Of the 28 shows playing on New York City’s Broadway, the musical “Dear Evan Hansen,” probably gets the most people crying. The show centers on a lonely teenager, Evan Hansen, and his schoolmates. They find communicating with each other to be difficult -- even with tools such as Facebook. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood praised the show and the young actor who plays Evan, Ben Platt. Isherwood wrote that Blatt’s eyes “blink in continual embarrassment” whenever “he has to interact socially, which isn’t often.” But Isherwood said that, below all the insecurity, Platt shows the character’s strong desire to be liked -- or even just to be noticed. The “Dear Evan Hansen” story centers on what happens when a teen-ager at Hansen’s school kills himself. Before the tragedy, Evan had been writing “Dear Evan Hansen” letters to himself at the suggestion of a doctor. The doctor wanted Evan to start out each day by saying something positive about himself. But one of Evan’s letters was taken by the boy who killed himself. The boy’s parents found it in his clothing. They thought their son had written the letter to Evan. They believed Evan was a friend they did not know their son had. They reached out to Evan. But, Evan did not admit to them that he and their son were not really friends. Evan later “trended” on Facebook after he gave a speech urging people not to let his so-called “friend’s” brief life go unnoticed.
