"Dear Evan Hansen" Leads this Spring's Invasion of New Shows by New Show Makers

It's hard not to be won over by Dear Evan Hansen, the new musical that has made a triumphant transfer from Second Stage Theatre, where it played last spring, to Broadway's The Music Box theater, where it seems destined for a very long run.

A wholly original show, Dear Evan Hansen has a book by Steven Levenson that deals sensitively with such contemporary issues as teen suicide, economic disparity and the power of social media. And it also features a score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul that echoes the sounds of today, while respecting the time-honored conventions of musical theater (click here for my review of its off-Broadway production).

In fact, under normal circumstances, Dear Evan Hansen would be a shoo-in for this year's Tony for Best Musical. But there's nothing normal about this Broadway season. At least 12 shows will be eligible for the four, or maybe five, nomination slots and seven of those shows haven't yet opened.

Yet what strikes me as even more exciting is the fact that the winner is likely to be, just as it was last year when Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton took the top honors, created by a Gen-Xer or maybe even by Millennials, like the just barely thirtysomething year-olds Pasek, Paul and Levenson.

Now to be sure there are anticipated shows by talented old-hands. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Tony winners for Hairspray, have adapted Roald Dahl's classic children's story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with the always-delightful Christian Borle as the eccentric candy maker Willy Wonka. It opens at the Lunt-Fontanne on April 23.

Meanwhile, Scott Frankel and Michael Korie, creators of the cult classic Grey Gardens, have turned the rivalry between cosmetics divas Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden into War Paint, a showcase for the Broadway divas Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole that opens April 6 at the Nederlander Theatre. And the formidable team of Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty and Terrence McNally is doing a musical version of Anastasia, the oft-told tale of the Romanov princess whose family was massacred during the Russian Revolution, which will make its bow at the Broadhurst Theatre on April 24.

But there are signs everywhere that the musicals torch has been passed to a new generation and the shows stirring up the most buzz this season are by Broadway newcomers.

Dave Malloy's Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, a pop-opera spin on an excerpt from Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace," has already opened next door to Evan Hansen at the aptly named Imperial Theatre and received loud cheers from the critics (although a somewhat more muted one from me; click here to read what I thought of it).

And still to come are more adaptations of popular movies, as well as original works whose subjects range from a showbiz story about swing bands in the 1940s to an uplifting tale set against the backdrop of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Amélie is an adaptation of the whimsical film about a shy French woman and her neighbors in the Parisian neighborhood of Montmartre that will open April 3 at the Walter Kerr Theatre with Hamilton's Phillipa Soo in the title role. Its book is by Broadway fave Craig Lucas but the music is by Daniel Messé, leader of the folk-rock band Hem; and its lyrics are by Nathan Tysen, best known for the off-Broadway musical The Burnt Part Boys, both of whom are Broadway first-timers.

Tim Minchin isn't new to Broadway (he got a Tony nomination for the distinctive lyrics he wrote for Matilda) but his age and attitude make him part of the youth brigade and he's coming back with a score for Groundhog Day, a musical version of the 1993 Bill Murray rom-com about a weatherman who gets stuck in a time loop. The show, scheduled to open April 17 at the August Wilson Theatre, was such a sensation when it opened in London last year and its star Andy Karl is so beloved by the Broadway community that Groundhog Day is almost guaranteed a slot on the Tony ballot.

Although his day job has been music director for Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, Richard Oberacker has spent his free time writing musicals and now he and his writing partner Robert Taylor seem to have hit the jackpot with Bandstand, their original show about a group of WWII vets vying to win a radio talent contest that will open April 26 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. Oberacker and Taylor have also been lucky enough to get everyone's favorite ingénue Laura Osnes to star as a girl singer who becomes the love interest for their fictional band's leader played by Corey Cott.

