>> HASKINS: Coming up on...
>> PASEK: ♪ I try to speak,
but nobody can hear ♪
♪ So I wait around for an answer
to appear ♪
♪ While I'm watch, watch,
watching people pass ♪
♪ Waving through a window ♪
♪ Can anybody see? ♪
♪ Is anybody waving
back at me? ♪
>> HASKINS: "Theater Talk" is
made possible in part by...
♪♪
[ "Sincerely Me" plays ]
From New York City,
this is "Theater Talk."
I'm Susan Haskins.
This is Jesse Green,
our substitute co-host,
and this is "Sincerely Me"
from "Dear Evan Hansen," one
of the big hits of the Broadway
season, and we are so pleased
to have with us tonight
"Dear Evan Hansen's"
composer/lyricists, Benj Pasek,
Justin Paul...
[ Piano chord plays ]
>> GREEN: And the bookwriter
for the show,
Steven Levenson.
>> HASKINS: Welcome, gentlemen.
Thank you so much for gathering
around our "Theater Talk" piano.
>> PASEK: Thank you for having
us.
Thrilled to be here.
>> GREEN: Would you like
a mai tai?
>> PAUL: Yeah, exactly.
[ Up-tempo piano notes play ]
>> GREEN: We ought to begin
by talking about what
the show is.
There's so many ways in which
"Dear Evan Hansen" is unusual,
and I think it begins with
the kernel of the idea.
Steven, why don't you tell us
what that kernel is and where it
came from, which I think might
involve one of the others?
>> LEVENSON: Sure.
Well, "Dear Evan Hansen" is
about a high school senior
named Evan Hansen.
>> GREEN: Huh.
>> LEVENSON: [ Chuckles ]
Interestingly enough, who
suffers from really debilitating
social anxiety, and he is
someone that feels completely
isolated in the world,
completely alone, and,
essentially, through a series
of misunderstandings and
inadvertent accidents, he ends
up -- he ends up seeming to have
been best friends with a fellow
classmate who has killed
himself, and through this
mistaken identity, he forms
a connection with this boy's
family, and the family forms
a connection with him, and
a sort of strange healing
process begins for all involved.
>> GREEN: So it's
autobiographical?
>> LEVENSON: Exactly. Yes.
>> GREEN: Well, it is partly
autobiographical in one small
way.
>> LEVENSON: Yes.
>> GREEN: Want to tell us about
that?
>> PASEK: Yeah, well, it was
based on, very loosely, on
an incident that happened
in my high school of observing
that a kid who I didn't really
know very well, and many of my
classmates didn't know very
well, passed away, and once he
passed away, he became
everyone's best friend after
his death, and people began
to use his death as a means
of being seen and being heard
and being noticed in a way,
and I sort of did it, too,
and I became sort of obsessed
with this kid who I didn't
really know, but people would
also use his death as
the subject of their college
essays in these really sort of
messed-up ways, and when Justin
and I met, and we went to
college together, we would also
talk about this idea and that
this phenomenon wasn't just with
this singular kid who had died,
but also the way that 9/11
affected our generation,
the way that we glum on
to a tragedy that might not
necessarily belong to us,
but that we want to insert
ourselves into a tragedy
that we don't own and feel
a part of something and feel
a part of a community because
it's a reason to connect with
other people.
>> HASKINS: And your
protagonist, so brilliantly
played by Ben Platt, is a guy
who has very little connection
with anybody at the beginning
of our show, so it's a study
of that, as well --
adolescent isolation.
>> PASEK: Yeah, I think human
isolation.
>> HASKINS: Yeah.
>> GREEN: Social media is
obviously a key theme.
When did that part of the story
come into play and how did you
decide to take this kernel
of an idea and build it into,
of all things, a Broadway
musical?
I mean, there are a lot of
things you might think you might
make out of this --
an after-school special,
or a serious play with no music.
I'm glad you did it,
but whose crazy notion was that?
>> PAUL: You know, we had
talked -- As Benj was saying,
we had talked in college
about this idea, and this was
pre-social media, so this was
just seeing how people in our
generation and generations above
us and since, below us, have
sort of, just even in their
small communities, tried to
become part of a tragedy,
become part of something.
