The “Dear Evan Hansen” tour cast reflects on the final tour of the “Best Musical” winner

Touring the U.S. for the last time after the show’s seven year run on Broadway and traveling internationally, “Dear Evan Hansen” and the tour’s final cast are reflecting on what the show meant to them and the Broadway community that embraced the show since its opening night in 2016. 

The Morris Performing Arts Center in South Bend will experience the Tony Award-winning “Best Musical” from April 25-30. 

Pablo Lauceria is a recent Northwestern graduate who plays Evan’s unlikely friend, Jared Kleinman, in “Dear Evan Hansen.” Jeffrey Cornelius plays the alternate titular role of Evan Hansen on tour as well as being an understudy for the role of Jared Kleinman. Both said they are honored to be the final performers in these roles, saying that this being the final tour created an atmosphere of love, respect and admiration for the show and the company. 

Lauceria said he remembered seeing a Ben Platt performing “Waving Through a Window” on Late Night with Seth Meyers in late 2016, being floored by Platt’s performance and confirming to him in the first year in college as a musical theater student that this was the music he wanted to perform, forming a personal connection with the show early on. 

Cornelius remembers listening to the music in one of his freshman year high school classes, relating to the music and the character of Evan, saying he wanted to be in “Dear Evan Hansen” one day. Two years later, he is now playing Evan, a full circle moment for him. 

“Evan and I are very similar people minus the [lying,]” Cornelius said. “But I think just dealing with anxiety and the stresses of the modern world, I think that I relate to Evan a lot in that way.” 

For Lauceria, he relates to Jared by always being the person who enjoys joking around and being the comic relief, yet also seeing the character’s three-dimensional personality, using humor to cope with his insecurities. Lauceria said that the show makes it a point to show that Jared is a socially inept high schooler with insecurities like any other real high schooler, using humor to play it off. 

Cornelius said that the storytelling within the show and the characters is inherently Gen Z, using technology and language that a younger audience would be able to relate to, along with the content the characters talk about. 

Lauceria said that is why generally the Gen Z audience are the ones coming up to stage doors, sometimes in tears, to tell them how important the show is to them. 

“This is the first mainstream Broadway show that embraced the aspects of how technology does affect the younger generation of folks in a very real and not pandering way,” Lauceria said. “I think people really resonate with that. I think people see the positives and the negatives of social media that's used in the show and the anxieties that are also very often a byproduct of these newer technologies and social media and the pressures of having to be on all the time, having to feel like every social interaction has to be perfect. It's a very real show for these folks.” 

Cornelius believes the show is not dated even after seven years because of this connection to the audience, with sniffles and laughs in all the same places that audiences experienced them at the Music Box Theater in 2016. 

Lauceria has started releasing his own original music on his social media, starting with pulling inspirations from Broadway shows and even “Dear Evan Hansen.” He began playing through the score of the show, and putting different aspects of it into his own music, creating a sound that inherently pulls from the work he does now. 

“Musical theater has been a big part of my life since the beginning,” Lauceria said. “That is something that I feel as though my content and my music actually resonates with. A lot of musical theater people often follow me that don't even know that I have ties to a lot of musical theater, but they relate to my music and connect with it because of that kind of inherent connection of storytelling through song and the dynamic musical vocabulary of Broadway shows that are different from mainstream pop.” 

Cornelius said the main takeaway of the show is that no one is alone even when it feels like you are. He said there is an outsider in all of us and part of every person that wants to try harder and be better, the show depicting that part of human nature. 

Lauceria said the main moment of the show where the takeaway is not intangibly spoken is “You Will Be Found,” where the characters say that things will get better and that mistakes are likely a byproduct of someone trying their best. 

“I think that this show is always catering to that insecure voice in everybody's head, where everybody's takeaway can be that if you do try and if you trust yourself and have hope for a better future, things can get better in whatever aspects that you are insecure about at that moment…,” Lauceria said. “I think that is very beautiful.”

Cornelius said that the legacy of this show is that it will continue to be talked about by the audience that loves it and who will sing the music after its run, seeing the purpose and main themes of the show.  

“I think the music will definitely live on just as the importance of taking care of yourself and looking out for others, and being there for the people that need you,” Cornelius said.