Just, uh, you knowbe true to yourself. SL: I think storytelling is going to continue to evolve into different forms and formats. Monologues are presented on StageAgent for educational purposes only. SM: Its so universal, because I think we all feel that way. Today in the red chairs are Stacey Mindich and Steven Levenson, the producer and book writer of Dear Evan Hansen. Its a musical about a high school student with social anxiety disorder struggling to connect with people around him, including his crush, Zoe, and her social outcast brother Connor. - The third letter in "Sincerely, Me". Phone numbers were never meant to protect or identify us, but we use them to do that all the time. Here's hoping I won't be a singing w. He lacks friends. The plot of Dear Evan Hansen begins with a letter, unsurprisingly given the title. You got involved with this, and what were you thinking, Steven? This show is really depicting the way we live in America now, the way we are at our breakfast tables with our families. Absolutely. How do you feel like you can work into that, because he sells fake news? If youre not that private, thats why you have that many and stuff like that. To me, having seen the misery and the depths to which this character falls, I feel by the end that he has paid a terrible price, and he has come out on the other side and realized what he has done. The most iconic track from the musical remained, while some of the new songs are used to flesh out supporting characters. Jared pretends to be the guy whos got it all figured out, but all of these characters are lost and alone in different ways. I hope that the show makes people more present hopefully with the people that they are in the room with. SL: Yeah, it begins with the boy in his room with his computer, and before the orchard, it ends with him finally face to face with his mother, no screens between them, really having to tell each other the truth. Its super hard for them to do anything good online. I call it sometimes movies are three-text movies or no-text movies, because Im not going to be able to text until Im done with this movie. I think she is an incredible depiction of contemporary motherhood, whether you're a single mom or not, busy, under pressure, trying . He has social anxiety, which shapes his personality throughout the musical. Heres a clip from the show. SM: The song literally says you are not alone.. Its just made me more aware of when Im using technology as a crutch or as a way of avoiding interactions. I think that we do like to say that the story could have happened in ancient Greece. Dear Evan Hansen, the smash-hit, Tony winning 2015 musical, was, depending on your outlook, a poignant depiction of the mental health perils of high school, or an unrelentingly . On his journey to be found, he discovers the consequences of risking it all for the chance to . It didn't make it into the show, it's the note that Evan was originally gonna write to himself. SM: If you dont, somebody might throw it at you, but you have to. After Evan's parents' divorce, his father moves to Colorado to start a new family, and his mom works constantly and never has time for Evan. What happens? I dont have time, but I will catch you later. I think Steven in less words than more actually captures that in Heidi. Put your phone away. SL: Its incredible that that has been happening and happened around the show. Theres just nowhere except the theater where you really do. Thats to me, I think, the difficulty they had is they didnt like him. He has just done incredible work, and its so exhaustive and so detailed. Google Pay. In the beginning of the ad campaign, those faces were actually stock faces that we bought. Letter #4: Evan Hansen to Connor Murphy. DEAR EVAN HANSEN YWBF Mug Regular price $20.00 USD Regular price Sale price $20.00 USD Unit price / per . Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Hashtag youre not alone. You go to 10,000 rather at once, and its people sitting in the theater, and then 10,000 others. People always say to me, Just take an hour. Social media proved its relevance outside of establishing the modern setting as the speech goes viral all over the internet, an important plot point expressed beautifully across the digital . Like, she would introduce herself and then youd be like, Sorry, I didnt hear you. Where else do you actually have to put your phone away? Please consider making a one-time contribution to Vox today. When we announce a new block of tickets on sale, we give the fans a two-hour heads up, because as you said, it is hard to sell tickets, and that hurts us in some ways. They put new pictures, theres all these things. Dear Evan Hansen: The Movie By Stephen Levenson, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul Adapted for film by Jack Gorzynski *note: a / means that the line was cut off by the next line. He had another one on Snapchat, which is interesting. I like to insult him, but hes a genius on Twitter. SL: There is something about Hamilton being a prime example of, there is something so old-fashioned about it, and yet something that is drawing people to it that I think has to do with seeing actors right there in front of you, seeing them sweat, seeing them spit, feeling like you were having this visceral experience in this room, and theres something quite special and intimate about that. SNAP boosts kept millions out of poverty during Covid. That is something as Stacey said that is organic and then we cant control. SM: It is, although I must say, to me, Hamilton is a movement, a phenomenon, something that is SM: It is. SL: No. SL: Yes, absolutely, its