As he said, people would write
their college essays about how
9/11 changed their lives or
someone's death changed their
life.
This was sort of the pre
the existence of the celebrity
death online and the responses
to that.
"I have my Robin Williams
story," or I have my --
you know, fill in the blank.
Everyone's saying their
connection to it, and we always
found it fascinating, and we
always wanted to just try to
write a musical of it because
that's what we do, so I think we
never thought about is this
a good musical or not?
It was a story that was
compelling to us, and so we
thought we wanted to try to
write a musical of it.
Our producer on the show,
Stacey Mindich, came to Benj
and I now probably -- I don't
know how many years ago.
Eight years ago or something,
seven years ago? -- and sat
and said, "What's the idea
that you guys have always had
that you'd like to make
a musical of that you think
no one would want to do?"
And we said, "Well, we
definitely have one of those."
>> GREEN: That's good
producing.
>> LEVENSON: Yeah.
>> PAUL: Absolutely.
And so we said, "Well, here's
this thing we've been kicking
around," and I know she has
since said, in her mind she
thought, "Well, I'm really
devoted to these guys, and
I want to do something that they
want to do.
I have no idea how to make that
musical, but that's what
they're passionate about, and
so I'm going to support it,"
and so she supported it.
She helped us find Steven,
and --
>> HASKINS: Did you know Steven
before?
>> PAUL: We didn't know Steven.
We knew sort of of his work,
and we really sort of dove
into it at that time and then
got to meet with him, and we hit
it off initially, and then
we sat and talked for a long
time about -- We had a bunch
of themes that we wanted to
write about, so we wanted to
write about our generation's
response to tragedy, we wanted
to write about the world's
response to tragedy or why
we lie about certain things --
our identity online,
our identity to other people.
>> HASKINS: And you have
the grieving mothers.
I mean, you have the whole
reaction of different people
in generations to grief.
>> PASEK: Yeah.
>> PAUL: Yeah.
And we sort of said we wanted to
write a show about all of those
things, and we had this sort
of kernel of a story, and Steven
said, "Okay, I am processing
all that.
Now let's figure out what is
the story of this show, 'cause
we can't just write themes."
>> LEVENSON: And I think the way
that we entered into the story
was really figuring out --
We knew we wanted to write
something about connection
and disconnection, and it felt
like -- I remember asking
ourselves, "Well, who's
a character that is incapable
of connecting?
What would that person be?
And that should be the center
of the thing."
>> GREEN: Well, that's a good
moment to talk about one of
the songs in the show that we're
going to hear.
>> HASKINS: Cue the song. Yeah.
>> GREEN: [ Laughs ]
This is a song that's early
in the show.
>> PAUL: Our bookwriter is
always setting up the song.
>> LEVENSON: Yeah, exactly.
>> GREEN: This is early in
the show, and not necessarily
the place where you would always
expect this kind of number.
I want to talk about that.
But first let's hear a bit
from...
>> HASKINS: "Waving Through
a Window," which is sort of this
isolated character setting up
his reality.
>> GREEN: This is a solo
for Evan Hansen about how far
into the show, would you say?
>> PAUL: Within the first
six minutes or so.
>> LEVENSON: It's very soon.
>> GREEN: So it's in the place
where you would expect to be
introduced to the main character
in a musical way.
>> PAUL: Right.
>> GREEN: Perhaps not so angsty.
[ Laughter ]
>> PASEK: Yeah, well, it's in
a spot that I think would be
traditionally the "I Want" Song,
but, really, you know, he's
wanting someone to wave back
at him, he's wanting
a connection with another
human being.
>> HASKINS: Wonderful, so...
