CVRep has started off their 2025-2026 season with a real Christmas gift for everyone!
“Dear Evan Hansen” is a deeply affecting, musically sophisticated show that balances raw emotional honesty with sharp contemporary storytelling. Its score and thematic focus on loneliness and the human need for personal connection make it both timely and enduring.
At its core, the show is about isolation, identity, and the hunger for belonging. It is centered on Evan Hansen (Pierce Wheeler), a teen with some serious socialization issues. A letter he has written to himself as a part of his psychological therapy is found on the body of Conner Murphy (Isaac Kueber), a classmate who has committed suicide. By those within his sphere, it is assumed that Conner and Evan had a secret friendship or possibly even a romantic relationship. For a variety of reasons, mostly trying to bring some solace to Connor’s parents, Cynthia (Erin Stoddard) and Larry (Eric Kunze), Evan continues to make up stories that never existed about his friendship with their late son. Complicating the situation is that Evan has a crush on Conner’s sister, Zoe (Gianna Branca). Is it possible that he is using his fraudulent relationship with Conner just to get closer to Zoe? Evan not only doesn’t reveal the truth about the fabricated relationship but allows it to grow and spiral into a web-wide narrative largely with the help of his classmate Jared (Mikey Corey Hassel) creating new ‘old’ emails between the two boys.
The musical’s book by Steven Levenson has a modern feel in its language as it deals with some serious issues facing today’s young adults. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s score is stylistically contemporary and has a couple of melodically memorable songs bordering on earworm status. Thanks to their insightful lyrics, the emotionally charged solos give us a deeper understanding of the pain, hope and wants of each of the central characters. Evan’s mom, Heidi (a very moving Christia Mantzke), explodes with anger at her son’s selfishness in “Good For You,” yet touchingly displays the unfaltering depth of a mother’s love in “So Big, So Small.” Songs shift seamlessly between intimate confession and anthemic release, giving the entire cast moments that feel both personal and communal.
Under the skillful directorial hands of Adam Karsten, the show’s staging conventions—minimalist and multimedia-driven—serve the story by focusing attention on performance and emotional truth rather than spectacle. The beautiful economy of Moira Wilke’s lighting design and Jimmy Cuomo’s set design with its various staging areas, projection surfaces and the 2 cell-like structures, at once isolating yet open on either side of the stage, amplifies the actors’ work. The role of Evan demands vulnerability, precision, and a capacity to carry long emotional arcs. Happily, Mr. Wheeler is more than up to the task, delivering a richly textured and emotionally charged performance.
CVRep’s production of “Dear Evan Hansen” succeeds on multiple levels: It is one of those wonderful productions where all the ingredients, i.e. the direction, cast, set and the material itself all blend together seamlessly to produce a dynamic and moving theatre experience.
“Dear Evan Hansen” runs now through Dec. 21, 2025.
For tickets or further information visit www.cvrep.org