Dear Evan Hansen: Intimacy, Impact At Actors’ Playhouse

By Mariah Reed

Miami’s Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre has curated a thoughtful season for its 30-year anniversary, aptly titled “The Season of Truth and Illusion.” Its latest offering stands as a powerful embodiment of that theme and of the company’s commitment to meaningful, community-engaged theater.

Dear Evan Hansen, with book by Steven Levenson and music and lyrics by Ben Pasek and Justin Paul, addresses the alarming prevalence of suicidal ideation among youth in a way that has resonated deeply with audiences and critics alike.

The CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey reports that 20% of U.S. high school students have seriously considered suicide, while 40% report persistent sadness or hopelessness. In a remarkable act of outreach, Actors’ Playhouse has partnered with ten prominent mental-health organizations to offer 30-minute pre-show sessions for audiences, providing resources and guidance for supporting loved ones in crisis.

The company’s commitment to serving its community in this way is admirable. Equally commendable is the meticulous attention paid to every artistic detail in this production, which has created a world of raw human experience that painfully and accurately recalls a time when each of us struggled for acceptance and purpose.

Dear Evan Hansen centers on an isolated, anxious teenager who is mistakenly believed to have been the only friend of a classmate who dies by suicide. Rather than correct the misunderstanding, Evan allows the narrative to grow, drawing him into the grieving family and the spotlight he has always lacked until the lie spirals beyond his control.

Winner of six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, the show ran for six years at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre, making it one of the 50 longest-running productions in Broadway history. Tackling such sensitive subject matter, especially in musical form, is no small feat, but Actors’ Playhouse’s decision to recruit director Stephen C. Anthony (who performed all three principal teen male roles on Broadway) proves inspired.

Anthony’s experience and intimate familiarity with the material pay dividends: from the opening moments, one feels transported into a Broadway house. Leading a talented, award-winning cast, he guides audiences through a moving exploration of mental health, family bonds, connection, and grief that feels deeply personal. With deft care, he probes themes of performative activism, the double-edged nature of social media, and the surprising ways hardship can unite people, crafting characters who are richly dimensional and palpably vulnerable.

Though the subject matter is dark, poignant insights are often delivered with mordant humor. We may wince at the cruelty students inflict on one another in the battlefield known as high school, yet we also laugh in recognition of their awkward, desperate antics painfully familiar to most of us.

Logan Clinger inhabits the title role with profound angst and vulnerability, inviting sympathy even as Evan sacrifices honesty for belonging. Clinger renders a young man tormented by deceit yet convinced he is helping others heal from devastating loss. Rather than belt the show’s signature number, “Waving Through a Window,” he offers it in hushed, fragile tones, almost speak-sung so the lyrics emerge as a soul-bare plea for recognition. Expertly modulated, the song swells alongside Evan’s longing, becoming an anthem for a tortured spirit craving connection.

As Evan’s mother, Heidi Hansen, Stacie Bono embodies the anguish of a single parent forced to choose between working to improve her family’s prospects and being present for her clearly unhappy child. Her rendition of “So Big, So Small,” an attempt to comfort Evan when all seems hopeless, overflows with grief and tenderness. This reviewer was moved to tears, as the moment captures, with shattering completeness, a single mother’s constant worry and inescapable guilt.

Eight-time Carbonell Award winner Jeni Hacker delivers an emotional tour de force as a mother grappling with her son’s suicide. She shifts seamlessly from devastated grief to desperate elation, clinging to anything that might affirm her child’s life had meaning. Brian Golub, as her withdrawn husband, reveals a man retreating from both marriage and parenthood. Their chemistry is compelling, and they command our sympathy as they struggle to survive a trauma no parent should endure.

Gianni Palmarini is incisively cast as Connor Murphy, a volatile teen whose aggression masks profound depression and loneliness. Maya Jade Frank brings sister Zoe to life with nuance and complexity, charting a gradual, believable journey from bitterness to fragile hope. Paul Tuaty and Malaika Wanjiku provide many of the production’s lighter moments as Evan’s schoolmates; though driven by ego and self-interest, their underlying innocence reminds us how youthful folly can unintentionally cause real harm.

The entire cast boasts superb vocal ability, doing full justice to one of Broadway’s most affecting scores. Music director and conductor Michael Uselmann merits special praise for dynamic musical leadership that supports the narrative and supplies emotional weight at every turn.

Scenic designer Brandon M. Newton creates a mesmerizing yet practical environment: a series of columns and beams serve as projection surfaces, allowing swift, complete transformations of setting. Multimedia designers Josieu Jean and Kacey Koploff deserve kudos for elegant projections that integrate emails and texts while heightening mood and tension as Evan’s story explodes across social media.

Ellis Tillman’s costumes are, as always, impeccable. In a production whose scenic elements are minimal and suggestive, wardrobe is helpful in establishing environment, social and economic status, and relationship.  As such, Tillman’s contribution to the production is profound.

Supporting the theme of unseen depression and hidden distress, Eric Nelson’s lighting design is deliberately moody and shadowed. Characters move through dimness while tightly focused areas reveal pivotal moments in the narrative arc. In an almost expressionistic gesture, shocking revelations burst into stark illumination, “exposing” the turning points that shape the story. In a world where troubled teens yearn to be seen, the adults are preoccupied and distracted, failing to perceive danger until it is too late.

Through its thoughtful choice of material, exemplary production values, and genuine commitment to community service, Actors’ Playhouse has delivered a stellar production that feels like a love letter to anyone who has ever felt invisible or forgotten.

Dear Evan Hansen plays through March 8 at from Actors’ Playhouse, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables. Evening performances Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m., with matinees on Sundays at 3 p.m. A special weekday matinee will take place on Wednesday, February 18 at 2 p.m. Ticket prices range from $40 to $100. Tickets can be purchased by calling (305) 444-9293, visiting www.ActorsPlayhouse.org, or at the Actors’ Playhouse Box Office (280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables, FL 33134). The theatre offers 10 percent off all weekday performances for seniors and $15 student rush tickets one hour prior to curtain with identification. Group discounted rates are offered for ten patrons or more through the group sales department at (305) 444-9293 ext. 2 or on www.ActorsPlayhouse.org.

  Mariah Reed is an Equity actress, produced playwright and tenured theatre professor.