Wanted: A Brit to play Evan Hansen
THE Tony awardwinning Broadway musical dear evan Hansen is on its way to london, and the producer wants a British actor to play the title role.
audiences have packed new york’s music Box theatre to see the show, which has a score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the duo who wrote the lyrics for la la land and the songs for the best-selling soundtrack to Hugh Jackman’s surprise hit The Greatest Showman.
last June, dear evan Hansen won six Tony awards including best musical.
evan is a fictional 17-year- old high school student who lives with his divorced mother. The anxiety- ridden lad becomes caught up in another family’s tragedy when their teenage son commits suicide.
Pasek and Paul’s sensitive use of language has captivated fans. One song, Waving Through a Window, captures the essence of evan’s dilemmas with the line: ‘On the outside, always looking in. Will I ever be more than I’ve always been?’ The first time I saw the show, there were youngsters exclaiming in recognition when they heard it.
Stacey mindich is the producer who commissioned Pasek and Paul to develop the show nine years ago. She told me teenagers would see the show and later return with their parents.
Some had assumed that either Ben Platt, who originated the part and won a Tony; or Taylor Trensch (pictured above, with laura dreyfuss as Zoe), who recently replaced him, would play evan in a West end production.
But ms mindich surprised me by saying she had woken one day at 3am with the realisation that ‘evan has to be played by a British actor’. She also said they would use colour-blind casting, so he could be played by an afro-Caribbean or asian actor.
She noted that she had been made aware of a performance, at the WhatsOnStage awards last month in london, by Tyrone Huntley, who came to prominence as Judas in the scorching Open air Theatre production of Jesus Christ Superstar, and in dreamgirls. Huntley sang a bellringing version of Waving Through a Window, and the black lincolnshire-born actor was ( by all accounts) sensational. mindich added that this did not mean she was casting Huntley.
‘I want audiences to feel as close to evan as possible,’ she told me, over a cup of tea at her offices on 44th Street. She said any decisions on who would play evan in london will be made later.
mindich said that, as with the new york show, she would seek to work with a British charity that supports troubled teens.
Judging by phenomenal sales of the cast album in the UK, and from what I read on social media, dear evan Hansen has to be (in its own, more intimate way) as eagerly awaited as Hamilton — which now carries an advance ticket sale of more than £20 million at the Victoria Palace.