Let’s Finally Have THAT Conversation About “Dear Evan Hansen”

by Chris Peterson

Dear Evan Hansen opened on Broadway nearly ten years ago, and I still cannot decide whether I think it is a good musical.

The score is full of songs designed to land hard, and many of them do. “Waving Through a Window” immediately connected with people who understood what it felt like to be lonely in a crowded room. “You Will Be Found” became something much bigger than a song from a Broadway musical. For a lot of young theatre fans, the show gave language to anxiety, isolation, and the need to feel noticed.

But the longer I have lived with the show, the more complicated my feelings about it have become.

The basic story is difficult to get around. Evan lies about being friends with a classmate who died, becomes close with the boy’s grieving family, and benefits emotionally and socially from that lie. The musical knows what he is doing is wrong, but it is also constantly asking us to understand and forgive him.

The first time I saw it, I was completely caught up in the emotion. I felt terrible for Evan. I was moved by the score, the performances, and the way the show talked about mental health so openly.

Later, I started thinking more about Connor’s family.

That is where the musical becomes harder for me. Their grief is real, but much of it is used to move Evan’s story forward. He gets the big emotional journey. He gets the songs explaining his pain. The people he deceives are eventually left to deal with what he did, while the audience is encouraged to see him as damaged rather than cruel.

Both things can be true, of course. Evan can be struggling and still cause enormous harm. I just do not think the show always balances those truths particularly well.

The musical wants accountability and redemption, yet it is much more interested in the redemption part.

Still, I cannot dismiss the show entirely. The music remains powerful. The original production was exceptionally well constructed, and the subject matter reached people who desperately needed to hear that they were not alone.

Maybe that is why the musical continues to inspire such strong reactions. It helped people while also telling a deeply uncomfortable story about manipulation, grief, and consequences.

So, is Dear Evan Hansen good?

I think parts of it are very good. I think parts of it are deeply frustrating. And I think the fact that audiences are still arguing about it a decade later may be more interesting than a simple yes or no.