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

by Chris Peterson

It’s been almost a decade since Dear Evan Hansen first hit Broadway, and yet the question still lingers: is it actually a good show? Not “did you cry during it,” or “did Ben Platt sound incredible,” but in the simplest, most honest way: is Dear Evan Hansen good?

It’s funny, because for a long time that question felt off-limits. The show’s emotional power was undeniable, and for a certain type of theatre kid, myself included, it was a revelation. A musical about anxiety, isolation, and wanting to be seen? That hit a nerve. It felt like someone had cracked open a diary we’d all been keeping in secret. Songs like “Waving Through a Window” and “You Will Be Found” weren’t just show tunes; they were emotional lifelines. For a moment, Dear Evan Hansen was more than a hit musical. It was a movement.

But as time passed, and as the internet does what it does best, the love turned into debate. Then the debate turned into memes. And suddenly, what had once been the most earnest show on Broadway became one of its most controversial. If you’ve ever scrolled through theatre Twitter or TikTok, you know the discourse.

One side still defends the show’s heart-on-its-sleeve sincerity, while the other side can’t get past what they see as emotional manipulation—a story about a teenage boy who lies his way into grief and never really faces the consequences. The internet has turned this musical into a kind of cultural Rorschach test. You see in it whatever you need to, or whatever you can’t forgive.

And the memes! The endless jokes about Evan’s lies, about the uncomfortable premise, about how every serious scene somehow feels just a little too dramatic. I’ve seen tweets that sum it up better than any critic ever could: “Dear Evan Hansen is a musical about how far a white boy will go to avoid therapy.” It’s cruel, yes, but also kind of funny, because it captures exactly why this show has stayed in the conversation for so long. It walks that fine line between profound and preposterous.

The thing is, that online tension mirrors what I think many of us feel privately: torn between admiration and discomfort. Dear Evan Hansen makes you feel something, but when the tears dry, you start questioning what exactly you were feeling for. The show wants to comfort you, to tell you that you’re not alone, but it builds that message on a foundation of deception. Evan’s lie isn’t just a plot device; it’s the engine of the story. And while that might make for good drama, it makes for some complicated empathy.

Over the years, I’ve gone back and forth on how I feel about it. The first time I saw it, I was wrecked. I thought it was one of the most powerful pieces of theatre I’d ever experienced. The songs stayed in my head for weeks, and I couldn’t stop talking about how brave it was to put social anxiety and depression center stage. But on later viewings, and especially after watching the film adaptation, I started noticing how carefully the show asked for my sympathy. It wanted me to feel sorry for Evan, not necessarily to question him. That’s where it loses some of its shine.

Still, I can’t deny the craftsmanship. Pasek and Paul’s score is built to hit emotional pressure points. The harmonies swell, the lyrics crack open feelings we don’t often talk about out loud, and the entire show hums with an urgency that’s hard to resist. It’s manipulative, yes, but most great musicals are. The difference is that Dear Evan Hansen tries so hard to be genuine that when the cracks show, they really show.

And maybe that’s why it became such a battleground online. The internet doesn’t know what to do with sincerity anymore. Every time something tries to speak from the heart, social media meets it with irony, sarcasm, and a meme template. So Dear Evan Hansen became easy to mock. The blue polo shirt, the awkward wave, the crying close-ups—they became symbols of a certain kind of emotional overreach. But buried under all that noise is still a show that meant something to millions of people. For every meme, there’s someone who saw themselves in Evan and felt a little less invisible.

That’s what keeps me from writing it off entirely. For all its flaws, and they are many, Dear Evan Hansen was trying to say something good. It wanted to remind people that loneliness doesn’t make you unlovable, that connection is messy but worth it, that even the most misguided acts often come from a place of pain. The problem is that the show’s moral framework never quite catches up with its emotional one. It wants catharsis without full accountability, and that’s where audiences started to turn.

But maybe we’re asking the wrong question when we debate if it’s “good.” Maybe Dear Evan Hansen doesn’t need to be good in the traditional sense to matter. It’s deeply flawed, sometimes cloying, occasionally uncomfortable, but it also cracked something open. It let a generation of young people talk about mental health in a theatre setting that wasn’t built on spectacle or irony. It gave permission for vulnerability, even if it stumbled in how it handled it.

So, is Dear Evan Hansen good? I’m not sure. I think it’s both good and not good, moving and manipulative, honest and dishonest, all at once. It’s a show that mirrors what it’s about: the messiness of being seen, the ugliness of needing love, and the desperate, complicated ways we reach for connection.

And if we’re still arguing about it all these years later, if we’re still quoting it, parodying it, defending it, and dissecting it, maybe that means it did something right after all.