Dear Evan Hansen BROADWAY REVIEWS

• NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF Dear Evan Hansen

  

  In ‘Dear Evan Hansen,’ a Lonely Teenager, a Viral Lie and a Breakout Star

  Charles Isherwood

  December 4, 2016: As the title character in “Dear Evan Hansen,” a lonely teenager who inadvertently becomes a social media sensation and a symbol of the kindness that is often cruelly absent in high school hallways, the marvelous young actor Ben Platt is giving a performance that’s not likely to be bettered on Broadway this season. What’s more, this gorgeous heartbreaker of a musical, which opened at the Music Box Theater on Sunday, has grown in emotional potency during its journey to the big leagues, after first being produced in Washington and Off Broadway. Rarely – scratch that — never have I heard so many stifled sobs and sniffles in the theater.

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• AM NEW YORK REVIEW OF Dear Evan Hansen

  

  Ben Platt gives captivating, vulnerable performance

  Matt Windman

  December 4, 2016: Urgent concerns about lost teens, powerless parents and the difficulty of achieving emotional connection in an age of overwhelming social media run like electric currents through the smart, deeply felt and altogether extraordinary new musical “Dear Evan Hansen,” which has opened on Broadway following an acclaimed Off-Broadway run earlier this year.

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• DEADLINE REVIEW OF Dear Evan Hansen

  

  Ben Platt Leads Powerful ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ To Broadway

  Jeremy Gerard

  December 4, 2016: The exquisite new musical Dear Evan Hansen opened Sunday on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre, following runs at Arena Stage in Washington D.C. and, last spring, at off-Broadway’s Second Stage Theatre. In the only cast change from the Second Stage production, Michael Park has returned to the role (played off-Broadway by John Dossett) he created in Washington.) Here are updated excerpts from Deadline’s earlier review:

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• CHICAGO TRIBUNE REVIEW OF Dear Evan Hansen

  

  'Dear Evan Hansen' on Broadway: This musical really gets teens and their screens

  Chris Jones

  December 4, 2016: Most teenagers — despite appearances to the contrary — are fragile optimists. And Ben Platt, the astonishing star of the extraordinary new Broadway musical "Dear Evan Hansen," has a way of throwing lines out into the wind, head usually cocked to the side, brave, aspirant, unsure of where those salvos will land, terrified of being blown over when they come roaring back to crush his soul. This performance by an actor who first gained attention for his stage work in "The Book of Mormon" in Chicago is as profound and heart-breaking a portrayal of a 17-year-old as one might ever hope to see.

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• TIME OUT NEW YORK REVIEW OF Dear Evan Hansen

  

  Dear Evan Hansen is lit by a dazzling star turn

  Adam Feldman

  December 4, 2016: What does it look like when a star is born? In the case of Ben Platt, the astonishing young actor who plays the title role in Dear Evan Hansen, it’s a bit like an actual birth: beautiful but strange and wet, tinged with confusion and danger. Evan is painfully introverted; he has no friends in high school, and even the thought of talking to a girl he likes, Zoe (the poignantly unaffected Laura Dreyfuss), makes his palms perspire. Platt’s performance extends that to his whole body; when he sings, his face often gleams with sweat. Yet the effect is not off-putting; Evan is immensely lovable, even when he makes terrible mistakes. He speaks in rushes of instant regret, as though frantically digging a hole to bury himself in, and his intense awkwardness is filtered through first-rate comic timing, high-wire dramatic acting and a gorgeously expressive tenor voice.

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