begins not with music, have a single person to whom we can actually speak. We but with noise. As the house lights fade, the audience envisioned two families, each broken in its own way, and is immersed momentarily in the roar of the internet: a two sons, both of them lost, both of them desperate to cacophony of car insurance ads, cat videos, scattered be found. And at the heart of our story, in a world starving shards of emails and text messages and status updates. for connection, we began to imagine a character utterly And then, all at once: silence. On stage, in the white glow incapable of connecting. of a laptop, a boy sits in his bedroom, alone. Though many of the rudiments of the character were Like so many of us, Evan is a citizen of two different already in place by the end of 2011, Evan didn’t fully come worlds, two distinct realities separated by the thin veil of a to life for me until almost two years into the process, when laptop screen. On one side of the screen, the promise of Benj and Justin emailed me a homemade demo of a song instant connection. On the other, a lonely kid, staring at a they were tentatively calling “Waving Back At Me.” blinking cursor, as desperate to be noticed as he is to stay This was to become “Waving Through a Window,” hidden. Evan’s first sung moment in the musical, when we see, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, and I first began to create with incredible vividness, how the world looks through the the character of Evan over several months in 2011. eyes of Evan Hansen: For years, Benj and Justin had discussed the idea of creating a musical based on an episode from Benj’s high “On the outside always lookin’ in school. In the aftermath of a classmate’s tragic death, Will I ever be more than I’ve always been? Benj, a sophomore, had watched as fellow students who ‘Cause I’m tap-tap-tappin’ on the glass had barely known him claimed to have been his friend, Waving through a window…” inventing connections between themselves and their former classmate, insistent on inserting themselves into With a kind of offhanded lyricism, Evan shows the tragedy. us the unique depths of his loneliness and invites us, By 2011, nine years after the events at Benj’s high uncomfortably, to think of our own – calling to mind our school, this kind of appropriation of tragedy had only incessant “tap-tap-tappin’” on our own devices; the apps become more commonplace, fueled in large part by the we have been promised will connect us in ways we cannot rise of social media. In the wake of catastrophe – a natural imagine. disaster, a celebrity’s untimely death – a familiar ritual of The song – and Evan Hansen himself – are now, of grief would ensue, with millions flocking to Facebook and course, indelibly stamped by Ben Platt’s extraordinary Twitter to turn a public tragedy into their story. interpretation. Ben does not so much perform the song The kneejerk response to this phenomenon, of as inhabit it. Slipping seamlessly between full voice and course, is to dismiss it entirely as the worst kind of falsetto, Ben’s Evan is never stable, always teetering on narcissism, the selfie-ization of catastrophe. But Benj, the edge of catastrophe. Justin, and I wondered if there was perhaps something Ultimately, Evan does manage to avoid catastrophe, more complicated at work here, something more human. but he does not do it alone. Evan’s story begins in front of As our discussions continued, we began to feel that these a screen, and much of it will unfold there – in emails and millions of people were not using social media merely as a text messages, on Facebook timelines and Twitter feeds means of emotional exhibitionism; more than anything, they – but it ends somewhere else entirely, with two people, seemed genuinely in search of others with whom to share together, face-to-face. In this moment, the screens go their grief, seeking a sort of virtual community. blank and the noise subsides. For the first time in our story, Out of these conversations, the world of Dear Evan Evan sees himself and allows himself to be seen. This is, of Hansen slowly began to take shape, a world fractured course, what it means to grow up. and broken, in which people no longer remember how to connect, where technology allows us to chat, any time - Steven Levenson, Book Writer and any place, with our thousands of “friends” and yet not CAST EVAN HANSEN ......................................................BEN PLATT ZOE MURPHY........................................LAURA DREYFUSS HEIDI HANSEN ................................... RACHEL BAY JONES CYNTHIA MURPHY ............JENNIFER LAURA THOMPSON CONNOR MURPHY............................................... MIKE FAIST LARRY MURPHY ...........................................MICHAEL PARK JARED KLEINMAN ...........................................WILL ROLAND ALANA BECK......................................... KRISTOLYN LLOYD VIRTUAL COMMUNITY VOICES: BECCA