just never-ending. SL: Yes. SL: Theres going to be a moment when those feel like dinosaurs. "It takes a little patience, takes a little time. All right, Ill follow you. Watching the big lie of Dear Evan Hansen spiral out of control is a tense . Silence. The "Dear Evan Hansen" Trailer Just Dropped, Featuring A Very 27-Year-Old Ben Platt. But also confident; thats super important. It was really just meant to surrealistically portray the way we are all brushed. Because today, all you have to do is be yourself. It went from off Broadway, and then you developed it over time, and added to it. Well, you do the I-wish-you-were-dead-but-not-really thing. Its the experience.. I dont know if theyve discovered it yet. If you haven't seen the show, it's the story of how a teen's viral lie winds up revealing large, prickly truths to the people involved in the falsehood. Like its central character, Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel is a bit of a lovable misfit: a rare instance of a hit Broadway musical being adapted for the page. Ben Platt in "Dear Evan Hansen." "Dear Evan Hansen" has been criticized because Ben Platt is a 27-year-old playing a student. Being as authentic as possible, realistic, organic, the way that you can depict things on the stage, the projections we have on our show are not something you would have seen in a show even two or three years ago. I think what took so long from launch to the Music Box Theatre was actually eight years but it was crafting of what we call our underlying rights. Im not even worried about it though, seriously, because its not like, uh, its not going to be like that one time you had the perfect chance to introduce yourself to Zoe Murphy at the band concert last year that time when you waited afterwards just to talk to her and tell her how good she was and, like, you were going to pretend to be so casual like you didnt even know her name. Anyone familiar with Broadway in the last five years will have heard of "Dear Evan Hansen," the pop-musical sensation that swept the Tony Awards in 2017. Theres been some shows that have been real touchdowns, like Hamilton and some others that have been really Theres a new, I cant remember the latest one, but theres a bunch that Maybe its The Grand Hotel, one that seems fantastic in some ways. We have a contact list from our website of multiple thousands and thousands and thousands of people that most shows dont have. Right. Then also how connection isnt connecting. Ultimately what is going to separate theater from everything else is not the content. SM: The father is an interesting nut to crack, because he at first doesnt emote about his pain. SL: No. Millions turn to Vox to educate themselves, their family, and their friends about whats happening in the world around them, and to learn about things that spark their curiosity. Weve gone through quite a few in the years, and it really is basically the two mothers in the morning dealing with their respective families not so well, and then feeling at a loss. Thank you so much for making it. SL: Yes, and he looks around as I think many of us do at social media, and sees the world of people who are fluent and who seem to be able to navigate this world of communication that he finds baffling. Today in the red chairs are Stacey Mindich and Steven Levenson, the producer and the book writer of Dear Evan Hansen, which is an amazing musical right now on Broadway. The only thing I knew about Dear Evan Hansen before this point was that the main character had a broken arm. Dear Evan Hansen. You do feel in this thing. The school said, Well, we dont want to be punitive. I said, No, we want to be punitive. Dear Evan Hansen is a musical with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and a book by Steven Levenson. Okay. Yeah, but also, it is the agony of social media, and now you can see it. Then the next few days, it changed. Just, uh, you knowbe true to yourself. It is a duet sung by Connor's father and Evan, titled "To Break in A Glove." Though it is literally talking about the correct way to break in a baseball glove, it can also be talking about . If you haven't seen it, let me attempt to briefly summarize the show's somewhat unbelievable plot. SL: Exactly. I know Hamilton didnt put things online, like a ton of stuff. Likewise, the character whose death triggers the events of the musical, Connor Murphy, can be viewed both as a redeemable character or a villain. I start Talkbacks now by saying, Were going to keep our Talkback breath, because I know that you want to go home and hug your children, forgive your mother and perhaps download our CD, because that is the universal thing. What happens to theater going forward then? Evan actually tells the truth for a long time, but the family doesnt want to believe it. You just ended up arguing about it, and then you went home. It turns out to be false, or an advertising or a marketing thing. The musical opened on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre in December 2016, after the show's world premiere at the Arena Stage in . Whats it like to create theater in this age, in this age of digital? Approachable. Why its so hard to get answers on long Covid. When youre trying to get to what Evan does, it is an awful thing he does. Get away from it all. Just even the handset was like, Thats interesting. In that song, which becomes really a soliloquy, we see this person Evan, just his soul is bared. Its a musical about a high school student with social anxiety disorder and social media problems. SM: Thats angry old men shaking their fists at the internet. The Oscar-nominated