About the Book:

Winner of the 2017 Tony Award for Best Musical

Dear Evan Hansen is a full-length musical featuring a book by Tony-winner Steven Levenson and a score by the Grammy, Tony and Academy Award winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Evan is shy, lonely, and bullied for it – teeming with the irrepressible emotions all too familiar with anyone who's ever been a teenager. After a tragedy strikes, Evan's life suddenly gets turned around, but is it ultimately for the better? Dear Evan Hansen explores the poignant desire for human connection in the tumultuous life of one young man.

Dear Evan Hansen follows the story of Evan Hansen, an anxiety-ridden teenager who gets caught up in a lie that he never meant to tell and, as a result, finally begins to feel like he fits in. What follows is a poignant, funny, and powerful musical about how even though it can be hard, we can find each other – and ourselves – along the way. Dear Evan Hansen is the first musical to take a groundbreaking look from the point of view of both the parents and the kids, at our complex, interconnected, and social media-filled lives. The show deals with universal themes of family, alienation, bullying, mental health, addiction and belonging, while also starting a much-needed conversation about what it means to be growing up in America in the digital age.

*This edition includes the book and lyrics to the musical, but it does not include the musical score.*

Cast: 4 male, 4 female

What people say:

"...one of the most remarkable shows in musical theater history...." — The Washington Post

"The musical finds endless nuances in the relationships among its characters, and makes room for some leavening humor, too... it should also appeal to just about anyone who has ever felt, at some point in life, that he or she was trapped 'on the outside looking in,' as one lyric has it. Which just about everybody with a beating heart." — The New York Times

"Smartly crafted, emotionally open-hearted and ideally cast, it's a new musical that has been embraced by millennials – yet its appeal is universal. Dear Evan Hansen is the best new musical of the year." — Wall Street Journal

"Terrific, gripping, and heartfelt. With a gorgeously melodic score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and a smart and soulful book by the playwright Steven Levenson, Dear Evan Hansen feels like a theatrical beachhead planted by (and, partly, for) millennials." — Vogue

"...one of the most remarkable shows in musical theater history...." — The Washington Post

About the Writers:

Steven Levenson is the book writer for Dear Evan Hansen. His plays include If I Forget, The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin, Core Values, The Language of Trees, and Seven Minutes in Heaven. A graduate of Brown University, he served for three seasons as a writer and producer on Showtime's Master of Sex.

Benj Pasek & Justin Paul are the song-writing team behind Dear Evan Hansen. Previous musicals include A Christmas Story: The Musical, Dogfight, James and the Giant Peach, and Edges. Their film projects include La La Land (for which they won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "City of Stars", with composer Justin Hurwitz), Trolls, Snow White, and The Greatest Showman. Their television credits include The Flash, Smash, and Johnny and the Sprites. Both are graduates of the University of Michigan Musical Theatre Program and members of the Dramatists Guild of America.