AYERS, MARY BACON, GERARD CANONICO, JENN COLELLA, ADAM HALPIN, MYKAL KILGORE, STEPHEN KUNKEN, TAMIKA LAWRENCE, CARRIE MANOLAKOS, KEN MARKS, ASA SOMERS, JASON TAM, NATALIE WEISS, BRENDA WEHLE, TIM YOUNG, REMY ZAKEN UNDERSTUDIES: MICHAEL LEE BROWN, ORCHESTRATIONS: ALEX LACAMOIRE GARRETT LONG, OLIVIA PUCKETT, “WORDS FAIL” ORCHESTRATED BY ALEX LACAMOIRE COLTON RYAN, ASA SOMERS & CHRISTOPHER JAHNKE VOCAL ARRANGEMENTS: JUSTIN PAUL MUSIC COORDINATION: MICHAEL KELLER & MICHAEL AARONS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: ALEX LACAMOIRE ABLETON PROGRAMMERS: ENRICO DE TRIZIO & SCOTT WASSERMAN KEYBOARD PROGRAMMER: RANDY COHEN PRODUCED BY ALEX LACAMOIRE, JUSTIN PAUL, BENJ PASEK ASSOCIATE SYNTHESIZER PROGRAMMER: TAYLOR WILLIAMS ALBUM CO-PRODUCER: STACEY MINDICH ASSISTANT SYNTHESIZER PROGRAMMER: JEREMY KING ALBUM PRODUCER FOR ATLANTIC RECORDS: PETE GANBARG BROADWAY SOUND DESIGN BY NEVIN STEINBERG A&R: PETE GANBARG CONDUCTOR/PIANO: BEN COHN A&R ADMINISTRATION: CRAIG ROSEN & ALISON MURPHY GUITARS: JUSTIN GOLDNER, DILLON KONDOR A&R COORDINATION: MICHAEL PARKER BASS: ROB JOST DRUMS: JAMIE EBLEN RECORDED BY DERIK LEE CONCERTMASTER: JUSTIN SMITH MIXED BY NEAL AVRON VIOLA: TODD LOW PRODUCTION MANAGER: JILL DELL’ABATE CELLO: ADELE STEIN MARKETING FOR ATLANTIC RECORDS: DIANE VADNAL ASSOCIATE CONDUCTOR: JON BALCOURT RECORDED AT AVATAR STUDIOS, NEW YORK, NY, AND ATLANTIC STUDIOS, NEW YORK, NY MUSIC COPYING: EMILY GRISHMAN MUSIC PREPARATION MIXED AT THE CASITA, HOLLYWOOD, CA KEYBOARD RENTAL: COHEN KEYBOARDS MIX ASSISTANT: SCOTT SKRZYNSKI PERCUSSION RENTAL: ERIC POLAND ASSISTANT ENGINEERS: NATE ODDEN, MATTHEW SOARES, PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER: JUDY SCHOENFELD RON ROBINSON, EBONIE SMITH DESIGN BY ALEX R. KIRZHNER MASTERED BY TOM COYNE AT STERLING SOUND, NEW YORK, NY PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHEW MURPHY MUSIC ASSISTANT: HALEY BENNETT ASSISTANT TO THE SONGWRITERS: ARI CONTE SPECIAL THANKS TO MICHAEL GREIF 1. ANYBODY HAVE A MAP? RACHEL BAY JONES & JENNIFER LAURA THOMPSON 2. WAVING THROUGH A WINDOW BEN PLATT & ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST OF DEAR EVAN HANSEN 3. FOR FOREVER BEN PLATT 4. SINCERELY, ME MIKE FAIST, BEN PLATT & WILL ROLAND 5. REQUIEM LAURA DREYFUSS, MICHAEL PARK & JENNIFER LAURA THOMPSON 6. IF I COULD TELL HER BEN PLATT & LAURA DREYFUSS 7. DISAPPEAR MIKE FAIST, BEN PLATT, KRISTOLYN LLOYD, WILL ROLAND, JENNIFER LAURA THOMPSON & ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST OF DEAR EVAN HANSEN 8. YOU WILL BE FOUND BEN PLATT, KRISTOLYN LLOYD, WILL ROLAND, LAURA DREYFUSS & ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST OF DEAR EVAN HANSEN 9. TO BREAK IN A GLOVE MICHAEL PARK & BEN PLATT 10. ONLY US LAURA DREYFUSS & BEN PLATT 11. GOOD FOR YOU RACHEL BAY JONES, KRISTOLYN LLOYD, WILL ROLAND & BEN PLATT 12. WORDS FAIL BEN PLATT 13. SO BIG/SO SMALL RACHEL BAY JONES 14. FINALE BEN PLATT & ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST OF DEAR EVAN HANSEN All songs, music & lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Copyright © 2017 Pick in a Pinch Music (ASCAP) and breathelike music (ASCAP). All rights admin. by Kobalt Songs Music Publishing. All rights reserved. 1. ANYBODY HAVE A MAP? DOES ANYBODY HAVE A MAP? ANYBODY MAYBE HAPPEN TO KNOW HOW THE HELL TO DO THIS? Rachel Bay Jones & Jennifer Laura Thompson I DUNNO IF YOU CAN TELL BUT THIS IS ME JUST PRETENDING TO KNOW HEIDI SO WHERE’S THE MAP? Have you been writing those letters to yourself? “Dear Evan Hansen, This is I NEED A CLUE gonna be a good day and here’s why.” ‘CAUSE THE SCARY TRUTH IS I’M FLYIN’ BLIND EVAN AND I’M MAKING THIS UP AS I GO I started one. CYNTHIA HEIDI It’s your senior year, Connor. You are not missing the first day. Those letters are important, honey. They’re gonna help you build your confidence. CONNOR I already said I’d go tomorrow. EVAN I guess… LARRY He doesn’t listen. Look at him. He’s probably high. HEIDI CAN WE TRY TO HAVE AN OPTIMISTIC OUTLOOK? ZOE Huh? He’s definitely high. CAN WE BUCK UP JUST ENOUGH TO SEE THE WORLD WON’T FALL APART? CYNTHIA MAYBE THIS YEAR WE DECIDE I don’t want you going to school high, Connor. WE’RE NOT GIVING UP BEFORE WE’VE TRIED THIS YEAR, WE MAKE A NEW START CONNOR Perfect. So then I won’t go. Thanks, Mom. HEIDI Hey, I know: you can go around today and ask the other kids to sign your CYNTHIA cast. How about that? ANOTHER MASTERFUL ATTEMPT ENDS WITH DISASTER EVAN LARRY Perfect. Interstate’s already jammed. HEIDI CYNTHIA I’m proud of you already. POUR ANOTHER CUP OF COFFEE AND WATCH IT ALL CRASH AND BURN EVAN Oh. Good. ZOE Connor finished the milk. HEIDI ANOTHER STELLAR CONVERSATION FOR THE SCRAPBOOK CYNTHIA ANOTHER STUMBLE AS I’M REACHING FOR IT’S A PUZZLE, IT’S A MAZE THE RIGHT THING TO SAY I TRY TO STEER THROUGH IT A MILLION WAYS WELL, I’M KINDA COMIN’ UP EMPTY BUT EACH DAY’S ANOTHER WRONG TURN CAN’T FIND MY WAY TO YOU LARRY BEFORE I LEAD WITH THE WORST OF ME I better head out.