Dear Evan Hansen, the successful Tony awarding winning musical launched in Cape Town for the first time in February 2025. Debuting in New York in 2016 and featuring in many global cities including London’s West End for three years, this successful musical tackles unusual topics – mental health, loneliness and disconnection in the digital age.
With Cape Town’s Artscape Theatre attracting a younger crowd than normal, one sensed a different evening and Dear Evan Hansen was just that. As a social awkward teenager, Evan struggles with anxiety and is encouraged by his therapist to write letters to himself. Hence, the title Dear Evan Hansen. Early on in the show, another teenager commits suicide and Evan somehow gets caught up in it. Very usual content for a musical, but certainly topical with regards to the disconnection of modern society from social media. By intermission, I understood why so many young people had flocked to see this musical and why the content was so relevant.
Dear Evan Hansen is amusing and sad at the same time. With mental health issues on the rise, why does it take a suicide to bring people together? The amusing part is how one of Evan’s ‘Dear Even Hansen’ letters becomes an amusing focal point. It’s a stellar cast with key roles of the teenagers being played by Stuart Brown, Keely Crocker and Michael Stray, all graduates off LAMTA, Cape Town’s musical theatre academy, which is testament to the contribution that founders, Duane Alexander and Anton Luitingh have made in the past six year.
Compliments should also go to the staging which depicted the swirl of social media and technology absorption as the teenagers and parents struggled to find connection. The show’s most memorable song, “You Will Be Found” is instantly recognisable and as Charles Isherwood of The New York Times said when Dear Evan Hansen first launched in New York, this “soaring anthem” becomes a rallying cry for the social media movement.
It’s a though-provoking and touching watch for Cape Town audiences and as a friend who watched the London production said: “This show has the quality of London’s West End!”
Production: Julie-Anne McDowell and Daniel Galloway (How Now Brown Cow) and Hazel Feldman (Showtime Management)
Director: Greg Karvellas
Musical supervision: Charl-Johan Lingenfelder
Set, lighting, and costume design: Niall Griffin
Technical director: Alistair Kilbee
