by It’s already been a tough morning for actor Beau Woodbridge. He had several breakdowns. Or rather, the same thing on repeat.
Woodbridge is in the middle of rehearsals for the Australian premiere of Dear Evan Hansen, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s hit Broadway musical, a co-production of the Sydney Theater Company and the Michael Cassel Group, opening at the Roslyn Packer this month ahead of its Melbourne seasons Theater opens in Sydney. Canberra and Adelaide. He plays the eponymous lead: an anxious teenager who, due to a mix-up and a misunderstanding – and a not-so-small white lie – is given the hero mantle by his high school classmates following the suicide of another student, Connor. who they believe was Evan’s friend.
Today, Woodbridge (son of doubles tennis champion Todd Woodbridge) has been working on one of Evan’s big numbers, “Words Fail,” in which he confesses everything to Connor’s shocked and disbelieving family. If you know the series or have seen the 2021 film version, you will remember this moment. It’s a difficult question.
Just before this interview, Woodbridge was playing and emoting at an empty dinner table while the rest of the cast had the morning off. “It’s a big song,” he says. “What I really love about Dear Evan Hansen is that every song has a big story and is really technically challenging. So with songs like Words Fail, I know I have to adjust my tempo. There are about 14 or 15 songs in the show and I perform 11 or 12 of them. It’s a pretty heavy burden.”
Woodbridge, who landed the role during his senior year at the Royal Academy of Music in London, also feels the weight of expectations. The title role in Dear Evan Hansen is synonymous in the minds of his fans with the performance of Ben Platt, who won a Tony in 2017 for his performance on Broadway and starred in the film – to the chagrin of some who thought that Platt (then 27 years old old) was too old to play a teenager He caught a social media post.
At 22, the mild-mannered Woodbridge could be described as a “teenage neighbor.”
“I was lucky enough to actually see the original production on Broadway when I was quite young, about 14, and I saw Ben as Evan,” he says. “I think there are definitely parts of his Evan that stick with me, but I don’t think about those things too much. I enjoy approaching the text from the text [and] from the score, and I really honor that. I definitely have my own version of Evan and my own idea of the social anxiety he experiences.”
Is this something from Woodbridge’s imagination? “I myself have anxiety in certain areas, and I definitely use that as a basis for some of my decisions,” he says. “For me, it’s something that manifests itself more physically, you know? It kind of hits me in the stomach. So this is something I played with to gather and release the tension in your stomach.”
Part of Evan’s fears may be the result of his hyperattention, Woodbridge says. “Dean [Bryant, director] and I further developed his idea that Evan is not the type of socially anxious person who wants to avoid people and problems. Instead, we see him as hyper-aware and really good at reading situations. He is simply unable to interact with them. [What] I really want to show that longing for connection in my Evan.”
Bryant says the performance of a new Australian production of a popular musical doesn’t faze him; He did the same for Fun Home in 2021. “That show was also popular, maybe not as blockbuster as Dear Evan Hansen, but still so many people had seen it on Broadway or in London.” I take the same approach that I would with any classic or even new work : What does it feel like the writers were going for? What does it feel like when it says about mental health in 2024 and the way teenagers and parents talk in 2024 while using the scripted text that is given to you?”
In his production “the [theatre] The space feels like Evan’s mind compressing it, using screens sparingly and flooding the characters, much like we experience on social media [and the internet]“, he says.
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Actress Natalie O’Donnell, who plays Connor’s mother Cynthia, has two teenagers of her own and says she was particularly impressed by the authenticity of Bryant’s production. “What I think this show captures beautifully is the way the teenagers interact with each other and how conversations between parents and teenagers take place in a completely different world. That really resonated with me, and I don’t say that lightly because as a mother, I see my children doing the same thing.”
Woodbridge saw the Broadway production with his own mother. “I remember at the end we both turned to each other and both burst into tears. You come home wanting to talk to them, just to let them know you appreciate them being there. You’ve seen these characters move through all these moral and ethical gray areas, and it’s so real, just like the world we live in every day. It’s really moving to see a musical that isn’t all glitz and glamour.”
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Dear Evan Hansen is at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney from October 12; Arts Center Melbourne from December 14; Canberra Theater Center from February 27, 2025; and Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide, from April 3
