“Maybe it will. This way all feel like a distant memory”. These words from Dear Evan Hansen encapsulate the exact feeling I get when I think about the musical. I remember the day I fell in love with the music from the show. It came to me at the perfect time in my life, though at the time things were far from perfect.
I sat there in my 9th grade health class petrified. I was trembling in my seat after watching a video about a young girl who seemingly had a heart attack for no reason. My teacher’s plan to educate us on cardiac arrest and CPR wasn’t exactly a soothing one. This would come to be the video that scarred me for life. This was the day I experienced my first ever panic attack. Just like the girl in the video, I thought I was dying too.
Sure, I always had a history with anxiety. The kind of anxiety that kept my mind racing an extra hour while I was trying to go to sleep. Or the kind that led to my selective mutism. Or the kind of anxiety that triggered my OCD, always making sure I was clean or that I had absolutely no hair on my legs. But up until my sophomore year of high school, I had never experienced the kind of anxiety that made my hands so sweaty I had to wipe them on my pants, made me unable to catch my breath, made my heart race so fast I thought I was dying.
After that moment in health class I began to have severe panic attacks every single day. Sometimes they’d last for hours. They would seemingly come out of nowhere. In a second my heart could be racing rapidly. It’s almost like I was scared for no reason. My fight or flight response had been permanently damaged. This is what I would come to know as “panic disorder”.
At first I was totally against taking medication. I was worried it would make me act differently, but soon my panic attacks became too difficult to handle. I can recall staying up all night crying, pacing around the room, begging my dad for medication just to make the feeling go away. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Also, around this time my interest in musical theatre began to take off. Creating a show fascinated me, putting together scenes, staging a show, designing sets. Seeing and listening to a musical gave me more than a temporary feeling. It was not just a distraction for me, it was an escapism. I could live vicariously through the worlds that people had created.
I first heard of Dear Evan Hansen when it won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2017, so I decided that this one was next on my “to listen” list. I remember the exact day. I had gotten home from school and pulled the soundtrack up on my laptop. I had gotten through my usual routine of working out, showering, doing homework, and cleaning. The moment I turned on the opening number, “Anybody Have A Map” I was transported.
“Does anybody have a map? Anybody maybe happen to know how the hell to do this? I don't know if you can tell. But this is me just pretending to know”. In the show, the mother’s sing this song in reference to their children. They don’t exactly know how to deal with their kids' mental illness, but they’re trying their best. Not only did these lyrics reflect how my father felt during this time, but also how I felt. I had not yet learned how to manage my anxiety. There is not exactly a clear pathway on how to deal with the complex emotions that come along with anxiety, but I began putting in the effort through therapy.
Hearing the words, “you are not alone” made me feel important. I immediately resonated with the main character Evan because we both struggled with social anxiety and anxiety attacks. For the first time I felt seen. I felt heard. I wasn’t alone.
Every time I heard the song, “To Break In A Glove” my dad came to mind because he loves baseball. The song is sort of about baseball, but it’s more than that. It’s a metaphor for being patient and putting in the hard work to overcome a hardship. And it displays the connection Evan makes with a father figure. This song meant a lot to me because my dad and I have always been close and he’s my biggest supporter in life. He is the only reason why I have been able to work through my anxiety. Although he didn’t always know how to deal with my anxiety, he was always there. “And that’s enough”.
I booked tickets to see the show one last time. Again, with my father. The cast had changed, but The Music Box Theatre had stayed exactly the same. I sat down in the velvety red seat once more. I squeezed my father’s hand when “To Break In A Glove” was performed and I desperately tried to take in every moment. “All we see is sky for forever” and the show ends.
Meeting Sky Lakota-Lynch who played Jared Kleinman after I first saw the show.
July 2018: After months of begging my father to take me to see the show in New York City, he bought me tickets for my birthday. I was approaching my junior year of high school, just like the characters in the musical. I took my seat in The Music Box Theatre and I was mesmerized by what I saw. Projections filled the stage, flashing across the screens of uplifting messages. The characters had come to life right in front of me. A blinding blue light. The music flowed effortlessly through the show. I even got to meet the cast members after the show. This is a memory I will keep with me “for forever”.
June 2022: The show announces its closing date. I was shocked as I sat in my sister’s Los Angeles apartment, crying. I couldn’t believe what had consumed me for years was finally coming to an end. It felt too soon. But now I was at an entirely different place in my life, this time approaching my junior year of college. Of course my anxiety didn’t “disappear”, but for the most part my panic attacks had stopped. I had finally found a medication that worked for me. I had bonded with my therapist and found ways to cope with my anxiety. Although I’ll never be the same as I once was, I have found a sense of peace, something that Evan is just beginning to experience by the end of the story. In a way, finding out Dear Evan Hansen was closing was a full circle moment for me.
Seeing Dear Evan Hansen with the closing cast.
I hope that one day Dear Evan Hansen comes back to Broadway. I also hope that one day I can create something that matters to someone as much as Dear Evan Hansen has mattered to me. I hope people will be able to come together and connect over something I have created. I want to give others a sense of comfort and happiness too. Although Dear Evan Hansen is no longer on Broadway, I will always have the memories the show gave me that I can look back on. Since I started my mental health journey around the same time as discovering the show, these memories will allow me to remember how far I’ve come. Whenever I’m having a bad day, I still find myself pulling out the script or the soundtrack as a reminder that things get better.
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