A new production of “Dear Evan Hansen,” the winner of six Tony Awards, including best musical, will open Tuesday at Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater after a five-and-a-half week run at A Contemporary Theatre of Connecticut in Ridgefield. The production has been directed by Scott Schwartz, Bay Street’s artistic director.
With book by Steven Levenson and lyrics and music by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the play follows Hansen, a high school senior with social anxiety and depression who becomes caught in a misunderstanding that quickly grows beyond his control.
In his New York Times review of the play’s 2016 Broadway production, Charles Isherwood called it “a gorgeous heartbreaker of a musical” that “finds endless nuances in the relationships among its characters, and makes room for some leavening humor, too.”
“I saw the show on Broadway,” said Schwartz in a phone interview. “I loved it on Broadway, I cried and cried and cried. It was a very moving show, very emotional. One of the reasons I was drawn to it was the opportunity to really approach the show in a fresh way.” The projections and video technology in the Broadway production have been scaled down, but are still part of the production, he said, noting that social media is an important aspect of the musical.
“But at Bay Street and A.C.T., I was really interested in focusing on the people and utilizing the fact that we work in much more intimate theaters than the show had been done in before. It’s about kids struggling with how to connect, kids struggling with social anxiety in high school, it’s about the struggle of high schoolers and these kids’ relationships to their parents and how the parents struggle to connect with their children. It’s for anyone who has been a teenager, is a teenager, or has a teenager.”
The title role is played in both productions by Kenny Lee. A recent graduate of Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Lee has appeared in “Urinetown” at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, “Pippin” at Reagle Music Theatre in Waltham, Mass., and “Little Women” at the Greater Boston Stage Company in Stoneham.
Hansen’s mother, Heidi, is played by Maya Days, who has appeared in the Broadway productions of “Rent,” “Aida,” and “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Rounding out the cast are Heather Ayers, Gil Brady, Laura Elizabeth Flanagan, Olivia Foght, Mackenzie Germain, Erik Houck, Josh Hoyt, Amaya White, Payton Thomas, and Joseph Tortello.
“Dear Evan Hansen” will run through Aug. 29, with shows Tuesday through Thursday at 7 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8, and Sundays at 2 and 7. Tickets are $79.99 to $159.99.
