Dear Evan Hansen - Noel Coward

Interesting read...In many ways spot on, and makes similar claims to what some of us have been saying in fragments:

ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/dear-evan-hansen-a-tasteless-exercise-in-forgiving-white-male-mediocrity/

I don't know this musical at all, but viserys, I would stick with 13 Reasons Why. Some of the middle episodes drag terribly but the final three or four are good. I have to say though, that all Netflix Original series are generally a let-down. They get overhyped to the extreme and they're all just 'OK.'

Isn't all teen drama self indulgent, shallow and selfish? When you're a teenager that feeling of being misunderstood and wanting to be your own person etc might only last for a nano second, but is driven by chemicals in your brain above all else as much as the human condition or your relationship with your peers. To berate DEH for being a 'middle class white boy' version of this misses the point. We know what it is before we go in, so surely that's our choice to make; not a stick to beat it with when it is found to be lacking.

If an audience finds it in themself to 'forgive' Evan along the way it's up to them, just as much as I'm entitled to still think he's a whiny dickhead. I think anyone expecting more than a musical episode of 'Dawsons Creek' should do a bit more research before visiting! 😂

So - I'm slightly unsure here. What's the rights issue surrounding Next to Normal?

And thanks for the video, I had forgotten how good half of the score for N2N is!

Now... I know you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet (except off-of TheatreBoard of course...)

Listening to DEH videos on YouTube and on the Tony performance someone commented how cute it was that Ben Platt lifts his leg and arms up in sync to be quirky with his character. Someone then commented to say he does that as it helps him belt the high notes due to a trapped nerve.

Even as I type I can see most of you rolling your eyes... but surely this is too random to be made up!?

It definitely was mentioned as something that he does in an article about him before the Tonys though.  Let me see if I can find it.

Edit: Here's the article in question, it's about halfway down:

www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/theater/how-ben-platt-beame-the-toast-of-broadway-dear-evan-hansen-tony-awards.html

"Ms. Caplan massaged the muscles around his larynx and had him put peppermint oil in his nose. “We need to Roto-Rooter out his sinuses,” she said. They went through a series of exercises that gradually grew more intense, his range expanding and volume rising. “Use the knees,” she said. “Let the hip flexors help you.” As he started to belt more, he lifted one leg and bent at the knee, to relieve pressure on the vagus nerve and, as Ms. Caplan described it, “keep the neck and upper body from straining and separating.”

“We’re putting notes into his body in a positive, non-stressed way,” she said. “So then when he’s onstage in those unhealthy positions, he’ll be able to access them.”

It’s a gesture you see him repeat in the show, most notably in the second-act aria, “Words Fail,” in which he confesses to the Murphys that everything he’s told them is a lie. He’s standing before them, hunched and sobbing. It seems an impossible posture from which to project a song, but he’s incorporated the leg-lifting into his character so that it reads to the audience like a bodily expression of intolerable emotion. “There are all these other little places where I lean back and fill my diaphragm, and then go back into it,” he said. “Or, because I’m crying so hard, spaces where I know I can swallow the mucus that’s coming down. We put all these little things in place, and now they’re just there, they’re second nature, so I can just let it fly.”"

Consider my words eaten! Bloody Americans and their expressive behaviours... *runs off to use my hip flexors to extend my range*

This is utterly brilliant, consider my day officially made

Nobody mentioned this bit from the latest round of Baz updates in the Daily Fail:

Early efforts are being made to bring Tony award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen to London, but it will probably go outside the West End first, then transfer. It’s a stunning piece of work, but a major factor in its success is the central performance by Ben Platt (who also won a Tony). He is a rare sensation.

Outside the West End doesn't mean outside London. It means not the West End. Many theatres are not the West End.