Grammy Award winning vocal group Pentatonix serves up their take on "Waving Through a Window" from the hit Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen.
The multi-platinum selling group has dipped its toes in the Broadway catalogue a few times.
Band member Kirsten Maldonado joined the Broadway cast of Kinky Boots last year alongside Scissor Sister frontman Jake Shears. The fab five also recorded a track for the concept album of Finding Neverland, and they also dropped by the Wicked 15th anniversary special on NBC.
The song has been covered by several pop stars since Dear Evan Hansen's debut, including Katy Perry and Rachel Tucker.
Ben Levi Ross & Taylor Trensch of 'Dear Evan Hansen'
For Valentine’s Day, the creators of the Broadway musical, Dear Evan Hansen, offer this special rendition of the song “Only Us” from the hit show.
The blockbuster musical chronicles the journey of a socially-awkward high school student (Evan Hansen) who has trouble making friends.
In a twist of fate, the facts of a teen suicide get accidentally mixed up and he suddenly finds himself something of a hero, popular and spending time with his longtime crush. Except, it’s all based on an innocent falsehood that snowballs out of Evan’s control.
Evan eventually faces having to give up his newfound social status or live a lie.
At the 71st Tony Awards, Dear Evan Hansen took home six statues including Best Musical, and made a bona-fide star of its Tony Award-winning leading man, Ben Platt.
Ben Levi Ross of 'Dear Evan Hansen'
While not a gay story, it’s certainly a theme LGBTs have gravitated to in terms of the character’s yearning for acceptance.
In the stage musical, “Only Us” is sung between Evan and his crush, Zoe.
In this Valentine’s Day version, we have two 'Evan Hansens' singing to each other. Taylor Trensch, who played the title role on Broadway, and the national tour ‘Evan,’ Ben Levi Ross.
For just a bit more Valentine's Day charm, the duo are a real life couple :)
For this video, the musical's Tony and Grammy Award-winning orchestrator, Alex Lacamoire, debuts a new arrangement of the song, and features pianist Austin Cook, guitarist Matt Sangiovanni, bassist Matt Rubano, and violinist Mona Tian.
Sung by the two young men, the song shimmers in fresh and hopeful shades of gay.
I never thought there'd be someone like you who would want me
So I give you ten thousand reasons to not let me go
But if you really see me
If you like me for me and nothing else
Well, that's all that I've wanted for longer that you could possibly know
So it can be us
It can be us
And only us
And what came before won't count anymore or matter
We can try that
In fact, with two actors who played the same role, it could almost be interpreted as an ode of self-love.
And on Valentine’s Day, all love is celebrated - whether boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband or even the person in the mirror.
Most of the time, I'm sharing some of the darker LGBTQ news of the day here.
It's nice to share something totally smile-worthy.
Dear Evan Hansen is still running strong in New York City, London and across the U.S. with its national touring company. Click here for more information about the show.
• Gay-themed romantic comedy Love, Simon (in theaters today) was influenced by Broadway blockbuster Dear Evan Hansen.
• And speaking of Dear Evan Hansen, the show's Tony Award-winning star Ben Platt has gone viral today sharing this "audition video" singing "Maria" from West Side Story.
Side note: Ben Platt has to make audition videos?
Having sung the song myself for years, I'm super-impressed by his high B-flat - effortless. What do you guys think?
I enjoyed last night's Tony Awards broadcast muchly.
For one thing, rather than one of those year's where one show dominates heavily (Hamilton, Chicago, The Producers), for the most part the Tony voters seemed happy to share the wealth among several productions. And I like that. The Tonys are, in great part, a marketing tool to help shows run, and when everyone is acknowledged for excellent work, the entire theater community wins.
All in all, I agreed with just about every winner (I hate using that word) in each category.
Other random thoughts:
• It's ridiculous that the Choreographer category isn't presented during the telecast. I won't qualify artistic contributions among team mates, but the choreographer (the most physically demanding position on a creative team) creates highly complex storytelling without the use of spoken language. The number from Andy Blankenbuehler's Bandstand was easily a standout among all the numbers featured last night. Also, look at the popularity of dance today across the country (So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing With The Stars). There's intense interest in the art form.
For those who didn't see Andy's acceptance speech:
Check out Dr. Jill Biden (huge standing ovation) introducing "Nobody" from Bandstand. This is excellent choreography :)
• Whether it was Bette Midler demurring or producer Scott Rudin not wanting to "give away the goods," it was a shame there was no production number from this year's biggest hit, Hello, Dolly! • While I miss seeing excerpts from the nominated plays, I did enjoy seeing the playwrights introduced and being allowed to speak about their shows.
• The In Memoriam was handled with taste and grace. Thank you.
• The two most memorable speeches (vastly different in tone) were:
Ben Platt winning "Best Actor in a Musical" for Dear Evan Hansen - "To all young people watching at home, don't waste any time trying to be like anybody but yourself. The things that make you strange are the things that make you powerful."
And Bette Midler's four minute filibuster ("Shut that crap off!") for "Best Actress in a Musical" for Hello, Dolly!:
• Kevin Spacey did a good job as host. Brilliant? Maybe not, but he was solid and brings aesthetic weight to the stage. I wasn't a huge fan of the impersonation schtick, but I know there were producers and writers making a lot of those decisions, so... Much is being made about his "in the closet" jokes. On one hand folks seem to be of the opinion he's basically out to everyone but the masses, so he should be be out; on the other hand, he's dealt with the rumors for years and if he wants to joke about them, whatever.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, ratings for this year's telecast were down 31 percent from last year's show. According to Nielsen overnight returns, the telecast averaged a 4.7 rating among metered market households, almost tying for the Tony broadcast from five years ago. The numbers appear to be strong enough to top NBC's coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals, although they may fall short of winning in the Adult 18-49 demo.
