'Dear Evan Hansen' will finally be found in OKC as tour resumes following COVID shutdown

Almost two years after the March 2020 COVID-19 outbreak stopped the show, the smash musical "Dear Evan Hansen" is arguably even more timely than ever.

"One of the major points in our show is you're not alone, no matter what you're going through. Even if you feel like no one could possibly understand where you're at, you're not alone in it. Somebody else will understand you," said Stephen Christopher Anthony, who plays the title role in the show's recently revived North American tour.

"I think the last two years have made it even more poignant to get to share those words."

The winner of six 2017 Tony Awards, including best musical, "Dear Evan Hansen" will at last be found in OKC, as the national tour performs Jan. 11-16 at the Civic Center Music Hall.

Coming to Oklahoma City almost a year after it was originally scheduled to play here, the record-breaking musical marks the midway point of OKC Broadway's 2021-22 season, as the local presenter of nationally touring Broadway shows continues its COVID-19 comeback.

"It's oh-so-great. Two years away from it all has been such a wrench, and then to come back and have that experience of being in a different city every week ... and remembering the power of theater within communities is really lovely," said Jessica E. Sherman, who plays Evan's mother, Heidi Hansen, in the national touring production.

Recording-breaking show boasts impressive creative team

In modern musical history, it's hard to top the critical and commercial success of "Dear Evan Hansen." It boasts a starry creative team: Tony Award winner Steven Levenson (the FX miniseries "Fosse/Verdon") wrote the book, and its score hails from Grammy, Tony and Academy Award winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (the hit movies "La La Land" and "The Greatest Showman"). The direction is by four-time Tony nominee Michael Greif ("Rent," "Next to Normal").

The show opened to rave reviews in 2016 at Broadway's Music Box Theatre, where it’s broken all box-office records.

The West End production opened at London's Noël Coward Theatre in November 2019 and won the 2020 Olivier Award for best new musical, along with two other Olivier Awards.

“Dear Evan Hansen” launched its first North American Tour in Denver, Colorado, in October 2018, performing in more than 40 cities across North America for in excess of 1.5 million audience members, before the COVID shutdown. The tour relaunched in December in Greensboro, North Carolina.

"It's a little scary after spending two years with nobody looking at you to get up and do this very vulnerable thing," Anthony admitted in a phone conversation with Sherman and The Oklahoman. "But I am feeling just like I'm back home in it a little bit. It's become such a gift for me that I took for granted for so long: the opportunity that we all get to gather in a theater space and think about life and feel things and laugh and cry."

Show's themes resonate during COVID-19

In February 2017, the "Dear Evan Hansen” Broadway cast recording bowed at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 chart — the highest debut for an original cast album since 1961 — and went on to win the 2018 Grammy Award for best musical theater album.

The show includes the uplifting anthem "You Will Be Found," which goes viral in the narrative and has resonated with people far beyond the musical in real life, especially during the life-changing COVID-19 pandemic.

"There's the 'before' and the 'after' ... in the different iterations of myself," said Sherman, who originated the role of Heidi Hansen in Toronto’s "Dear Evan Hansen," winning a Toronto Theatre Critics Association award.

"In music theater, especially as women, we just don't get roles like this very often ... that are so three-dimensional and flawed and human and deep that it does ask our own humanity be brought. I'm a completely different person with a completely different understanding of what it takes to be a mother of a teen like Evan than I was two years ago.

"Not to say that I did a terrible job before, but I certainly feel I understand it better now."

'Dear Evan Hansen' delves into mental health issues

The show centers on Evan, a teenager with social anxiety disorder whose therapist tasks him with writing letters to himself. His classmate Connor Murphy, who is struggling with drug addiction, intercepts one of these "Dear Evan Hansen" letters at school, and when Connor commits suicide, his parents mistake the letter for their son's last words.

Desperate and devastated, Connor's parents believe that he and Evan were friends, and they beg the latter for details of their relationship. Unwilling to disappoint them, Evan invents a fake friendship with Connor.

"Evan makes a lot of terrible mistakes throughout the course of the show. Finally, at the end — well, I don't want to spoil anything. But one of the pieces of our show is you have to talk about it when you're having a hard time. You can't just pretend everything's OK," Anthony said.

In 2018, Anthony understudied the title role on Broadway for two months, then opened the first national tour as the Evan alternate at matinee performances. In 2019, he took over the role full time on the tour.

"Especially in this day and age with social media, where we are always pretending that everything is perfect ... there is value to be shared in saying, 'Hey, I'm having a hard time,' because somebody may relate to you," he said. "I've actually tried to make a deal with myself and attempt on social media to write about the struggles of performing … and being on tour and to be more open."

Although the show was adapted into a widely panned 2021 film, it continues to play on Broadway, even through some COVID-related cancellations in December. The tour is scheduled to perform in more than 30 cities across the U.S. and Canada in the 2021-22 season, and the title character's now-familiar blue polo shirt and arm cast have been added to the permanent collection of the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

"Because there is so much life inside the show, there's so much heart and there's so much emotion, I have to work to take care of myself and to discover new things about myself so that I can keep discovering new things about the play," Anthony said.

"From night to night, our show is never quite identical from the night before. Jessica and I have to walk onto stage together with the other six actors who are with us and just look each other in the eye and see what happens. ... It's very, very unique that we get a job where we get to do that."

'Dear Evan Hansen'

When: Jan. 11-16.

Where: Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N Walker.

COVID-19 protocols: All patrons must provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours prior to entering the venue. All patrons must wear masks in the venue except when actively eating or drinking.

Tickets and information: https://www.okcbroadway.com.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: 'Dear Evan Hansen' will finally be found in OKC as tour resumes following COVID shutdown