Evan help us! U.S. bigwigs seek new Brit star
The acclaimed, mustsee Broadway musical Dear evan hansen has settled on a West end theatre and will open in November 2019.
The show’s producer, Stacey Mindich, told me she was won over by the Cameron Mackintosh-owned Noel Coward Theatre.
The production’s branding features a lot of blue, and Ms Mindich observed that ‘funnily enough’, the Coward has a blue stage door.
Dear evan hansen, which last year won six Tony Awards — including Best Musical — is about a fictional 17-year-old student who lives in an unnamed American town with his divorced mother.
evan, a high school senior, has a social anxiety disorder that is exacerbated when he is caught up in another family’s tragedy after their teenage son commits suicide.
The show has a score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who also wrote the lyrics for the film La La Land and the hugh Jackman movie The Greatest Showman.
Its strength lies in the beautifully sensitive language used by Pasek, Paul and Steven Levenson, who wrote the show’s book.
evan sings about ‘waving through a window’, but worries: ‘Is anybody waving back at me?’
his mother heidi sings about making sure ‘today is going to be a good day’ for her son.
Producer Mindich said that she, director Michael Greif and the authors are ‘more committed than ever to make sure we have a British cast . . . We want the european public to feel the actors are rooted in their world,’ she told me, and said that casting (which will be colour blind) is still ‘wide open’, though she joked: ‘ There are some suspects in London we want to investigate.’
One is Tyrone huntley, who won awards for his performance as Judas in the Open Air Theatre’s Jesus Christ Superstar (I wrote about huntley and evan hansen back in March).
Mindich has seen a tape of huntley singing the hit Waving Through A Window, however it’s not known whether the creative team has.
She said ‘ we’ll be searching everywhere’, including open and closed casting calls, plus looking at ‘kids right out of college’.
‘ It’s so hard to find a young boy with the stamina and the vocal range and vulnerability,’ she added. ‘There’s a particular joy in discovering someone new — and yet there’s a particular comfort with somebody who’s seasoned, at the ripe old age of 20-something.’
A UK casting director will be contracted by the end of next week and one task will be to look through videos sent in since my scoop about evan hansen in March.
Mindich said several young men had sent videos to her company and the show’s website, declaring: ‘I’m evan hansen.’
Ticket details will be revealed soon. Sign up for information at DearEvanHansen.com/London