[ "Waving Through a Window"
plays ]
>> PASEK: ♪ I've learned to slam
on the brake ♪
♪ Before I even turn the key ♪
♪ Before I make the mistake ♪
♪ Before I lead with the worst
of me ♪
♪ Give them no reason to stare ♪
♪ No slipping up if you slip
away ♪
♪ So I got nothing to share ♪
♪ No, I got nothing to say ♪
♪ Step out, step out of
the Sun ♪
♪ If you keep getting burned ♪
♪ Step out, step out of
the Sun ♪
♪ Because you've learned ♪
♪ Because you've learned ♪
♪ On the outside,
always looking in ♪
♪ Will I ever be more
than I've always been? ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm tap, tap, tapping
on the glass ♪
♪ I'm waving through a window ♪
♪ I ♪
♪ I try to speak,
but nobody can hear ♪
♪ So I wait around for an answer
to appear ♪
♪ While I'm watch, watch,
watching people pass ♪
♪ I'm waving through a window ♪
♪ Ohhh ♪
♪ Can anybody see? ♪
♪ Is anybody waving? ♪
♪ When you're falling in
a forest ♪
♪ And there's nobody around ♪
♪ Do you ever really crash,
or even make a sound? ♪
♪ When you're falling in
a forest ♪
♪ And there's nobody around ♪
♪ Do you ever really crash,
or even make a sound? ♪
♪ When you're falling in
a forest ♪
♪ And there's nobody around ♪
♪ Do you ever really crash,
or even make a sound? ♪
♪ When you're falling in
a forest ♪
♪ And there's nobody around ♪
♪ Do you ever really crash,
or even make a sound? ♪
♪ Did I even make a sound? ♪
♪ Did I even make a sound? ♪
♪ It's like I never made
a sound ♪
♪ Will I ever make a sound? ♪
>> PASEK and PAUL: ♪ On the
outside, always looking in ♪
♪ Will I ever be more
than I've always been? ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm tap, tap, tapping
on the glass ♪
♪ Waving through a window ♪
♪ I ♪
♪ I try to speak,
but nobody can hear ♪
♪ So I wait around for an answer
to appear ♪
♪ While I'm watch, watch,
watching people pass ♪
♪ Waving through a window ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
>> PASEK: ♪ Can anybody see? ♪
♪ Is anybody waving
back at me? ♪
>> PASEK and PAUL: ♪ Is anybody
waving? ♪
♪ Waving ♪
♪ Waving ♪
♪ Who-o-o-a ♪
>> PASEK: ♪ Who-o-a ♪
[ Ending melody plays ]
>> HASKINS: Wow.
[ Applause ]
>> GREEN: So, Steven...
[ Laughter ]
No, I'm interested --
You know, you had begun to
develop a reputation here
in New York as a young
playwright.
You had plays at
the Roundabout --
the "Language of Trees,"
"The --" Oh, gosh.
"The unavoid--"
Oh, tell me.
>> LEVENSON: "The Unavoidable
Disappearance of Tom Durnin."
>> GREEN: Too many words.
>> LEVENSON: I know. I know.
>> GREEN: Cut some of those.
>> LEVENSON: Yes.
>> GREEN: So this musical
is sort of thrown into your lap,
do something with it.
Now, first of all, is it a job
that is in any way related
to playwriting, or is it
a completely different craft?
>> LEVENSON: It is very similar
to playwriting.
I've learned, obviously --
I mean, I think so much of what
happened when we started working
on this is that none of us knew
any better.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I feel like --
I certainly didn't --
I didn't realize that an
original musical was
a particularly difficult thing,
'cause as a playwright, you
mostly write original things.
So it's like, well, what could
be difficult about that?
>> PAUL: [ Laughs ]
>> LEVENSON: The idea of suicide
is, like, in a new play, that's,
obviously -- that's like,
you know, that's run-of-the-mill
stuff.
>> GREEN: You're fired.
>> LEVENSON: So nothing about it
seems particularly daunting.
Now, of course, now, you know,
six years later, I find that
amusing that we felt that way,
but what's similar about it,
of course, is telling a story
and finding the world of these
characters.
What's different to me is
the rhythm of it.
There's a really specific rhythm
to a musical, and if you don't
know that when you're writing
it, you certainly know that
when it's in front of an
audience, and you can just
feel -- you realize that your
job as the bookwriter really
is to move us from one musical
moment to the next in a lot of
ways, or at least that's part
of the job.
It reminded me a lot more
of writing for television,
actually, which is a lot more --
>> GREEN: Where you're building
toward what -- commercials?
>> LEVENSON: You can just feel
the clock in your head as you're
writing a scene that, like,
in a play -- Plays, to me,
are so much about the breathing
room of people in a room
talking, and there's just so
much -- There's a luxuriousness
about that, and then in
a musical or in a TV show,
there's just a sense of economy.
