‘La La Land’ composers win more acclaim with Broadway musical

Benj Pasek (left) and Justin Paul (right), who recently won the best song Golden Globe with Justin Hurwitz (middle) for “City of Stars” from “La La Land,” are earning acclaim for their hit Broadway musical, “Dear Evan Hansen.” —PHOTO COURTESY OF HFPA

LOS ANGELES—Nothing prepared us for “Dear Evan Hansen” which packed such an emotional wallop. With gut-wrenching songs by “La La Land” lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the musical about an anxiety-ridden high school student is one of the most powerful experiences we’ve had on Broadway.

Winning acclaim and playing to sold-out audiences every night, “Dear Evan Hansen” perfectly captures the spirit—and dangers—of this era of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The titular character, brilliantly played by Ben Platt, goes from a misfit to a young hero because of a misplaced letter and the power of social media to instantly transform anyone into a celebrity or a hero.

It doesn’t sound like a formula for the highest-grossing new Broadway musical but that’s what “Dear Evan Hansen” has become. It may sound like overnight success for Pasek and Paul, who won the Golden Globe best song award with Justin Hurwitz (who composed the music) for “City of Stars”—that instantly hummable ditty which also got them nominated for the coming Oscars.

But “Dear Evan Hansen” took the duo eight years to develop, with countless rewrites and the tremendous help of Steven Levenson, who wrote the book, director Michael Greif and producer Stacey Mindich.

According to Pasek, the idea for the musical sprang from his own high school days when an outcast student suddenly died and became a big story. At the University of Michigan where they met and became pals, Pasek and Paul talked about this incident and 9/11 (which happened when they were in high school) which seemed to show people’s “weird fascination” with tragedy.

But before this musical, which is expected to be one of the leading contenders in the Tony Awards come June, opened on Broadway, Pasek and Paul already made a splash with “Dogfight” and “A Christmas Story: The Musical.”

And even before “La La Land” catapulted them into the awards season circuit, Fox already tapped the pair to score “The Greatest Showman,” a musical starring Hugh Jackman as PT Barnum. We were recently on the New York set of this movie opening on Christmas day this year. We can only say for now that the two, who have remained friends from their college days, are bound for more critical recognition.

Oh, did we say Disney also hired these guys who are in their early 30s to score the studio’s live-action reboot of “Snow White”?

At the end of “Dear Evan Hansen,” we joined the audience at the Music Box Theatre in a vigorous standing ovation for this very moving musical.

We interviewed Pasek and Paul, and the cast who emerged one by one after changing into their own clothes and then sat on stage, including Platt, Laura Dreyfuss, Rachel Bay Jones, Jennifer Laura Thompson, Mike Faist, Michael Park, Will Roland and Kristolyn Lloyd. All excellent, we have to stress.

Like everyone else who has seen the show, we marveled at how Platt does it—sing emotionally grueling and complex songs—night after night.

Excerpts from our talk:

Your character’s neuroses are incredible. How cathartic is this for you?

Platt:  The nice thing about having developed “Dear Evan Hansen” for almost three years is that—I can only speak for myself—I have been able to get past the raw emotional part of myself that is involved in it. There are nights when it shows up.

But because I have lived with the character for so long, it’s much more about empathy for him than it is putting myself through pain every night.

We have all gone through things over the last three years where we have bled our hearts in the rehearsal studio or the development of the piece because we all love it so much.  But now, we have arrived at a point where we know what the show is and we can keep it hopefully separate.

How did you react when you heard Platt sing the pieces for the first time?

Paul: Hearing these actors sing these songs for the first time was unbelievable for us. But what was so amazing is that Ben (Platt), Rachel Bay Jones (who plays Heidi), and two other cast members, Jen (Laura Thompson), who plays Cynthia, and Michael Park, who plays Larry, have been a part of the show since the very first reading.

Pasek: Everything that we have done has been tailored to their (actors’) voices, the way that they communicate. It’s also so helpful as a writer to know who you are writing for because we can hear their voices in our heads when we are writing. That really helps to clarify, adds specificity and having a sense of a character.

Can you talk about how you developed the material?

Pasek:  Once we met Steven Levenson, the book writer, we worked for a really long time on what the story would be. So it was the three of us in a room, coming up with who are these characters, what is the plot here. It was really a process where we were trying to work together.

Paul: Steven’s script was so real and contemporary. You saw that in the show. We were honestly a little afraid that we might ruin that with songs. We felt our job was to make sure that you never felt like you were taken out of the moment when the songs began.

Pasek: And trying to make it so there’s a blurred line between when songs begin and when dialogue ends. It feels like it’s a really organic extension of what someone would really be thinking, feeling and saying.

How do you guys actually work together?

Paul: When we are sitting down, I am usually on the piano and he is on the computer … it is a very collaborative process.

Pasek: We begin the process together. We separate and we work on our individual elements. He is more music and I am more lyrics. Then we end up bringing it together and really working in tandem.

This show is an examination of the power of social media. What social media reaction have you gotten?

Jones: It’s pretty enormous. That coming together over art is one of the positive things that people do with social media.

Because this show is about that, the impact almost doubled because people feel inspired to know and realize that they have the ability to affect the world in whichever way that they want to. Social media has given them that opportunity.

Roland: I was saying about the album, as soon as the album came out and you add that with the hashtag “you will be found,” it’s going to be like that “Hamilton” thing where everyone is going to know every single word. So I can’t screw up any of mine. Social media is really helping with all of that.

E-mail the columnist at [email protected]. Follow him at https://twitter.com/nepalesruben.