actress will return to a musical role for the first time since 2011's The . But also confident that's important and . SM: It is the beauty of the show, I think, and the reason why people do want to talk about it when they leave the theater, that you can interpret it the way you want to. Stacey and Steven, thanks for coming by. People want to feel something. She has a very bitter sense of humor. The more interesting thing was to explore, even when its fake, which it is by definition, can it reach something real in us? We give them a heads up. SL: Yes. Easy to talk to. This was a day off. We shouldnt. You could see as experienced, everyones got to have the heightened sense of experience all the time. SL: Yet, watching it now, you dont feel like its old-fashioned, or you feel like the technology is old-fashioned but the emotions are real and the story, you can follow. Dear Evan Hansen explores the meaning of family, particularly found family, as the teenage characters find new sources of familial support and acceptance. DEAR EVAN HANSEN Stripe Collection Polo . It feels like people want Is theater retro? I was like, Aww.. I wouldnt want to lose that. Monologues. I have mixed feelings about filming shows, because you lose something. Thats what was strong about this, was it? ap micro unit 3 id's. 45 terms. SL: It feels like what all those fake news things are hitting on is a true emotion that people are feeling. Right, and not even then because you start looking up things. Not anymore. SL: Exactly. SM: Again, thats good to hear. We dont really live in that world anymore. SM: I will say, though, that there has been a wonderful conversation going on these eight years about this, because Steven and Benj and Justin are from one generation. The ensemble cast also includes Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Nik Dodani . SL: Partly because we see the shows so many times, so we get really granular, and its like, Oh, thats not quite right.. Only, I think, every other person who comes there feels that they can relate to the eight characters on the stage. You can also contribute via, Full transcript: Broadways Dear Evan Hansen Producer Stacey Mindich and book writer Steven Levenson on Recode Decode, This story is part of a group of stories called, 9 questions about the threats to ban TikTok, answered. So you heard TikToks being banned. Thats all there is. I hope youre okay. Its not scalable. Right, and theyre all telling each other stories that arent true, which I think is fascinating. They want to continue the story, and they want to embellish the story. I can only tell you the funny story that we all just do things too quickly, and we make silly mistakes all the time. I think shes a very important character for some reason, being a mom to SM: Very, very, because she is the one that he comes home to in the end and discovers his, I hope spoiler alerts are okay, but discovers he has something that he didnt realize before. The power ballad that closes act one of Dear Evan Hansen, it marks the moment when Evan, a socially anxious teenager, delivers a heartfelt speech about a friend, Connor, who has recently met with tragedy.Shaking with emotion, Evan recalls a time that Connor helped him, and he . Then once she gets the letters, she uses them like shes almost a journalist, like, I got the memo, or something like that. Dear Evan Hansen. SL: But I will say thats the substitute of our musical. They did obviously make a CD, and theyre selling. Well, its also become a war zone too, I mean, at the same time like a hellscape, like sometimes this was a SL: Yes. Evan was the beginning of our story. Talk about the other characters, the mothers, both parents. It becomes a way of bringing people together, of making everyone feel less alone, and yet its all premised on this lie. But I think whats interesting is the fresh trends of whats happening now, because eight years ago, Facebook was not as big as it is [now]. SL: No, Alana is She is desperate to keep a bright smile on and to show everybody how great she is. Within a couple of months, we found Steven, who had the right voice to create a musical that the three of them really wanted to be as authentic as possible. It goes wild with people holding up signs that say, #youwillbefound, supporting the Connor Project and Evan, and the idea that this boy made a friend and all of that. SM: Heidi Hansen, yeah, Evan's mom. The musical premiered in July 2015 in Washington, DC, debuted on Broadway in 2016, and later won six Tony Awards in . As a producer whos had some successes and a lot of what I call glorious failures SM: My last musical that I lead produced was The Bridges of Madison County.. You dont actively participate in the world, but thats how you comment. Or something like a Snapchat, of course the filters would be tasteless, like, Hey, lets make everyones face funny.. CAST: Ben Platt (Evan Hansen), Laura Dreyfuss (Zoe Murphy), Michael Lee Brown (u/s Connor Murphy), Will Roland (Jared Kleinman), Kristolyn Lloyd (Alana Beck), Michael Park (Larry Murphy), Jennifer Laura Thompson (Cynthia Murphy) NOTES: Act 1 ends after Sincerely, Me. Why do people, especially our age, feel the need to broadcast their sadness and their mourning? Audition season's in full swing, so I thought I'd share a clip from my self-tape for the Dear Evan Hansen national tour! Sep 23, 2019 - Explore Abby Gallegos's board "Monologues" on Pinterest. As the performance began, Evan was alone. I remember going on social media that night, the night of the election, people saying, Get in touch with me if you need somebody to talk to. It was actually genuine. You