Arizona teen in ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ tour Broadway Across America: ‘Dear Evan Hansen’
In March, homeschooled teenager Phoebe Koyabe was in suburban Phoenix, singing and dancing in a community-theater production of “No, No, Nanette,” a musical first performed on Broadway in 1925.
Five months later, she was in rehearsals for the national tour of “Dear Evan Hansen,” the 2017 Tony Awards’ best musical, which comes from the same songwriting team as the Oscarwinning “La La Land.” The tour launched in Denver in September and will bring Koyabe back to her hometown when it plays ASU Gammage Nov. 27Dec. 2.
It’s a huge break, the kind that assures plenty of professional opportunities, and it came when she was just 17. But it didn’t exactly come out of the blue. She’s no Cinderella, just your average, endlessly optimistic, relentlessly hard-working success story.
Born in France, Koyabe came to the U.S. as a toddler with her French mother and Kenyan father, who works in the aerospace industry. Unlike her two older siblings, she was homeschooled, and when she was 9, her mom offered her a choice between poetry recitation and a theater workshop for a little extracurricular enrichment. She picked theater.
“Being homeschooled was very beneficial, because I had so much more time to take classes and do workshops,” Koyabe says. “I did quite a bit of ballet. I did almost 35 hours a week for four years. I woke up, I did my schoolwork, and then I’d head to ballet class at 12:30 or 1:30 in the afternoon. If I’d gone to public school, that’s obviously not something I would have been able to do.”
Of course, we all know it takes talent, hard work and a little luck to make it the entertainment industry. But success is also about pursuing opportunities.
When she was 12, Koyabe’s mom drove her to Los Angeles to audition for the national tour of “Annie.” The casting director didn’t think she was quite right for that role but encouraged her to apply for the Broadway Artists Alliance youthtraining program in New York. She auditioned and got a scholarship, and after two summers there, got interest from agents.
“Had I not signed with Abrams Artists Agency, I would not be on tour, because they are the ones that truly got me where I am,” she says matter-of-factly. “They’re the ones who got me my auditions, got me my callbacks. So yeah, (it took) a lot of luck.”
Hmm. OK, maybe it’s not exactly Peggy Sawyer in “42nd Street.” But this is what the real world looks like, and it certainly doesn’t diminish all the hard work.
Phoebe Koyabe's Phoenix start
Koyabe made her stage debut as a member of the Phoenix Children’s Choir in a production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at the now-defunct Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre in Mesa. She did shows at various youth theaters both large and small.
“Sometimes I felt like I didn’t quite belong anywhere, because I would come into a theater and there were the same people who had done every single show Nov. 27-Dec. 2.
ASU Gammage, Mill Avenue and Apache Boulevard, Tempe. Demand pricing. 480-965-3434, asugammage.com.
there for the past two years, and I was kind of like, ‘Hi! I’m here now!’” she says. “But I also think it was beneficial, because I got to work with directors and musical directors and choreographers and kind of figure out ways to work with different people.”
She did become a repeat performer at Hale Centre Theatre in Gilbert, where she did “No, No, Nanette.”
“They have really loyal patrons,” she says. “We used to call it a semi-professional theater, because they’re not union so they’re technically not professional, but they treat their actors very well. They put on a great show, and they were very helpful in helping me build my confidence, for sure.”
What she loves about 'Dear Evan Hansen'
After landing the “Dear Evan Hansen” tour, Koyabe turned 18 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. She had to fly home for the ceremony during technical rehearsals in Denver.
As for the future, she’s not sure about college or other plans yet, but she knows she’s on the right path.
“Alana was a very fun character to work on, because I really do think she’s very much like I was when I was 14, 15,” she says. “She’s very focused on her schoolwork. She has a future that she’s planned, and she needs to execute it. But because of that, she tends to be very misunderstood.
“People think she’s kind of a onenote character, but she’s so much more than that. And that’s what I love so much about the show. Every character is well-rounded, and they all have that same and final goal that we all have as human beings, which is to be accepted and to be part of a community.”