the tony—award—winning broadway musical, dear evan hansen, is opening in london tomorrow night.ur arts editor will gompertz went to meet them. # even when the dark comes crashing through # when you need a friend to carry you...#. meet evan hansen, a teenage schoolboy with self—esteem so low his therapist has told him to write a daily, life affirming letter to himself. # you‘ll reach up and you‘ll rise again...#. the unforeseen consequences of which lead to a story of exclusion, deception, desperation and teen suicide. what made you think that this topic was suitable for a musical? at the beginning, i‘m not sure we necessarily thought it would make a great musical, but we were fascinated by the subject. # two friends # true friends on a perfect day...#. i think we are living in a time where we are more disconnected, we are more lonely. we feel like we are less parts of community than we have ever felt before. and so people react to that in different ways. and there is such a desperation to try to find each other in this very crazy, hyper connected but also very disconnected world

dear evan hansen has been a huge hit in america, its theme of isolation in an age of social media resonating deeply with the smartphone generation and their parents. we started to imagine, "well, what if there was a character at the centre of this story who couldn't connect, who was incapable of connecting, in a world that seems, at least from the outside, totally interconnected 7 what if you are incapable ofjoining that?" and that is really where evan came from. # i don't know if you can tell but this is me just pretending...#. what is your view now of social media? when we started writing the show, we lived in a very different world than we live in now, in the sense that what we were talking about in the show about a young man and this journey through... lies and half—truths online felt like a young person's story in a lot of ways. and it's impossible for us to ignore now in the world of 2019 that lies and the internet and social media, it's not a young person's phenomenon any more. in many ways it drives the news. yes. in both of our countries, i think. they are hoping that sense of share