Dan’s Papers frames Bay Street’s staging as a genuine reinvention rather than a scaled-down revival. A decade after the show’s Tony-winning Broadway premiere, director Scott Schwartz stresses that fans of the 2016 production and the 2021 film can expect a fresh, reinvigorated take — not a carbon copy. As Schwartz puts it:
“This is really a new look at Dear Evan Hansen. We’re using the intimacy of the theater to crack the show open — to focus on the people and the heart in a way that has not been done before.”
The article highlights a key creative choice: Bay Street’s production is set in the present day, in 2026, rather than the era of the original staging. That shift lets Schwartz and his team engage the social media landscape as it exists now — from the ubiquity of technology in a post-COVID world to the way apps like TikTok have woven themselves into everyday high school life. The piece positions Schwartz as a storyteller first, drawn to musicals that look at human beings in nuanced, complicated ways rather than as a technology critic.
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