In comparison, the 2016 TONY AWARDS reached a 15-year viewership high, averaging a 6.8 rating among households in overnight returns, ultimately delivering 8.7 million viewers and a 1.6 rating among adults 18-49.
Click here to see many of the performances and acceptance speeches.
Here's the full list of the artists who took home awards last night:
Best musical: "Dear Evan Hansen"
Best play: "Oslo"
Best revival of a play: "August Wilson's Jitney"
Best revival of a musical: "Hello, Dolly!"
Best book of a musical: "Dear Evan Hansen," Steven Levenson
Best original score (music and/or lyrics) written for the theater: "Dear Evan Hansen," Music and lyrics: Benj Pasek & Justin Paul
Tony Awards 2017: Highlights, winners and best moments
Best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical: Ben Platt, "Dear Evan Hansen"
Best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical: Bette Midler, "Hello, Dolly!"
Best performance by an actor in a leading role in a play: Kevin Kline, "Present Laughter"
Best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play: Laurie Metcalf, "A Doll's House, Part 2"
Best performance by an actor in a featured role in a play: Michael Aronov, "Oslo"
Best performance by an actress in a featured role in a play: Cynthia Nixon, "Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes"
Best performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical: Gavin Creel, "Hello, Dolly!"
Best performance by an actress in a featured role in a musical: Rachel Bay Jones, "Dear Evan Hansen"
Best scenic design of a play: Nigel Hook, "The Play That Goes Wrong"
Best scenic design of a musical: Mimi Lien, "Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812"
Best costume design of a play: Jane Greenwood, "Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes"
Best costume design of a musical: Santo Loquasto, "Hello, Dolly!"
Best lighting design of a play: Christopher Akerlind, "Indecent"
Best lighting design of a musical: Bradley King, "Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812"
Best direction of a play: Rebecca Taichman, "Indecent"
Best direction of a musical: Christopher Ashley, "Come From Away"
Best choreography: Andy Blankenbuehler, "Bandstand"
Best orchestrations: Alex Lacamoire, "Dear Evan Hansen"
Special Tony Award for lifetime achievement in the theatre: James Earl Jones
Special Tony Award: Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin, sound designers for "The Encounter"
Regional theatre Tony Award: Dallas Theater Center in Dallas, Texas
Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award: Baayork Lee
Tony honors for excellence in theater: Nina Lannan and Alan Wasser
According to everyone I know, Ben Platt's devastating performance as the title character in the hit Broadway musical, Dear Evan Hansen, is about to be honored with a Tony Award for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Musical."
The musical is about an awkward teen who feels isolated in life. His therapist advises him to write himself a hopeful letter each day, which he does.
But one of those daily letters, wherein Evan appears to have given up on his senior year and wonders if anyone would notice if he were gone, accidentally falls into the hands of another student shortly before that student commits suicide.
The boy's family, and eventually everyone, assume the letter to have been addressed to Evan, now perceived as the boy's best friend. This event cracks open Evan's lonely life.
This week Platt performed the song "For Forever" on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for the first time outside the context of the show, to devastating effect.
Here's how Platt introduced the performance.
"The song is called "For Forever. This is the first time I've ever sung the song outside the context of the show.
"Essentially, this lie that we talked about earlier that he fabricated is that he was friends with this kid in his class that committed suicide. And so Evan has been invited over to dinner by this kids grieving family. They've been led to believe that he was a friend of their son.
"Evan's plan when he goes into dinner he tried to either diffuse that or make sure the situation ends right there.
"However, the mother of this kid is so in desperate need of something good to hang on to, some sort of memory, that Evan starts to fabricate this story about a day that they had, a friendship that never existed.
"And in doing so, visibly helps this mother to heal. And also sort of finds he gets to heal a bit himself. A sort of answer to his loneliness he didn't expect to find."
• Broadway leading man, Ramin Karimloo (currently starring in ANASTASIA), shared this today on Instagram for #FlashbackFriday, and I couldn't stop listening :)
A post shared by Ramin Karimloo (@raminkarimloo) on
• Bermuda's high court legalized same-sex marriage today, becoming the 7th of the 14 British Overseas Territories to now have marriage equality.
• Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has demonstrated his lack of empathy for folks in the past, announced today he would consider opting-out of the pre-existing condition policies under the Affordable Care Act, should Trumpcare pass in it's present form. Which it won't. I'm guessing he just wanted to be extra douche-y today.
• With the Tony Award nominations out this week, I'll be sharing clips over the next few weeks from some of the big nominees. Check out this Today Show performance of "You Will Be Found from uber-popular Dear Evan Hansen. The musical tells the story of an anxious teen who gets caught up in a lie. The musical has tons of award nominations including 9 Tony noms.
James Corden and The Late Late Show hit another out of the park with this parody of the current White House tenants 'back when.'
Composer Tim Minchin, Ben Platt (Dear Even Hansen), Abigail Spencer ("Timeless") and host James Corden perform a parody of Matilda's "When I Grow Up" playing the roles of Donald Trump, Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon, respectively, wondering what running the world would be like as adults.
• Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean called Donald Trump's newly named Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon of Breitbart fame, a "Nazi." If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
• North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory is laying the groundwork to have his state legislature hand him re-election.