cant keep doing that. SM: Hes not fictional to me anymore, because not only have I lived with him for so long, but I stand in the back of the theater. Universal. Benj and Justin and I were just talking recently about how when we were in high school, we assumed that everybody was having more fun than we were, but now if youre a high school student, you have proof every day that everybody is happier than you are. I always say about Alana, if you ask her, she has a million friends. Now theyre gone. To make actual connections, no, because you do make actual connections by the end from fake news, which I thought was really, its kind of a mind fog, but it was interesting to me. A battle over freedom of expression at a Concord, N.H., elementary school. I brought my son, whos 15. Riding the wave . Can I please speak to ?. She is a child that has grown up out of the spotlight because her brother took up so much of the oxygen. There is nothing else. It was that and Angels in America were very big deals. I think thats how the world feels to someone like Evan. I do think youre right about books. SM: Think about this, Steven, if they do a revival of this show in 25 years, they could do it in a retro way with no projections. I think whats interesting about the fake news is clearly, facts dont work to dispel it. That process has taken us a long time. It's also come under fire for an irresponsible portrayal of mental health . Texting is even Theres not a thought that doesnt go down. Dear Evan Hansen. Theyre all by the time we meet them at the beginning of the show, they have been through hell already. SM: Shows have changed so much. Spoilers for the show and a trigger warning for discussion of ableism and suicide after the jump. The unfortunate thing about my kids is both their parents are highly technically literate, and so they cant fool us or anything. Heres whats actually happening. Michael Grief and I are from another. Certainly, if the show continues to do well, its something well entertain, but right now More likely, youll go out and do shows all over the country? SL: Yes, so people are writing fan fiction, and making fan art. That was me in high school. Maybe they didnt tell the lie. It was mind-blowing to see Rent at that time. I think each one really leads the theater world to be a beauty, to do more and to be more honest. Benj was astounded that basically his whole class identified with it, wrote their college essays about it. Dear Evan Hansen (2021) centers on Evan Hansen (Ben Platt), a high school student with social anxiety disorder whose letter to himself, one that was not meant to be seen by others, lands into the wrong hands of fellow classmate, Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), who, as a result, commits suicide. Right. Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of a high school student suffering from extreme social anxiety whose desperate desire for acceptance leads him into a web of lies following the tragic death of a . You see why this happened to him, and this probably will never happen to him again because he learned the lesson. But the lies are precisely what happened. Take a phone vacation. Its impossible. Thats why I think its a character. Do you feel like you should have Evan online? But once she gets on the blog, she blossoms. SM: But its a great symbol of the need for community because she uses knowingly, unknowingly, the experience of Connors death and Evans decision to create the Connor Project, to create a community and a role and a life for herself. Oh my God. It feels like the forms are changing but the ideas underneath them are not. SL: Yes, it improves his life, and what becomes impossible for him to stop is how much it improves other peoples lives. I thought it was going to be an attack on technology, which I dont mind by the way, but it was really smart. Everyone seemed to have a SL: Yes, exactly, everybody wanted to star in the tragedy of the day. We felt like we actually hadnt seen a lot of theater doing that. FLIP HTML5 is a Interactive html5 digital publishing platform that makes it easy to create interactive digital publications, including magazines, catalogs, newspapers, books, and more online. They werent sweaty until you started worrying that they were sweaty, which made them sweaty, so you put them under the hand dryer in the bathroom. Whats important now when youre doing that as youre moving to Broadway? You are instructed to turn your phone off, and so it is an hour or two hours where you get into a story in a way that you cant anymore when youre watching television or even in a movie theater, because you can be rude like that in the movie theater. She just goes about it perhaps the wrong way. You will never regret having slept on it. With Ben Platt, Julianne Moore, Kaitlyn Dever, Amy Adams. Steven and the authors and then Michael crafted this story. SM: The extraordinary thing that happened with this show right from our very first production at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., was that people organically found us. View in iTunes. We had bands of teenagers come in the beginning who loved Ben Platt, our star, from the Pitch Perfect movies, but they want to come back with their parents, and talk to their parents afterward. SM: We dont have a current plan to do that. It led to offline, which was interesting. 