Interview: Broadway’s Stephen Christopher Anthony Directs DEAR EVAN HANSEN in La Mirada

After spending four years performing the title role in Dear Evan Hansen, Broadway's Stephen Christopher Anthony is stepping into the director's chair for La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts' upcoming production of the Tony Award-winning musical.

The musical, which won six Tony Awards in 2017, including Best Musical, follows a socially anxious teenager whose desperate desire to belong spirals into an elaborate lie following a classmate's death.

For Anthony, directing offers a chance to bring his own vision of the show to the stage.

“I developed such a love and care for those characters, so now stepping outside [of Evan], it's actually really cool to go on everybody else's journey with them and step into their shoes,” Anthony said. “There were things that I used to visualize when I was on stage . . . Now I’m able to make things look the way they felt to me inside of it.”

Anthony joined the Broadway company of Dear Evan Hansen in 2018 as an understudy before joining the first national tour as an alternate. He eventually took over the title role, performing across North America before headlining the Broadway production in 2022.

Since then, he has continued acting while expanding his work behind the scenes as a director and music director. Earlier this year, he directed Dear Evan Hansen at Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida—the same theater where he performed as a child.

After hearing about that production, McCoy Rigby Entertainment producer Tom McCoy flew to Miami to see it, eventually inviting Anthony to direct the show in La Mirada.

The La Mirada production stars Tyler Donovan McCall as Evan Hansen, Kendyl Sayuri Yokoyama as Zoe Murphy, Nic Hermick as Connor Murphy, Gabriel Vernon Nunag as Jared Kleinman, Analisa Idalia as Alana Beck, Gwen Hollander as Heidi Hansen, Jill Van Velzer as Cynthia Murphy and Josh Adamson as Larry Murphy.

For 27-year-old New York-based actor Tyler Donovan McCall, working with someone he considers “one of the most incredible Evans there ever was” has been an exciting opportunity.

“I’m a little bit of a fan,” McCall admitted. “There was a certain sense of—not scariness because of intimidation—but certainly, I wanted to be on his level the whole time.”

Rather than encouraging McCall to follow in his footsteps, Anthony urged him to create an Evan Hansen that was entirely his own.

“We just sat down and talked about my version of the show, my version of the role,” McCall said. “One of the first things he said was that the show is so brilliant because anyone can come in and be Evan in their own way. 

“There really wasn't any sense of me trying to do his version,” he added. “It's always been him trying to figure out what my version is.”

McCall’s professional credits include a national tour of Fiddler on the Roof, a 2024 production of Empire Records at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre, where he played Lucas, and the Off-Broadway production of Beau the Musical, where he served as an alternate for the leading role.

McCall said he'd dreamed of playing Evan since seeing the Broadway production nearly a decade ago. 

“It was one of the roles that was, you know, the all-time dream role,” McCall said.  

Still, he admitted he was surprised to get the part. At 6-foot-4, he thought he’d be more likely to be considered for the role of Connor Murphy.

“I was a little shocked,” he said. “I didn’t think it was going to go my way just because I’m not typically seen for Evan.”

Anthony, however, said he knew “pretty immediately” that McCall was right for the role.

“There was just a really beautiful authenticity to what he was doing,” Anthony said. “He played a very hopeful Evan Hansen who really is looking to connect. That's so important.”

And while Dear Evan Hansen opened on Broadway in 2016, Anthony said its messages about loneliness, isolation, and the need for human connection are just as relevant in 2026.  

“We keep inventing new ways to connect, and I just think they continue to drive us apart,” Anthony said. “Social media is more divisive than ever today.”

McCall said he understands Evan’s need for connection from his own experiences as a teenager.

“I would say growing up an only child certainly came with a sense of longing for connection and loneliness at times, especially in high school,” he said. “My freshman and sophomore years were quite lonely.”

McCall hopes audiences—both teenagers and adults—walk away from the La Mirada production with a renewed appreciation for the importance of reaching out to others.

“Everyone’s so divided; everyone is so left or so right,” McCall said. “But we just need community. You know, to reach out to each other. You are not alone.”