You just have to -- You have
to get -- You have to move
forward more quickly.
>> GREEN: So, typically, would
you write a book scene leading
toward an idea that you'd
already kind of spotted for this
moment, or would you kind of
bring things to a place where
somebody had to do something,
and you didn't know what it was
going to be?
>> LEVENSON: Yeah, well, we
did -- You know, the first,
probably, six or seven months
that we worked together, we
primarily just got together
and would talk for a really long
time and throw out ideas, and
just kind of try to generate
the world of this show, and
so by the time I went off
to start writing something,
we had a pretty good sense
of our main characters and
a general sense of the story
at least, like, in the first
act.
>> HASKINS: Did you have some
songs already?
>> LEVENSON: No.
>> HASKINS: Mm.
>> LEVENSON: So then I went off,
and I wrote a lot of the first
act like a play, and then where
we had talked about songs,
which we had -- Already in
the story, we had identified,
and Benj and Justin had
identified, you know, this feels
like this could be a song idea.
So I would try to write toward
those, or sometimes in
the writing, I would discover,
"Oh, this feels like
a heightened moment.
This could be a song."
So the draft of that act
that we worked from was kind of
a massive -- Certain scenes that
felt like they were in a play,
certain scenes that were
half-written...
>> GREEN: Mm-hmm.
>> LEVENSON: ...some really long
monologues that could become
a song, and Benj and Justin
are really good at picking out
the kernel of the idea, and so,
of course, a lot of what I
thought would be a song wasn't
a song, and a lot of what we had
originally conceived of a song
didn't fit.
>> GREEN: I was gonna ask if you
found that some of the kernels
weren't actually going to grow?
>> LEVENSON: Oh, yes.
[ Laughs ]
>> GREEN: How many songs do you
suppose you wrote over
the course of the process?
>> PASEK: I'd say there's
probably a cut song for every
moment.
>> PAUL: Every moment of
the show.
>> PASEK: Yeah.
So there's another musical...
[ Laughter ]
...coexists.
>> GREEN: We'll be seeing that
in 30 years -- bam.
>> LEVENSON: It's very similar,
though.
>> PASEK: But I think when you
guys ask like what made this
a musical itself, I think that
a big thing had to do --
a big moment that shifted for us
in discussing it was when it
became --
We were sort of making fun
of people who were grieving
online or really looking at it
from a very cynical perspective.
>> PAUL: It was almost a parody
in a way.
>> PASEK: Like, why do people
do this, you know, and sort of
wagging our finger at these
people.
>> PAUL: There was a whole song
of people -- like, to think
so differently --
We had an opening number
that was all these sort of
ridiculous, over-the-top
online posts.
>> HASKINS: Can you remember
any of that?
>> PAUL: Yeah, yeah.
>> HASKINS: You want to play
a little bit?
>> PASEK: I don't know about
all of that.
That's maybe best kept in
the box.
>> GREEN: What's one line?
>> PAUL: Um...
>> PASEK: It was bragging about,
like, your Facebook posts, and
then how great your lives are.
But we were really making fun
of this culture, and I think
a big turning point for us --
>> PAUL: There was something
about a burrito.
>> PASEK: Yeah, there was
a burrito line, yeah.
But I think a big turning point
for it was, instead of looking
at making fun of why people
do this, really trying to
empathize with what in a person
feels broken enough that
they need to join this online
movement or that they need to
insert themselves in a tragedy,
not sort of -- not judge them
for doing it, but say what about
us as a culture?
Why are we all so isolated
and so alone that we feel
the need to be a part of this
thing?
>> PAUL: And there are two sides
of that coin, and it's okay to
examine both.
>> PASEK: Right.
>> PAUL: But not just come at it
from -- And, also -- I think
it was also because as we
started to write songs,
we realized we didn't want to
write, like, all sorts of
cynical, sardonic songs that --
like, it's like we're writing
a musical.
We need to find the heart
and the story.
We need to let this character
sing genuinely.
>> GREEN: That's one of
the signal things about this
show.
I mean, there's a lot of
musicals today, which for
reasons we can discuss another
time, take their tone from
a need to distance the show
from some of the syrup of
musicals past...
>> PASEK: Right.