'Dear Evan Hansen' adaptation is 'a total misfire,' 'one of the worst movie-musicals ever made,' critics say Published Fri, Sep 10 2021 2:05 PM EDT Updated Fri, Sep 10 2021 2:38 PM EDT Sarah . So feeling like I was telling you earlier that Dave is working on a VR version of Othello. Im thrilled Othellos going to get to people, so Im not adverse to that idea. He is somebody in a world of connections who is completely disconnected and desperate to connect, and also terrifying to connect too. Dear Evan Hansen. I think, from scene to scene, that changes, but I think Michael Greif and I have represented the parental point of view here, and theres a line that A lot of confusion over it, go over the confusion, and what is this, and what does it do, and I dont understand it, and its technical. It was like the most thrilling moment of my social media life that somebody I thought was cool and young liked my picture, so it works. Over the last several years, people have grown a little tired of that I think, and theres a real hunger for art thats sincere and that is heart-filled. Dear Evan Hansen is a musical.The music and lyrics were written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Steven Levenson wrote a book based on the musical). Its about a high school student with a social anxiety disorder and a problem with the internet. Then, in the darkness, a laptop snaps open. VOX teens experienced a matinee performance of "Dear Evan Hansen" at the Fox Theatre, thanks to the generosity of VOX community partners Most Valuable Kids of Greater Atlanta and Broadway in Atlanta. 21 terms. This has been really fascinating. Because how you market the shows has changed, the way you sell tickets has changed. I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs, and I always say, Whats the mistake you made that you could have corrected or that you learned from? I dont mean a learning moment, but its something youd advise people to pay attention to. Book writer Steven Levenson on the power of moral tension---In some ways, "You Will Be Found" is just a moving song. People bring whatever they have themselves or they know about to him, but hes lonely and isolated. A fresh, intricately plotted book by Steven . An interesting thing is he started with Rent in a lot of ways. For 30 years (as of November 2022) Theater Talk has been appointment listening on WBFO, featuring the insights of theater critic and historian, Anthony Chase, who joins Peter Hall for a five-minute weekly broadcast at 6:45 and 8:45 Friday mornings on 88.7 WBFO with a podcast available on wbfo.org. Yeah, I often called it, Twitter, a hellscape. Join StageAgent today and unlock amazing theatre resources and opportunities. He is counseled by his therapist in order to build himself up to write a letter to himself, that self-help letter, Dear Evan Hansen. See more ideas about monologues, acting monologues, dear even hansen. Despite its Broadway credentials, "Dear Evan Hansen" hits screens faced with an inherent tension: Can its songs and cast, led by Ben Platt reprising his Tony-winning role, overcome the . Youll have it in your eyes. Getting back to how you do theater, do you feel good about theater now that people ? Then he uses it, the social media, to amplify that awfulness. I was a journalist first. SL: That was our initial Just thinking about the story, we knew that that was the easy obvious way of doing social media and of telling the story would be to poke fun at our using this technology to post as something that were not, but we felt like that was obvious. It is. This is a very current show, and also just like you said, a traditional story of loneliness. It's easy to see why they cut it down for length and time and also to make it vague enough that Connor could've written it just as easily as Evan. Then last in this section, one of the things thats interesting because you did hit a meme with fake news and things that we think we get so excited about something thats real and genuine. That meant that we would have to find some way to communicate the ubiquity of technology as it is in our lives into this story. Okay. Dear Evan Hansen, Today's going to be an amazing day and here's why: because because today, . Its never a bad idea to wait. Its the hardest ticket to get right now. SM: I think the power of live theater is very potent, especially with a tale like this. He captured something that maybe it even did, maybe it does in smaller ways less musically accentuated, but it is something that is very believable in America right now. Do you want to take a little plug, Steven? Right now, I was just invited to a showing in San Francisco where we will be wearing VR headsets during the show, and its going to be SM: Thats the Encounter Within Broadway. The national tour of Dear Evan Hansen plays Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7:30 PM, Fridays at 8 PM, Saturdays at 2 PM and 8 PM, and Sundays at 1 PM and 6:30 PM through March 5 at the Eccles Theatre (131 South Main Street, Salt Lake City). Is it this one square mile abroad or whatever? Who would find that most difficult? Evan was who we eventually created. SL: Yeah, Ben Platt who plays Evan Hansen, who weve been discussing. . Today is going to be an amazing day and heres why: because, uh, because today all you have to do is just be yourself. Just look at the HPV shot. Is that your name? I remember the school saying it wasnt terrible like this, but it wasnt one where she shouldnt have been in the video, and was, and this and that. It just continues. He wanted to write something about his generation. Because she wants to use it for that, she wants to use it for advantage. Yeah, you can. Im going to keep pushing this because you got to see something in the new VR. SL: Larry and Cynthia and Zoe, who is their daughter and Connors sister, are all really And Evan Hansen probably more who really SL: Yes exactly.