Dear Evan Hansen

Entering his senior year at high school, Evan Hansen, wearing a cast on his broken arm from a "workplace accident" incurred over the summer, has been diagnosed with clinical anxiety and depression. With the exception of professional help, he is largely left to deal with his problems on his own as he has only one friend of sorts, Jared Kalwani, while his single divorced nurse mother, Heidi Hansen, while loving him, is largely absent, she always working extra shifts as a nurse in order to pay for Evan's upcoming college education. As such, Evan has little real connection with his mother in he believing all she sees in him is the problem son with the emotional issues. One of the coping mechanisms his therapist has assigned him is to write himself letters telling himself why it's going to be a good day. One of those letters is forcibly taken by one of his classmates, an angry young man named Connor Murphy, who shortly thereafter commits suicide. With the "Dear Evan Hansen" letter in Connor's possession at the time, Connor's wealthy family - mother Cynthia Murphy, stepfather Larry Mora, and younger sister Zoe Murphy, each who viewed Connor and his own problems differently from each other - believe the letter was written by Connor to give to his only friend Evan. Although he initially intends to tell them the truth, Evan ends up being unable to do so. Instead, he, with Jared's assistance, ends up inventing a backstory meshing his and Connor's lives to pass off as reality to Connor's family, they, in the process of needing a connection to Connor, being all that he feels is missing in his own life: a family and a girlfriend in Zoe. Beyond the possibility of his lies coming to light, Evan's actions have further unintended consequences as the stories spin out of control.