>> GREEN: ...and, therefore,
develop kind of brittleness
and a kind of cruelty, almost,
which can be quite amusing.
>> PASEK: Right. Absolutely.
>> GREEN: But this show does not
do that.
It really decides --
Some point along the way,
it sounds like you had actual
moments where you decided...
>> PASEK: Yeah.
>> GREEN: ...we're not doing
that or not just that.
We're actually going to value
these people and see what
they have to say, and I'm using
that to get to something,
which is the song that I happen
to love in the second act.
It's in a position that you
would normally expect --
once again, a very different
kind of song.
Is it not the second-to-last
song?
>> PAUL: Yeah.
>> GREEN: And it's sung not
by the lead, but by his mother.
Somebody want to set up
what this song is?
>> PASEK: Steven?
[ Laughter ]
>> LEVENSON: Sure.
Well, this is -- You know,
so much of the show takes place
on and amid screens and with
people sort of both literally
talking, you know, past one
another and also figuratively
talking past one another,
and this is a moment in the show
where a lot of the illusions
that have been built up over
the course of the show --
not to give anything away --
have sort of shattered, and
we're left with a boy and his
mother alone in a living room
without screens, without any
kind of pretense, and so this
is a moment sort of where
the truth comes out in some
ways.
>> GREEN: And yet the song
doesn't specifically --
or I shouldn't say that.
It doesn't directly address
the plot.
>> LEVENSON: No.
>> GREEN: When she starts
to sing -- and in the audience,
you think, "Okay.
She's going to talk about
what just happened."
>> LEVENSON: That's right.
>> GREEN: She doesn't.
She talks about something that
happened well before then, which
is to say the divorce from her
husband that left her and her
son alone and how that felt.
So this is the song called...
>> PAUL: "So Big/So Small."
>> GREEN: ..."So Big/So Small."
>> PAUL: I've never performed
this song.
>> GREEN: Which of you is
going to be Rachel Bay Jones?
>> PAUL: I think it's gonna end
up being me.
I'm gonna not remember
the lyrics.
I'll look to him.
He'll tell me what they are.
I'm just choosing a key.
Here we go.
[ "So Big/So Small" plays ]
♪ It was a February day ♪
♪ When your dad came by
before going away ♪
♪ A U-Haul truck in
the driveway ♪
♪ The day it was suddenly real ♪
♪ I told you not to come
outside ♪
♪ But you saw that truck
and you smiled so wide ♪
♪ A real live truck
in your driveway ♪
♪ We let you sit behind
the wheel ♪
♪ Goodbye, goodbye ♪
♪ Now it's just me
and my little guy ♪
♪ And the house felt so big,
and I felt so small ♪
♪ The house felt so big,
and I felt so small ♪
And she continues on from there.
>> GREEN: So, it really does,
in fact, address the main themes
of the show, just not head-on.
Did anyone try to make you
do it more head-on?
Did people come to you and say,
"Yeah, that's really nice,
but we need a number that
really...?"
>> PAUL: No, we --
>> PASEK: This was one of
the latest songs that we wrote
for the show, and I remember
originally we didn't have
a song moment here.
We didn't identify it as even
needing to be a song moment,
so that -- We certainly didn't
have that pressure of someone
saying, you know, "We need a --"
Well, we might have had
a little bit of pressure.
>> PAUL: You know what?
Not for this moment, but for
then a subsequent moment,
there was feedback at certain
points along the journey of
the show that, you know, we need
something that's a little more
all wrapped up...
>> LEVENSON: Yeah.
>> PAUL: ...and, like, we need
to hear, you know, him sing.
Evan needs to sing again and
say what he's learned, and
I think we -- You know, so much
of the show --
The first time that --
I'm jumping all over the place,
but the first time that Steven
sent us something that he had
written, my first thought was,
"This is a beautiful play.
We're gonna ruin it by making it
a musical," and so I think --
But coming from that place,
sort of our approach, the rest
of the writing of it, which was
all of the writing of it, was
to not ruin it because it was
beautifully written and felt
like a beautiful little play.
It felt like an indie film.
It felt like a lot of really
special, cool things, and not
like a musical.
>> GREEN: So was there a scene
in what you'd written between
the mother and the son around
that point...
