Acting for Two: The actor playing Connor actually acts for three: the actual, real Connor Murphy at the beginning of the show, the version of Connor found in Evan and Jared's fake emails, and the version of Connor that acts as Evan's conscience during his darker moments.
Andrew Barth Feldman, another actor who played Evan on Broadway, had a similar parental situation to Evan (divorced parents with a mother who had to become the sole parent).
Blooper: Being a live show, there are many incidents that have been mentioned by the actors.
During one performance, when Evan has the confrontation with Alana during "Good For You", Alana came up to Evan and asked "Where were you last night?" and an audience member called out, "He was busy kissing Zoe!" The actor playing Evan didn't hear the person, but the actor playing Alana did and subsequently forgot the rest of the scene.
During Michael Park and Jennifer Laura Thompson's final show, Andrew Barth Feldman (Evan) tripped while stepping off a platform during "For Forever" and ended up rock-sliding to the lip of the stage at the beginning of the bridge.
Thompson, towards the end of her run, set off a can of "Liquid Ass" backstage, which ended up overpowering the entire area, to the point where stage management came over to make sure an animal hadn't died.
Breakthrough Hit: While Pasek and Paul had gained some star power due to La La Land, the success of Dear Evan Hansen really put them on the map and may have impacted the success of their next project, The Greatest Showman.
Cut Song: A number of cut songs exist, as it's gone through different iterations on the way to Broadway, some of which are available on the deluxe version of the OBC recording as bonus tracks:
"Goin' Viral" was an early song from Jared to Evan immediately after Connor steals the "Dear Evan Hansen" letter and threatens to expose him as a creep who was stalking his sister, sadistically spinning out all the possible negative outcomes if the letter gets leaked on the Internet. This ended up cut as Jared went Out of Focus as a character and the show somewhat dropped the New Media Are EvilAesop, which now only survives in the form of "You Will Be Found" and "You Will Be Found (Reprise)". Original actor Will Roland also noted that when a scene is easily accomplished with short dialogue rather than a song that doesn't really payoff, it's better to do the former version.
"In the Bedroom Down the Hall" was a Distant Duet between Cynthia and Heidi expressing regret about the suffering their sons have gone through, as a Call-Back to "Does Anybody Have A Map?"
"A Little Bit of Light" is a song Cynthia would've sung to Evan when he gives her the printouts of his and Connor's email correspondence, reminiscing about Connor's troubled childhood.
"Obvious" is an early version of Evan indirectly confessing his love to Zoe by phrasing the things he loves about her as things Connor told her about him, which was replaced with "If I Could Tell Her" as a more lighthearted and cutesy take on the topic (some of the lines from "Obvious" were directly copy-and-pasted into the new song, specifically the lines about drawing stars on her jeans and filling out the teenage magazine quizzes).
Going in the other direction, "Hiding In Your Hands" was a tribute to the "ukulele girl" genre from the 2000s that let Zoe perform a deceptively cheerful song about her angst hidden behind her family's whitebread suburban image. This was replaced with "Requiem", a much darker and more directly angsty song, as more appropriate to Zoe's personality and reflecting the kind of music someone like her would actually be into.
One of the most major changes was replacing "Part Of Me", which was the Act 1 closer for the original Off-Broadway run of the show, with "You Will Be Found"; the former was a much darker and more painful song that openly reflected the cynicism of how no one, not even his parents, actually knew the person Connor was when he died and are just projecting their own needs onto him.
High school seniors Evan and Connor were first played by 23-year-old Ben Platt and 25-year-old Mike Faist, respectively.
Similarly, 29-year-old Laura Dreyfuss was cast as 16-year-old Zoe Murphy, the younger sister of Connor Murphy.
Inverted in 2019 with the casting of Andrew Barth Feldman as Evan, who was only 16 at the time.
Defictionalization: Multiple fans of the musical have set up real websites for "The Connor Project" to inspire troubled teens to seek and give support.
Playing with Character Type: While the shows are radically different, Ben Platt's last role before Evan was as Elder Cunningham in The Book of Mormon, another character who has a nasty habit of lying.
Role Reprise: Mike Faist, who played Connor in the original Broadway production, returned to narrate Connor's chapters in the audiobook.
