When they rang to say I had the part, I asked: ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right number?’
The West End’s hottest new leading man reveals...
WHEn Stacey Mindich, the producer of the hugely anticipated Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen, rang young actor Sam Tutty to tell him he’d won the title part — ahead of 8,000 other lads — she sensed doubt in his voice.
‘I know you’re not going to believe me, but you are our Evan,’ new York-based Mindich told Tutty, who was then at his flat in London. ‘and, he didn’t believe me,’ she said. ‘It took a good five minutes on the phone to sort of pierce through.’
For his part, 21-year-old Tutty, who was born in Crawley, West Sussex, but whose mother and younger brother live in Hull, wasn’t having it.
‘I said: “are you sure you’ve got the right number?” I wasn’t believing anything. It wasn’t sinking in. Then Stacey gave me a solid 35 seconds to put the phone on silent, to just scream for a bit.’
Tutty, who recently graduated from the Italia Conti academy of Theatre arts, had been one of the throng of hopefuls who attended open auditions in the pouring rain back in February. ‘I was so terrified. It was my first professional audition. I seized up and froze. I didn’t make the cut,’ Tutty told me.
Much later, after he’d acquired an agent, he auditioned again — and this time he was more confident. In all, he was called back 13 times by casting director Jill Green and the show’s creative team, and then flown to new York to see the show on Broadway, and take part in final auditions.
He was eventually cast as an alternate Evan, who would play the part twice a week. But Mindich and director Michael Greif saw something in Tutty that kept them coming back.
The musical — which will begin performances in the West End at the end of next month — has become a sensation on Broadway, winning six Tony awards including best musical, and best actor in a musical for Ben Platt, who originated the role of Evan: a 17-year-old high-school student living with his divorced mother.
Evan
is an anxious, lonely boy who becomes caught up with another family after they suffer a tragedy. ‘I think he’s lost in the wildly, hyper- connected world and he just wants to be found,’ said Tutty. He told me the show is about ‘ family, community, connection, love, life, loss’.
and he said he felt a strong connection to his new character. ‘My dad and Evan’s dad left at a similar age. I was ten when my dad left, and it made me feel that I was not good enough. I thought: “He’s found a different set of people. He’d rather be with them than my mum, my brother and me.”’
Mercifully, he was ‘lucky enough’ to have a loving mother (who once harboured dreams of acting herself) and sibling.
Tutty said he used his own experiences to inform his performance during the later stages of auditioning. ‘I want to do the character justice, and I wanted to show London and the world that I can be Evan. My Evan.’
That’s something Mindich and director Greif wanted to hear. During auditions they felt many
of those attending were simply channelling Ben Platt’s performance, which they’d seen (and studied) on YouTube.
‘They were trying to reproduce that,’ Mindich said. ‘We said: “Please don’t do what Ben Platt did. Do what you would do.”’
Her new star made his off West End debut in Once On This Island, at Southwark Playhouse. She admitted she’d missed that one, but said, with a laugh: ‘I have seen him sing Waving Through a Window, from Dear Evan Hansen, about 672 times.’ She described Tutty’s portrayal of Evan as ‘heartbreakingly emotional’.
Tutty has been in new York since last weekend (he nipped to Washington DC briefly to catch the touring production). He will join the other ‘Evans’ — Stephen Christopher anthony from the tour; Robert Markus from the Toronto production and andrew Barth Feldman from nYC — to shoot a special video, in a few days, with them all performing the song For Forever. (It will be released in the autumn.)
This weekend, he will be joined by his London cast mates (see panel above) for what Mindich calls a week of ‘orientation’, that will include seeing the show; and meeting director Greif, musical supervisor and orchestrator alex Lacamoire, Steven Levenson (who wrote the book), and Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who penned the music and lyrics (they wrote the lyrics for songs in La La Land and The Greatest Showman).
The company will also have drinks with the Broadway ensemble. Mindich noted that at similar get-togethers with other Evan Hansen companies, the different actors tended to gravitate to those playing the same roles.