DEAR EVAN HANSEN Will Play Final Broadway Performance This Fall

Producer Stacey Mindich announced today that Dear Evan Hansen, the Tony, Grammy and Olivier Award-winning musical, will play its final Broadway performance on Sunday, September 18, 2022, almost six years after it opened at the Music Box Theatre. At closing, it will have played 1,678 regular performances and 21 preview performances, making it one of the 50 longest-running Broadway shows in history.

The musical, which has become part of the cultural zeitgeist and been credited for helping to destigmatize the topic of mental health, leaves a legion of fans and an indelible legacy on Broadway:

After opening on Broadway on December 4, 2016 to rave reviews, Dear Evan Hansen broke multiple box office records at the Music Box Theatre and recouped its investment in less than 9 months.

The show has welcomed more than 1.5 million audience members to the Music Box Theatre, among them celebrities, politicians, and Hollywood, Broadway and music royalty, including President Joe Biden, Beyonce, Barbra Streisand, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg, Carole King, Stephen Sondheim, Zendaya, P!NK, and many more. The show has also welcomed hundreds of educators and mental health professionals.

The Dear Evan Hansen Original Broadway Cast Recording debuted in February 2017 at #8 on the Billboard 200 chart- the highest charting debut position for an original cast album since Camelot in 1961. It went on to win the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, receive Gold Certification Status, and has been streamed an astonishing 899 million times. Music from Dear Evan Hansen has been covered by Katy Perry, Sam Smith, Carrie Underwood, Pentatonix and Dan + Shay, among others.

The casts of Dear Evan Hansen have performed on Today (a performance that won a Daytime Emmy Award), Good Morning America (three times!), The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, The CBS Thanksgiving Day Parade, The View, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and many more national television programs. They even performed for the UN General Assembly in 2019, in support of the United for Global Mental Health's Go Speak Your Mind campaign.

In 2017, Dear Evan Hansen launched a unique partnership with ArtsConnection, NYC's leading arts-in-education organization. Through their Art2Art - Dear Evan Hansen program, hundreds of New York City Public School student artists were able to see the musical for free, participate in a workshop led by representatives from the cast and creative team, and create art inspired by the musical that was then hung backstage in the dressing rooms and hallways of the Music Box Theatre and displayed in a digital gallery.

Inspired by the dialogue in the show, Dear Evan Hansen also launched an essay-writing college scholarship challenge, in partnership with Broadway Education Alliance and Gotham Writers Workshop. Since its launch in 2019, this essay contest has engaged with more than 4500 students who have written essays inspired by the show, with winners receiving scholarship funds to a college of their choice.

Thousands of arm casts have been put on and cut off on the show's 'Evans' - many of those have been auctioned off to raise money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and other causes. To date, the show has raised more than $3,000,000 for Broadway Cares through their twice-yearly fundraising campaigns on Broadway and on tour. (Fun fact: Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin once got into a bidding war over Ben Platt's arm cast!)

Evan's now-iconic blue polo and arm cast are part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

Dear Evan Hansen remains the only Broadway show to have an official Pantone color. "Dear Evan Hansen Blue" (Pantone color 2915C), a bespoke color developed by The Pantone Color Institute, was introduced in 2018.

Dear Evan Hansen is especially proud of their meaningful and long-lasting partnerships with seven mental health-focused not-for-profit organizations, including Child Mind Institute, Crisis Text Line, The Jed Foundation, The Trevor Project, Born This Way Foundation, United For Global Mental Health and The Loveland Foundation. They'd helped amplify these organizations' life-saving resources, and, through the sale of exclusive merchandise and other fundraising efforts, raised more than $100,000 for their partners worldwide.

"From our earliest reading of Dear Evan Hansen in 2011, there have been two great joys that stand out above all the others (and there are many)," says Stacey Mindich, the show's Tony and Olivier Award-winning producer. "One is the sweeping and soaring show itself, which never fails to make me think, cry, laugh and try to be a better mother and person. The other is watching the profound change in the audience from when they walk into the theater to when they leave. I feel grateful to have been part of bringing Pasek, Paul, Levenson and Greif's original musical to life - which has captured the hearts of so many, impacted millions of audience members across the globe, and literally changed lives with its with its breathtaking score and its vital and universal message."

Dear Evan Hansen reopened its Broadway production on December 11, 2021, exactly 21 months after the COVID shutdown began on Broadway, with a celebratory performance that included a welcome from Senator Chuck Schumer (who wore Evan's blue striped polo on stage) and a surprise Flash Mob performance from the Northwell Health Nurse Choir. It currently has three productions running across the globe, with its Broadway, North American Tour and West End companies currently playing in tandem. The West End production concludes its Olivier-Award-winning run on October 22, 2022.

The current company of Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway includes Zachary Noah Piser, Talia Simone Robinson, Jessica Phillips, Christiane Noll, David Jeffery, Manoel Felciano, Jared Goldsmith, and Phoebe Koyabe, and Linedy Genao, Nathan Levy, Mateo Lizcano, Dan Macke, Jane Pfitsch, D'Kaylah Unique Whitley, Asa Somers, Josh Strobl, and Nicole Van Giesen. Following Piser's run as Evan, Stephen Christopher Anthony, who currently plays the lead role on the North American Tour, will join the Broadway company as Evan Hansen for a limited 4-week engagement beginning August 9, 2022. Sam Primack, who made his Broadway debut as an Evan cover, will take over the role from Anthony, beginning in September 6, 2022 through September 18, 2022. On July 19, 2022, "Stranger Things" star Gaten Matarazzo joins the company as 'Jared Kleinman', alongside returning cast members Ann Sanders as 'Cynthia Murphy,' Noah Kieserman as 'Connor Murphy,' and Ciara Alyse Harris as 'Alana Beck.'

Dear Evan Hansen features a book by Tony Award-winner Steven Levenson (Fosse/Verdon), a score by Grammy®, Tony® and Academy Award® winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land, The Greatest Showman), and direction by four-time Tony Award nominee Michael Greif (Rent, Next to Normal). The show features choreography by Danny Mefford, scenic design by David Korins, projection design by Peter Nigrini, costume design by Emily Rebholz, lighting design by Japhy Weideman, sound design by Nevin Steinberg, and hair design by David Brian Brown; Jennifer Lord is the Natural Hair Consultant. Music supervision, orchestrations and additional arrangements are by Alex Lacamoire. Ben Cohn is the Associate Music Supervisor. U.S. Casting by Tara Rubin Casting/Kevin Metzger-Timson. Vocal arrangements and additional arrangements are by Justin Paul. Danny Sharron is Senior Associate Director, Trey Ellett and Candis C. Jones are Associate Directors and Miranda Cornell is Assistant Director. Mark Myars is Senior Associate Choreographer and Jennifer Rias is Associate Choreographer. Judith Schoenfeld is the Production Supervisor. General Management by 101 Productions, Ltd.