anxiety whose desperate desire for acceptance leads him into a web of lies following the tragic death of a . But the lies are precisely what happened. SM: If you dont, somebody might throw it at you, but you have to. Giving a speech at Connor's memorial assembly, Evan soon shoots to fame, the Connor Project growing after his speech is put online, many people empathizing with Evan's words. What I found interesting maybe you want to talk about is I dont want to get to the idea of where shows are too like whats at the heart of all these shows and these connections is that you dont insult technology. Just, uh, you knowbe true to yourself. Texting is even Theres not a thought that doesnt go down. When I first heard the lyrics, I could have sworn that these guys were sitting at my breakfast table, that they had literally just taken notes and written a song about me. Not anymore. Weve gone through quite a few in the years, and it really is basically the two mothers in the morning dealing with their respective families not so well, and then feeling at a loss. You talked about it at the beginning, but your show has benefited from that too. It actually took me a couple of years of watching the show every night to really understand her plight. SL: Yes, and theyve gotten to that point that a lot of parents get to with their troubled child, where your affection for them has begun to even go away or you dont know what to do. Monologues. I asked them what they wanted to do, and Benj Pasek told me a story that was just the germ of what happened in Dear Evan Hansen, but it was something that happened in his high school life where a senior, they were all in the senior class, and a senior passed away from drugs. The more interesting thing was to explore, even when its fake, which it is by definition, can it reach something real in us? Like, she would introduce herself and then youd be like, Sorry, I didnt hear you. Yes, she is. Broadway - July 30, 2017. Hes the most awkward 17-year-old ever, Im going to have to tell you. Absolutely. A battle over freedom of expression at a Concord, N.H., elementary school. Oh my God. This show is really depicting the way we live in America now, the way we are at our breakfast tables with our families. START. Only, I think, every other person who comes there feels that they can relate to the eight characters on the stage. They purposely didnt. Theres not a night where I dont shed a tear sometimes at a song, Im surprised, that never made me cry before. Youll have it. CPAC used to be a barometer. That was really where we began, was with that phenomenon, and I think what the three of us all found interesting was instead of parodying that or satirizing that, trying to look at what is underneath that impulse, and why do people feel the need to connect in that way, whats propelling that on a human level. We havent really made a big deal about it right now, but our key art shows Evans torso with his arm in the cast. It was fascinating to have all that going on at once. They have their 28th anniversary revivals of that. Well, you do the I-wish-you-were-dead-but-not-really thing. I dont know if theyve discovered it yet. The only thing I knew about Dear Evan Hansen before this point was that the main character had a broken arm. It just continues. At the behest of his therapist, Evan, an anxiety-ridden 17-year-old high schooler, writes a pop-psychology pep talk in the form of a . YouTube seems to be. When I first heard the song Anybody Have a Map? which was our third or fourth opening number to the show. I like to insult him, but hes a genius on Twitter. So you heard TikToks being banned. I remember the school saying it wasnt terrible like this, but it wasnt one where she shouldnt have been in the video, and was, and this and that. That song is about isolation and about being on the outside looking in, which a lot of musicals are about really, but this one had a really big element of what social media does to us, and that was a very big plot point in the play. He captured something that maybe it even did, maybe it does in smaller ways less musically accentuated, but it is something that is very believable in America right now. What did you use that for?, SM: I had to explain to one of my sons how to actually call someones home, because theyre so used to calling someone directly. Dear Evan Hansen: The Movie By Stephen Levenson, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul Adapted for film by Jack Gorzynski *note: a / means that the line was cut off by the next line. Whats been interesting to me is there is something about these characters in this world that, especially young people, really want to engage with. It was written by Val Emmich, Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul. That may be something else I would pay money for, but for me SL: But its different. Dear Evan Hansen is a novel published in 2018. At its core, Dear Evan Hansen is about the increasing temptations, and heartbreaking costs, of self-deception. SL: We always wanted to thread that needle. I remember going on social media that night, the night of the election, people saying, Get in touch with me if you need somebody to talk to. It was actually genuine. "It takes a little patience, takes a little time. We actually went out to our fans, and we told them exactly how to take a picture of themselves, and send their faces in to us. If Dear Evan Hansen addresses these problems and anxieties, it also explores, presciently, how easily experience can be faked online and how persuasive those fakes can be. An interesting thing is he started with Rent in a lot of ways. Well, something, and thats your weapon. A letter that was never meant to be seen, a lie that was never . That's the big, like, that's number one: be yourself. Do you imagine a future where that doesnt have to be what we do, like tape it and make it? Theyre our community, because this show actually started out with a little bit of an ensemble that got cut after our workshop, but Will is the comic relief. Listen to Dear Evan Hansen (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, Ben Platt & Kaitlyn Dever on Apple Music. We were just talking about that idea. SL: Yes. Were here today on Recode Decode in New York City, and were talking to Stacy Mindich and Steven Levenson, the producer and book writer of Dear Evan Hansen, which is a show I saw. I think, from scene to scene, that changes, but I think Michael Greif and I have represented the parental point of view here, and theres a line that A lot of confusion over it, go over the confusion, and what is this, and what does it do, and I dont understand it, and its technical. Each of you take one and talk about what they mean and what youre trying to do. It should go everywhere, because I think its real. What begins as a little white lie becomes a way of comforting this family. Evan Hansen is the main character in the musical Dear Evan Hansen. If you have the good fortune to become successful, you do become something more, but the essence of it is sitting in that theater.

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