TUTS Debuts a Powerful Dear Evan Hansen at the Start of a National Tour

After the superlative production of Spring Awakening at Rec Room Arts, if you still need to sniff teen spirit then turn to the touring reprise of another Tony-winning Best Musical, Dear Evan Hansen, presented by Theatre Under the Stars.

This second national tour, starting here in Houston, is an exact duplicate of the original Broadway production (2016-2022) and uses non-equity actors, but you’d never know. Many of these pros-to-be are making their professional debut, and some are veterans of other touring productions such as Beauty and the Beast or In the Heights. All are just right.

Most impressive is Michael Fabisch as teen Evan, who suffers from some form of hyper social anxiety. Fabisch has nervousness down to a science. When cornered, he rambles incoherently, his arms flying about, while he constantly wipes his hands on his pants. He’s wondrously neurotic. And can he sing!

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s music and lyrics are soft rock-inspired and extremely conversational. There are no great hooks to catch your ear, yet the show’s two anthems, “Waving Through a Window” and “You Will Be Found,” have become cult classics of a sort. Fabisch’s high tenor purrs then suddenly wails in emotional release. It’s a most inspiring performance throughout. A recent graduate of University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre and Dance, Fabisch bursts onto the professional stage with fireworks not seen since Macy’s Fourth of July celebration.

This intimate musical has its own pyrotechnics. It strikes a chord in all of us, no matter what age. Who doesn’t relate to Evan’s heartache of “Wanting to be on the outside, always looking in/Will I
ever be more than I’ve always been?…Waving through a window I try to speak, but nobody can hear…Can anybody see, is anybody waving back at me?”

Evan’s only friend is Jared (Gabriel Vernon Nunag), a peripheral family acquaintance, who’s another class nerd who compensates for his own awkwardness by rampant sex talk, of which he knows nothing. Like Fabisch, you’d never realize that Nunag is making his professional debut. Another perfect casting decision. Evan dreads school, spends all his spare time in his room on his computer, and fears any type of personal interaction. He’s a bundle of tics, twitches, and sweaty palms. He’s a wreck. His father has walked out of the family when he was a child, and his mom (Bre Cade), working as a nurse’s aide while taking classes to become a paralegal, is often absent and unable to connect to her ailing son. As one of his therapy assignments, Evan writes self-help letters to himself, addressed to Dear Evan Hansen. This is what kick-drives the musical.

School bully and social outcast Connor (Alex Pharo, on his national tour debut, another winner) steals Evan’s letter which is later found in his pocket after he commits suicide. Everyone now assumes Evan was Connor’s best friend. Suddenly Evan is the life of the party. The subterfuge lures in classmates, Connor’s family, and Zoe, Evan’s crush from afar (Hatty Ryan King, making her tour debut, is also phenomenal).

Likes and clicks rise exponentially. A national movement is started by opportunistic students with Evan as its president. But the guilt is too much. Besieged, Evan has to crack. In the show’s best number, “You Will Be Found,” Evan realizes the damage he has done – to himself and those close to him. When he confesses to his mother, all his defensive walls collapse, and we are left in tears as she forgives him.

This cleansing musical works so well because it’s an original, not based on some cartoon, film adaptation, or a musician’s catalog of past hits. The staging is slick and modern as panels slide on and off, on which are Evan’s writing or computer screens binging and bonging. The look is very efficient and clean, impersonal, sterile, although with Broadway power lighting. A perfect metaphor for social networking and its seductive siren song. If you spend hours online, will you be found?

Dear Evan Hansen continues through September 22 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at Theatre Under the Stars, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-558-8887 or visit tuts.com. $34.50-$143.50.