“Dear Evan Hansen,” now playing through March 22 at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora, surprised me.
I knew little about this six-time Tony Award-winning musical except that it spotlights teenage cyberbullying, which thankfully was not around when I was coming of age.
So I didn’t expect to be so drawn in. But because I have kids and grandkids all navigating the relentless pressures of social media, the story resonated in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
Still, that was nothing compared to how the musical impacted Tessa Murphy Burke, who drove an hour from her home in Gurnee to see it in late February at the downtown Aurora theater.
While the mother of two was impressed by the Paramount Theatre’s “top notch” performance, it was not the first time she’s seen the show. Burke has been in multiple audiences of its national tour for a compelling reason. Not only is she a theater lover, she’s especially drawn to “Dear Evan Hansen” because, like one of the main characters in the show, Connor Murphy, her older brother, named Conor Murphy, took his own life.
“It was so emotional, just to be in the same room where his name was spoken in a way so similar to the way we lost our own Conor Murphy,” Burke said of that first time six years ago when the national tour was in Chicago – on what would have been her brother’s 40th birthday.
Burke described that experience as “healing” because it helped process the “complicated feelings” she went through after her family lost Conor. Although she and her brother were close, she understands the guilt and anger the character of Zoie, who had a strained relationship with her brother, goes through in the musical.
“I knew he was struggling but did not know it was that bad. But by the time we tried to get him help, it was just a little too late,” Burke said of her athletic, artistic and musical brother who, also unlike the fictional Connor character, was “Mr. Popular” on campus.
“Honestly, it scares me every day,” she added, referring to the experience of losing her sibling, as well as her own “anxiety disorder that I was not able to name until I was an adult.”
And Burke is “trying to figure it out” for the sake of her children, ages 15 and 13. Which takes us to another reason “Dear Evan Hansen” is so powerful.
The musical “brings the conversation of depression and suicide out of the darkness,” insisted Burke, who is an active member of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, where she serves as co-captain of its AFSP Marathon Team. And that makes it an especially important production to bring teenagers to see.
“This show is a conversation starter” that can get parents and children talking about their feelings about social media, about school culture, about what they are experiencing and how it relates to the characters in the musical, Burke told me.
As her own son, also a theater buff, “went from a preteen to a teen,” she noted, “it meant guiding him through conversations with greater depth” about “what it means to take care of your mental health.”
Experts tell us young people are struggling with these issues more than ever, yet have also become increasingly aware of them.
The musical “provides a space for some taboo topics to be discussed,” which is so important in removing the stigmas around mental health, said 16-year-old Batavia High School student Ivy Punsalan.
“In today’s day and age,” she added, “the arts are so critical to culture and society and are a place for us to learn important life lessons and grow.”
Josie Guzman, an eighth-grader at West Aurora School District’s Washington Middle School, was so impacted by “Dear Evan Hansen” she made it the focus of her Confirmation-requirement project at New England Congregational Church in Aurora. Not only did she sing the show’s anthem, “You Will Be Found,” at a Sunday service, the aspiring actor went on to explain its message “about feeling seen, heard and supported.”
“It is such a meaningful, complex musical,” with so many scenes centered on inclusion and all the things people face during their teenage years, said Josie, who saw the show on opening night at the Paramount and plans to return.
“Bullying is a big thing in middle school,” she said, which means not only coping with it yourself but being there for friends when they go through it.
“Things can get bad, rumors can spread, even by friends,” Josie told me, adding that this musical goes to the heart of rumor culture and social media by showing how small things can spiral – how good kids, even friends, can amplify harm, more out of loneliness than villainy.
Nick Mensik, a 17-year-old Oswego East High School student who, like Josie and Ivy, is taking classes at the Paramount School of the Arts in Aurora, first saw “Dear Evan Hansen” on national tour when he was a middle-schooler.
“It was during the pandemic and a lot of kids, including me, struggled with their mental health,” he said. “So I related to the songs from the musical on certain levels since I had anxiety and some depression.”
While Nick is no longer the timid, uncertain kid from a few years ago, the Paramount production he saw on opening night made a powerful impression, not so much because the musical mirrors his life these days but because it helps him more fully understand it.
For example, even though he’s heard “You Will Be Found” countless times, “it honestly made my jaw drop … this felt like I was hearing it for the first time.”
Which is yet another reason Nick declared he’d “1,000% recommend young people see the show.” As would Ivy, who is convinced that kids aren’t always aware of their digital footprint or how “extraordinarily dangerous” social media can be.
All three teens I spoke with know more than anyone how their generation is still learning how to build real connections with others, and as Nick pointed out, “that’s becoming harder with screens” in their hands.
Tessa Burke, who admits “social media alone is very scary to me,” agrees, adding that the world kids have to navigate today is “so much more complex than when we were there.”
Still, “there’s definitely been progress” since her family’s tragic loss, she noted. And this show — including what she considers the most powerful song of the musical – is a testament to that fact: “Even when the dark comes crashing through, when you need a friend to carry you … You Will Be Found.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com
