Dear Evan Hansen, the Broadway hit and winner of the 2017 Tony Award for Best Musical, will roll through Chicago as one of the first destinations for a national touring production to launch in the 2018–2019 season, Broadway in Chicago announced today.
The musical, about a teenager with social anxiety disorder who gets caught up in a snowballing lie, is one of the hottest tickets on Broadway right now—owing greatly to the Tony-winning performance of young star Ben Platt, which my colleague Adam Feldman praised in his five-star review as “one of the greatest leading male performances I’ve ever seen in a musical;” Platt ends his run in November. The show won a total of six Tonys earlier this year, including the awards for book of a musical for playwright Steven Levenson and original score for Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. (The composing team made it halfway to EGOT in a matter of months this year, also earning an Oscar for their musical contribution to the movie La La Land.)
The exact dates, length and theater for Dear Evan Hansen’s Chicago stint remain to be announced, but it doesn’t appear it will be a long sit-down à la Aladdin (which ends its five-month run at the Cadillac Palace Theatre this weekend), or even the upcoming seven– and eight-week return engagements of Wicked and Beautiful. Other stops confirmed in today’s announcement include Denver, Buffalo, Charlotte and Los Angeles, with an eventual itinerary of more than 50 cities promised.