Probably the least known of the new show creators are the husband-and-wife team of  David Hein and Irene Sankoff who have written Come From Away, which is based on the real-life story in which the residents of a Newfoundland town rallied together to provide food, shelter and inspiration for the thousands of passengers who were stranded there when all flights were ordered to land in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The subject matter and the relative inexperience of the creative team whose previous work has gone little further than fringe festivals might suggest a tough sell but the show has been a crowd-pleaser in its out-of-town engagements from California's La Jolla Playhouse to Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre, where it broke the box office record at the 109-year-old theater. So don't count it out when it opens at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on March 12.

In other words, it's promising to be a really tough season for Tony nominators but a really great one for musical theater lovers.

"Dear Evan Hansen" Delivers a Fine Message

The nominees for this year's Tony for Best Musical are all the kind of big song-and-dance shows that have for years defined the Broadway musical. But I sometimes think the future of the art form will be found in the small intimate musicals like last year's winner Fun Home. Or in Dear Evan Hansen, the appealing show that is playing at Second Stage Theatre through May 29 (although there are already whispers, albeit perhaps only wishful, about a Broadway transfer).

Written by everybody's favorite up-and-coming team Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, Dear Evan Hansen is a completely original show. It's inspired by Pasek's memory of how some kids in his high school claimed to be close friends with a student who died (click here to read more about the genesis of the show).

The musical's book, written by playwright Steven Levenson (click here to read an interview with him) focuses on just one kid, a socially awkward senior named Evan Hansen, who has no friends. His divorced mom loves him but is so busy working double shifts to support them that she's rarely around.

Evan copes by taking anxiety medication, writing motivational letters to himself and pining after a pretty junior named Zoe. One day, he has a chance encounter with Zoe's brother Connor, a druggie and volatile misfit who, in the cruel calculus of high school hierarchies, is the freak to Evan's geek.

Connor snatches one of Evan's more morose letters and when Connor later commits suicide, his parents find it in his pocket. They think their son wrote it as a farewell to his only friend and because Evan doesn't correct that misunderstanding, they gradually begin to treat him as a surrogate son, while others, including Zoe, also begin to find reasons to appreciate him.

The question, of course, is whether Evan will allow the ruse to continue. Because Evan is at heart a good kid, the musical is able to explore the desperate need to belong that all teenagers feel, the pressures today's parents experience as they try to give their kids space without losing closeness, and the role social media now plays in defining the way the world sees all of us.

Because the show is directed by Michael Greif, who specializes in pushing the envelope of what a musical can be and whose resume includes the original productions of Rent, Grey Gardens and Next to Normal, the show juggles these heavy themes with impressive ease—and without forgetting the need to be entertaining.

Kristolyn Lloyd and Will Roland provide terrific comic relief as two other outcasts (she's an overachiever; he's a wiseass) who find ways to take advantage of the mythology that develops around the relationship between Connor and Evan. And kudos to Greif for casting a black actress in a role that is race neutral. 

Greif, set designer David Korins, sound engineer Nevin Steinberg, lighting master Japhy Weideman and projections wizard Peter Nigrini are also good at creating an environment of moving scrims, buzzing voices and scrolling images that mimic the way a single moment can be magnified into a viral sensation on the internet.

But the show's real secret weapon is a passionate performance by Ben Platt, who is achingly authentic as Evan, showing both the shy stammering boy who is easy to bypass and the warmhearted one within who is easy to love. 

Platt also does a sensational job with Pasek and Paul's melodic but complex songs, even though their tendency to push him into falsetto becomes as much a tic as Evan's stutters (click here to watch an interview with the actor).

A shout-out also has to go to Rachel Bay Jones, who plays Evan's mom. The parents in this show aren't used for comic fodder and Jones is especially poignant as a woman who wants to give her son an easier life than she's had but doesn't know how to do it.

A few critics have complained that the show is too manipulative. But I don't mind having my emotions worked over when it's done well. And Dear Evan Hansen plays equally to the concerns of the middle-aged people who tend to buy most theater tickets and to those of the young people who we all hope will do so in the future.