Dear Evan Hansen (TCG Edition)
By Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Winner of the 2017 Tony Award for Best Musical
“Dear Evan Hansen lodges in your head long after you’ve seen it or heard it or read it. It feels like a pure expression from young writers at a crossroad of coming to terms with who they are and what they want to say about the world. Its honesty and truths haunt and ultimately open us up to ask the same question, no matter what our age or crossroad: What are the lies we tell ourselves?” –James Lapine (from the Foreword)
A letter that was never meant to be seen, a lie that was never meant to be told, a life he never dreamed could be his. Evan Hansen is about to get the one thing he’s always wanted: a chance to belong. Deeply personal and profoundly universal, Dear Evan Hansen is a groundbreaking American musical about truth, fiction, and the price we’re willing to pay for the possibility to connect.
*This publication includes the book and lyrics to the musical, as well as a foreword by James Lapine. Please note that it does not include the musical score.*
Steven Levenson is the book writer for Dear Evan Hansen. His plays include If I Forget, The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin, Core Values, The Language of Trees, and Seven Minutes in Heaven. A graduate of Brown University, he served for three seasons as a writer and producer on Showtime’s Master of Sex.
Benj Pasek & Justin Paul are the song-writing team behind Dear Evan Hansen. Previous musicals include A Christmas Story: The Musical, Dogfight, James and the Giant Peach, and Edges. Their film projects include La La Land (for which they won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “City of Stars,” with composer Justin Hurwitz), Trolls, Snow White, and The Greatest Showman
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Reviews for Dear Evan Hansen (TCG Edition)
56 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5COVID prevented the showing of this musical in my city, so I bought the book. What a story....very touching, at times, frighteningly so. I could feel for the characters....especially Heidi who tried so hard to be a good mom. This is the kind of story that I could see happening in real life. The emotional roller-coaster the characters found themselves on is still top of mind a day after I've finished reading.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dear Evan Hansen is probably one of my favorite productions. If you have not seen the Broadway show of this production, add it to your bucket list!! ??
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If you loved the musical Dear Evan Hansen, this book is a must read. It took me longer to read than normal, since I kept it safe at home and couldn't carry it with me, but if I'd had the time, I would have read it in one sitting. It's a very well done book! It'd be a great gift idea for anyone who loved the show, too.
Book preview
Dear Evan Hansen (TCG Edition) - Steven Levenson
" Thrillingly modern and moving. Dear Evan Hansen takes on challenging subjects—death, grief, class, mental illness, social media, social anxiety—with unapologetic trust in the power of contemporary pop music to tell complex stories onstage. It must be seen to be believed."
—ADAM FELDMAN, TIME OUT NEW YORK
"Extraordinary. A fresh, intricately plotted book by Steven Levenson, and a banquet of ballads of anguish and confusion, which somehow avoid sentimental exploitation, by Pasek and Paul. It is the heart of a superbly crafted and performed show that is unafraid of complexity and ambiguity. Dear Evan Hansen is the first great American musical about social media—a democratizer, comforter, amoral facilitator of witch hunts and general pox Americana that has upended everything from family mealtime to who gets to occupy the Oval Office. It is a show that seems to understand in a way that others do not, have not, might not soon again."
—CHRIS JONES, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"Dear Evan Hansen is a heart-scorching musical. It is cathartic and real and very funny. This musical reaches a generation that can seem jaded or desensitized, having come of age with access to the entire world’s pain and tribulations in the palm of their hand."
—SUSANNA SCHROBSDORFF, TIME MAGAZINE
A dazzlingly reminder of the power of live theater.
—JOE DZIEMIANOWICZ, DAILY NEWS
"A modern masterwork. Dear Evan Hansen is absorbing, wrenching, heartbreaking, and at the same time exhilarating. This is a show that captures your attention immediately, enchants you with its characters and songs, pulls you through emotional turbulence, and leaves you cheering and wanting to go back for more."
—STEVEN SUSKIN, HUFFINGTON POST
"Watching Dear Evan Hansen is like falling down a rabbit hole that leads back to high school. Steven Levenson’s book for this bittersweet musical captures both the humor and the pathos of a hopeless misfit who achieves popularity through no fault of his own. And the introspective, gentle score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul becomes the language of Evan’s troubled thoughts and unspoken yearnings. The lyrics and score seamlessly merge with the dialogue of Levenson’s book. In song after song, the lyrics go beyond the spoken thought and reach for the unspoken feelings hiding behind the words without a hint of sentimentality."
