Dear Fangirl Fury,

Today is going to be a good day because you saw the Broadway show you thought you’d never see a week ago. And that show was the INCREDIBLY DESERVING OF THE HYPE, Dear Evan Hansen.

My parents completely surprised me with tickets to Dear Evan Hansen for Christmas. I had only mentioned the show once or twice to my mom, and with how popular DEH is right now, I would have never guessed that’d I get to see the show. I even bought the book back in May because I thought reading would be the only way I could experience the show itself!

So on a warm Saturday morning (please tell me this means that zero degree weather is over), my mom and I went into New York City and we grabbed lunch at our favorite Irish pub before the 2 PM matinee. Like when we saw Hamilton last January, we had a leisurely lunch and it was nice catching up, since I’m now back at school. We’ve already decided that if we don’t see a show next year, we’re still going to go have lunch at the same place.

As you may have expected, I absolutely loved Dear Evan Hansen. Even though I was a tiny bit disappointed that I just missed Ben Platt’s run, I really enjoyed seeing Michael Lee Brown play Evan. He adopted the character so well (all of the actors in the show, including him, actually felt like high schoolers playing high schoolers) and his voice was amazing. I was totally impressed with everyone’s singing, and I highly recommend listening to the original cast recording even if you have no plans of seeing the show. I’d list all of my favorite songs, but then I’d be giving you the entire album! With the exception of Ben Platt and Kristolyn Lloyd, I saw the entire original cast, including Laura Dreyfuss, who I was really excited to see because I loved her on Glee. I think my mom especially loved Will Roland as Jared, who brought a lot of humor to this sad and deep show, and while I admit that I didn’t cry, I did feel some tears welling up during “Requiem”.

Outside of the singing, my favorite part of the show was the incorporation of technology and social media into the set. I loved the use of physical screens, which adding some more dimension to “on the outside always looking in”. The social media and phone projections, along with the lighting, were all really cool, and I’m curious to know if some of the video footage was prerecorded or if it was part of the live performance.

After the show, my mom and I made a pit stop at the M & M store because my mom wanted to pick something up for my siblings (self-reminder for me to never step in that tourist trap again). A half hour later, with the belief that I could never look at a pack of M&Ms again, we made our way to Amazon Books on 34^th Street. I’ve been really interested to see how the Amazon bookstores work and my mom wanted to see if they had a book that my dad was interested in; whenever my dad wants to read, we make sure if happens! While I like the idea of the prices matching the prices on the Amazon website, having to repeatedly scan the barcodes with the Amazon got old pretty quick. I ended up not picking anything up—I also agree with the general opinion that most of the books are bestsellers—but it was still a pretty cool experience. After that, we made our way home, planning out our next Broadway trip.

I’m now obsessed with the DEH original cast recording (I guess it’s time to give Waitress a break). I had listened to a lot of the album before I saw the show, but I stayed away from the last few songs, but why didn’t I listen to ‘Good For You’ & ‘Words Fail’ sooner??

Have you listened to Dear Evan Hansen? What are you favorite Broadway shows? Have you been to an Amazon bookstore? Share in the comments!