>> PAUL: There was.
>> GREEN: ...in which she tried
to comfort him by talking about
that time?
>> LEVENSON: Yeah.
>> GREEN: So, and what --
Did you lift anything directly
the way scavenger
lyricist/composers do?
>> PAUL: Absolutely.
>> LEVENSON: That never
happened.
>> PAUL: So what's funny is
it was originally a scene --
The evolution of it is that
it was a scene where they
were -- Sort of like the payoff
of the moment was that they
both, like, ate ice cream
together on their couch.
That's what it was.
>> PASEK: That was it. Right.
>> PAUL: And then when we
decided that there should be
a moment here for them,
we talked about it together,
and then Steven wrote
a beautiful scene and monologue
that we then completely
scavenged for -- I would say
ravaged, even -- for material
for the song.
>> LEVENSON: Well, it's one of
those things you realize --
I mean, I love these moments
in theater where you --
You feel like you are gonna get
a sort of head-on addressing
of the issue, and you somehow
find an oblique way of getting
at it, and I think the song
and the music and the lyrics
just really do an incredible
job of capturing --
Like you said, it's all about
what we've just seen, but,
of course, it's not actually,
literally about that.
>> HASKINS: At the point you
wrote this song, did you have
any of the cast?
>> PASEK: Yeah.
Actually, it was the final
workshop before we went to
Washington, D.C.
We had done, I think, three
before then.
>> PAUL: Yeah, it was only,
like, a couple months before
we started rehearsal for D.C.
>> PASEK: And I remember --
I remember bringing this
to the cast and hearing Rachel
do it for the first time,
and I definitely felt like even
if it wouldn't have worked
in the musical -- we didn't
really know -- I remember
feeling like it was a special
moment hearing her sing it
for the first time.
>> PAUL: Well, we wrote it with
her in mind.
No question.
We wrote it for her voice.
>> LEVENSON: Yeah, the show has
been very special in the fact
that the very first reading
we ever did of the show,
four out of the seven characters
were filled by the actors
that you see onstage now, so...
>> GREEN: Wow.
>> HASKINS: Yes, and at what
point did Ben Platt come in?
>> LEVENSON: That very first
reading.
>> HASKINS: We are having such
a meaningful and good time
with our "Dear Evan Hansen"
trio.
I'd like to invite you to just
stay here for a week and come
back next week --
>> PAUL: Just all week, yeah.
>> HASKINS: We'll talk a little
more about your previous careers
and a minor success that you're
having in the film industry,
so...
But right now, can we close out,
Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek,
and Justin Paul, with another
number from "Dear Evan Hansen"?
>> PAUL: Absolutely. Yeah.
[ "You Will Be Found" plays ]
>> PAUL and PASEK: ♪ Even when
the dark comes crashing
through ♪
♪ When you need a friend
to carry you ♪
♪ And when you're broken
on the ground ♪
♪ You will be found ♪
♪ So let the Sun come streaming
in ♪
♪ 'Cause you'll reach up
and you'll rise again ♪
♪ If you only look around ♪
♪ You will be fo-o-und ♪
♪ You will be fo-o-und ♪♪
>> CHORUS: ♪ So let the Sun
come streaming in ♪
♪ You'll reach up
and you'll rise again ♪
♪ If you only look around ♪
♪ You will be fo-o-und ♪
>> ♪ You will be found ♪
>> ♪ You will be found ♪
>> ♪ You will be fo-o-und ♪
>> ♪ You will be fo-o-und ♪
[ "City of Stars" plays ]
>> PASEK: ♪ The city of stars ♪
♪ Are you shining just for me? ♪
♪♪
♪ City of stars ♪
♪ There's so much that I can't
see ♪
♪ Who knows? ♪
♪ Is this the start of something
wonderful and new? ♪
♪ Or one more dream
that I cannot make true? ♪
♪♪
♪♪
>> HASKINS: Our thanks to the
Friends of "Theater Talk" for
their significant contribution
to this production.
>> ANNOUNCER: We welcome your
questions or comments
for "Theater Talk."
Thank you.
For more infomation >> Flame is coming - Duration: 3:03. 
For more infomation >> Message for your night 8 May - Duration: 1:11. 
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