DEAR EVAN HANSEN SPOILER ALERT!!!

Dear Evan Hansen is one of the many plays that was successful enough at Broadway to make it across the pond to London’s West End. Written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, it first started showing at Broadway on the 4th of December, 2016 and moved to the West End in November 2019.

Ben Platt, the original Dear Evan Hansen started the role in the original play in Washington in 2015. The West End Dear Evan Hansen cast stars, Sam Tutty as Evan Hansen, Rebecca McKinnis as Heidi Hansen, Lauren Ward as Cynthia Murphy, Rupert Young as Larry Murphy, Jack Loxton as Jared Kleinman, Nicole Raquel Dennis as Alana Beck, and Lucy Anderson and Doug Colling as Zoe and Connor Murphy.

At the 71st Tony Awards, the Broadway Dear Evan Hansen was nominated for nine awards and won six, including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Actor in a Musical for Ben Platt. 

The play deals with many issues that many teenagers around the world face today, such as mental health issues and trying to fit in. However, one of the biggest problems that I had with the play, was that the stutter that came with issues that Evan had with coping with his social anxiety was never really resolved. When the secret is revealed that he wasn't really Connor Murphy's only friend, the play cuts off, and then resumes a few years later where his social anxiety has been miraculously healed.

Amy Clogston, another student at Wimbledon High who has also seen the play stated that “as a play that’s been so critically acclaimed in terms of accurately portraying mental health in teens, it seems a bit strange that we get no glimpse into the period in between Evan at his lowest, when the Murphy family finds out about his lies, to sitting in the orchard with Zoe, stutter-free.” This seems like a rather counterintuitive message, that in some ways when you lie, your life becomes better, which I'm sure is not the message that they intended to portray. Overall, the musical was great, and the songs were both moving and haunting. I just wish that there had been more narrative explanation in between the big reveal, and the ending of the play.