Social Media’s Role in the Tony Award Winning Musical, Dear Evan Hansen
There’s no doubt that social media plays a crucial role in our lives today, therefore it isn’t a surpise that a modern musical like Dear Evan Hansen would use social media to push the plot along.
WARNING, THERE MIGHT BE SOME SPOILERS.
Last week I was fortunate enough to have seen the Dear Evan Hansen National Tour twice in Fort Lauderdale. Not only was the entire production stunning and emotional, but it also really struck a cord in my heart. As a Parkland resident, and a former Douglas student, the heavy topics covered in this musical are real and vulnerable. In addition to the beauty of this production, as a current social media master’s student at the University of Florida, with a background in theatre from my undergrad at Florida State University, I couldn’t help but analyze the use of social media in the production.
When I arrived in the theatre, I heard the sound of social media notifications from the speakers, and I saw projections of social feeds updating on the stage in front me. Everyone around me in the audience was captivated, talking about the noises and the projected screens. By using these sounds and this visual, as an audience, even if we know nothing prior about the musical, we could assume the production is set in modern day (which it is).
Throughout the production the characters talk to each other through their laptops and cell phones. In order to convey this action to the audience, the screens update on the stage, and the actors speak out into the audience, almost like a monologue (as pictured). Even though the actors are not physically typing on their devices, the audience understands the communication is through a digital form. This “monologue” like performance happens each time the actors are communicating through media, and by keeping in uniformity, the audience is immersed in their world and it is easy to understand the digital communication aspect to this production.
At the end of Act I, social media was utilized in a very emotional scene and I don’t believe the scene would be the same without it. The character Evan begins to sing the song “You Will Be Found” as part of the speech he is giving in the show. In this song, Evan’s speech goes “viral” and we see and hear social media updates being projected on the screen (as pictured), and captions being read aloud over the music. The captions being read aloud are like the captions we know and see all too often after a tragedy. Some of these captions include: “Share it with the people you love,” “A beautiful tribute,” “I know someone who really needed to hear this today,” “We are not alone,” “Like,” “Share,” “Repost.” As this is going on, we see the actors reacting to the screens, and more specifically we see Connor’s father breakdown emotionally to the response. The captions are at first read one at a time, and then as the follower count and share view increases, the captions are read aloud overlapping each other. The overwhelming social media aspect to this song really added to the heightened emotion of the scene. This part of the show made me very emotional because it was almost like a flashback of seeing posts after the Douglas tragedy in my hometown.
Dear Evan Hansen’s use of social media throughout the production made me consider the future of musicals. Any show written to be set in our current time would have to include social media and technology because we don’t really move through life without it. A modern day Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t include handwritten letters, it would include text messages and snapchats. Social media is part of the narrative in our world today, whether we want it or not. This production is a catalyst for the future of musicals and art in a digital world.