While Ben Platt was not a stranger to the stage before Dear Evan Hansen, his role as Evan propelled him to stardom, earned him a Tony, and was the impetus for his Golden Globe-nominated turn on The Politician.
For the most part, everyone involved in the original cast has had their star rise somewhat, from Laura Dreyfuss joining Platt on The Politician to Michael Park guest-starring on Stranger Things, to Will Roland playing the lead in the Broadway transfer of Be More Chill.
Special mention goes out to Alex Boniello, the first replacement for Connor, and Andrew Barth Feldman, the history-making Evan replacement who averted the show's tradition of Dawson Casting. The pair became relatively well-known during their run in the show, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, they produced a Broadway-themed game show, Broadway Jackbox, to raise money for The Actors' Fund and Broadway for Racial Justice.
Throw It In!: The script originally made no reference to Connor's hairstyle, but the writers liked Mike Faist's long hair enough that they threw in a line in the script about it, making it an unofficial requirement for every casting of Connor since then.
What Could Have Been: The initial impulse behind writing this play was Benj Pasek's experience with a classmate dying in high school, and his negative reaction to how everyone at his school started fabricating a closer connection with the kid who died than they'd ever actually had in life, making his death about themselves. Though this is still a major theme of the show, along the way the writers developed more and more sympathy for Evan and people like him and how as bad as Evan's actions are they reveal a genuine emotional need for connection — leading to the song "You Will Be Found" being written as a genuinely inspirational anthem. Audience members who still aren't particularly inclined to forgive Evan and who feel Connor's memory was ill-treated by being covered with an edifice of lies frequently disagree with these changes and wish they could see that earlier version of the show.
Word of God in this show explores the painful knowledge that most of how people react to somebody's death isn't really about the dead person but themselves: Connor is, for all intents and purposes, a MacGuffin, and the audience leave the theatre having learned basically nothing about who he actually was. (The original version of "You Will Be Found" — "A Part of Me" — stated this theme much more explicitly.)
The Film:
Actor-Inspired Element: The film changes Jared's last name to Kalwani to accommodate Niki Dodani now playing him.
Box Office Bomb: While the stage production smashed all kinds of records, the film adaptation wasn't as lucky. Produced on a $27-28 million budget, it opened second at the North American box office with $7.4 million. Unlike Pasek and Paul's previous movie musical, The Greatest Showman (which went up a shocking 76% following its first weekend), Evan dropped nearly 67% the following week, and ultimately grossing a meager $15 million domestically and $17.2 million worldwide.
Cut Song: The film removes four songs, "Anybody Have a Map?", "Disappear", "To Break in a Glove" and "Good for You", and adds two, "The Anonymous Ones" (co-written by Amandla Stenberg) for Alana and "A Little Closer" for Connor.
Dawson Casting: The film gets hit with this hard, with Ben Platt — 26 by the time of filming — alongside a cast of high-school characters played by actors in their 20s.
Dear Negative Reader: Ben Platt responded to criticisms that he looked too old for the role by citing the Dawson Casting in Grease. He also responded to claims about nepotism (his father, Marc Platt, produced the film) by saying the film wouldn’t have gotten made otherwise, practically confirming it.
Duelling Movies: With Belle, another teen-oriented musical revolving around heavy subject matter and social media. Both films came out roughly around the same time in some markets. Japanese companies Toho and Dentsu were involved with the production of both films. In terms of box office and critical/audience reception, Belle won by a mile, while being made on a much lower budget.
Dyeing for Your Art: Ben Platt lost weight and grew his hair out in an attempt to look younger for the role.
Franchise Killer: The film's abysmal financial and critical failure resulted in the shuttering of the original Broadway and West End productions.
Ben Platt, who originated the role of Evan, reprises his role for the film.
Colton Ryan understudied for the role of Connor, and reprises the role in the film.
What Could Have Been: According toMike Faist, he was approached about the possibility of reprising his role as Connor Murphy, but he felt he had already done everything he could with the role and turned the offer down.
Mike Faist, he was approached about the possibility of reprising his role as Connor Murphy, but he felt he had already done everything he could with the role and turned the offer down.