Clear Space Theatre Company in Rehoboth Beach presents a pair of shows this month, both featuring characters who face life-changing events and learn valuable life lessons.
“Dear Evan Hansen” is a 2015 musical that netted multiple Tony awards for its Broadway run, including Best Musical, Best Original Score, and two acting awards. The show tells the story of a high-school senior whose life goes awry after a letter he wrote to himself ends up being misinterpreted. Trying to protect the feelings of others, he goes down a rabbit hole of bad decisions.
Clear Space’s Managing Director, Joe Gfaller, is directing the show.
“It speaks to everyone's heart and desire to try to make the world a better place and try to do the right thing, but [also] the simple realization that sometimes trying to do the right thing can have truly terrible unintended consequences,” he says.
Gfaller says the main character, Evan, is a person audiences gravitate to.
“There's a lot of moral ambiguity in the piece that I think audiences really lean into incredibly,” Gfaller says. “You care deeply about this person until you realize that he's now making some truly terrible choices and you don't know how to get him back on track to where he needs to be.”
At just over a decade old, “Dear Evan Hansen” feels very modern, and that required deep preparation as Gfaller prepared to direct Clear Space’s performances.
“I think what's been invaluable to me is doing the research to better understand some of the psychological complexities, not just of these characters, but of what's facing young people today, because this is a very current show,” he says. As part of his preparation, Gfaller also worked with a mental health professional specializing in issues facing adolescents.
The subject matter is serious, but Gfaller says that it’s not a hard piece of theatre to enjoy.
“It's a show that you laugh at, and it's a show that you're going to ugly cry during at some point, and it's great to have theater that can do both,” he says.
Also on stage at Clear Space this month is “The Legend of Georgia McBride,” a 2014 play by Tony Award-winning playwright Matthew Lopez. The plot revolves around Casey, a young Elvis impersonator with a wife and a baby on the way, who loses his Elvis job and embarks on a new career as a drag queen. Fay Jacobs directs the show.
“He's a straight man, and this is very foreign to him, and the audience has a terrific time watching him transform into a drag performer.”
Jacobs says that painting Casey’s two identities, family man at home and drag performer on stage, was a good collaboration with actor Jordan Kilgore.
“We had a good time making sure that his personality and his character remained the same throughout the show, and yet he could be in two different worlds,” she says.
Jacobs notes that, while the show is a lot of fun for audiences, it also contains some food for thought.
“There are serious scenes in this show as well,” she says. “As campy as it is, there's a message for a lot of people in this show.”
“The Legend of Georgia McBride runs through May 21, while “Dear Evan Hansen” closes on May 23.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