—MARILYN STASIO, VARIETY
Stunning and original and profound. Songwriters Pasek and Paul have written one of Broadway’s most exciting and catchy new scores. Each tune sounds fresh and authentic to its character. Steven Levenson has done wonders crafting a story filled with characters and dialogue that expertly avoid the cliché. Levenson finds surprises along the way while never failing to explore his characters’ often-conflicting emotions. Bravo!
—DAVE QUINN, NBC4
"The cacophonous echo chamber of social media, with all its attendant rewards and perils of instant recognition or scathing judgment, is given forceful shape in the original Dear Evan Hansen, a musical of piercing intimacy. It is a smart, soulful depiction of teen solitude graced by both gentle humor and raw feeling. The score beautifully captures the peaks and valleys of adolescence, in the thoughtful lyrics and in the music, and Steven Levenson matches the musical components beat for beat in his terrific book."
—DAVID ROONEY, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"Dear Evan Hansen is an important (and seriously delightful) addition to the twenty-first-century musical. It is superb—original, sensitive, provocative, endearing. Everyone is a fully developed person in Steven Levenson’s smart book, and the clever, sympathetic songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul have a singer/songwriter pop intimacy that challenges expansive vocal ranges without seeming to show off."
—LINDA WINER, NEWSDAY
That rare show that connects and enlightens all of us. Pasek and Paul’s score, so seamlessly woven into the story line, captures character nuances with the emotional eloquence of our finest dramatic plays, inducing tears and laughter in equal measure.
—ROMA TORRE, NY1
Devastatingly powerful. The musical boasts a darkly textured and deeply nuanced book by Steven Levenson and provocative songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul that are drenched in feeling and fearless commitment. It never sentimentalizes its subject, but feels constantly truthful.
—MARK SHENTON, STAGE (LONDON)
"Leaving a new musical with a great song or two running through your head is a rare but exciting thing. Leaving with about ten great songs running through your head is pretty much unheard of. But that’s the power of Dear Evan Hansen. It’s not simply that the songs are tuneful. It’s that they have a way of instantly piercing your heart and burrowing into your consciousness, while also illuminating character and propelling the plot (no small achievement!). Credit librettist Steven Levenson for creating such a believable young character in Evan, from the anxiety meds to the self-deprecating dialogue. And don’t be surprised if, to one degree or another, you see yourself in Evan. On the outside always lookin’ in / Will I ever be more than I’ve always been?
he sings in the show-stopping Waving Through a Window.
It’s Evan’s confessional, but it might as well be an anthem for outcasts, loners, and misfits everywhere."
—MELISSA ROSE BERNARDO, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Dear Evan Hansen: Book is copyright © 2017 by Steven Levenson;
Music and Lyrics are copyright © 2017 by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul
The Foreword is copyright © 2017 by James Lapine
Dear Evan Hansen is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc.,
520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: John Buzzetti, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, 11 Madison Avenue, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10010, 212-586-5100.
The publication of Dear Evan Hansen by Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, through TCG’s Book Program, is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.
ISBN 978-1-55936-880-3 (ebook)
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Book design and composition by Lisa Govan
Watercolor by Emily Rebholz
First Edition, April 2017
To Whitney and Astrid.
—STEVEN
To Mary, Annie, Maceo, and the Llanerch Diner.
—BENJ
To Asher, Emerson, Mom, Dad, and Tyler.
For always believing.
—JUSTIN
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Foreword
By James Lapine
DEAR EVAN HANSEN
Production History
Characters/Set/Note
Songs
Act One
One
Anybody Have a Map?
Waving Through a Window
Two
Waving Through a Window (Reprise)
Three
Waving Through a Window (Reprise #2)
Four
Five
Six
For Forever
Seven
Eight
Sincerely, Me
Nine
Requiem
Ten
Eleven
If I Could Tell Her
Twelve
Disappear
You Will Be Found
Act Two
One
Two
Sincerely, Me (Reprise)
Three
To Break in a Glove
Four
Only Us
Five
Six
Seven
Good for You
Eight
For Forever (Reprise)
You Will Be Found (Reprise)
Nine
Words Fail
So Big/So Small
Finale
About the Authors
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many people have contributed to the development of Dear Evan Hansen, but we owe a special debt of gratitude to David Berlin, John Buzzetti, Adrienne Campbell-Holt, John Dossett, Clive Goodwin, David Korins, Alex Lacamoire, LP3, Joe Machota, Michael McGoff, Danny Mefford, Alexis Molnar, Peter Nigrini, Wendy Orshan, Emily Rebholz, Judy Schoenfeld, Nevin Steinberg, Jack Viertel, Japhy Weideman,