It’s already been a tough morning for Beau Woodbridge. He’s had a number of breakdowns. Or, moderately, the identical one on repeat.

The actor is deep into rehearsals for the Australian premiere of Expensive Evan Hansen, the hit Broadway musical by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, a coproduction by Sydney Theatre Firm and Michael Cassel Group that opens at Sydney’s Roslyn Packer Theatre this month earlier than seasons in Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide. He’s enjoying the titular lead: an anxious teenager who, via a mix-up and misunderstanding – and a not-so-little white lie – has a hero’s mantle positioned on him by his highschool friends after the suicide of one other pupil, Connor, who they imagine was Evan’s good friend.

At this time Woodbridge (the son of doubles tennis champ Todd Woodbridge) has been engaged on one in all Evan’s huge numbers, Phrases Fail, through which he confesses all to Connor’s shocked and disbelieving household. If the present, or have seen the 2021 film model, you’ll bear in mind this second. It’s a tough one.

Moments earlier than this interview, Woodbridge was performing to an empty eating desk – emoting to the air – as the remainder of the forged got the morning off. “It’s an enormous track,” he says. “What I actually love about Expensive Evan Hansen is that every track has a fantastic huge story and they’re actually demanding technically, so with songs like Phrases Fail, I do know I’ve to tempo myself. There’s one thing like 14 or 15 songs within the present and I lead 11 or 12 of them. It’s fairly a heavy load.”

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Woodbridge, who landed the position whereas in his graduate 12 months on the Royal Academy of Music in London, can be feeling the burden of expectation. The title position in Expensive Evan Hansen is synonymous within the minds of its followers with the efficiency by Ben Platt, who gained a Tony in 2017 for his efficiency on Broadway and starred within the movie – to the chagrin of some, who thought that Platt (aged 27 on the time) was too outdated to play an adolescent. He copped a pasting on socials.

Aged 22, the soft-faced Woodbridge is likely to be thought-about extra “teen adjoining”.

“I used to be fortunate sufficient to truly see the unique manufacturing on Broadway after I was fairly younger, about 14, and I noticed Ben as Evan,” he says. “I feel there are undoubtedly components of his Evan which have stayed in my head however I don’t suppose an excessive amount of about stuff like that. It’s enjoyable for me to strategy it from the textual content [and] from the rating, and actually honour that. I undoubtedly have my very own model of Evan and my very own concept of the social nervousness he experiences.”

Is that one thing from Woodbridge’s creativeness? “I do have nervousness myself in sure areas and I’ve undoubtedly been utilizing that to gas a number of the choices I’m making,” he says. “For me, it’s one thing that tends to manifest bodily, ? It type of drops into my abdomen. In order that’s one thing I’ve been enjoying with, gathering and releasing that stress in your intestine.”

A few of Evan’s nervousness is likely to be the results of his hyper-awareness, Woodbridge says. “Dean [Bryant, the director] and I’ve been creating his concept that Evan isn’t a kind of socially anxious individuals who desires to keep away from individuals and points. As an alternative, we see him as hyper-aware, actually good at studying conditions. He’s simply unable to work together with them. [What] I actually need to present in my Evan is that this eager for connection.”

Bryant says placing on a brand new Australian manufacturing of a much-loved musical doesn’t faze him; he did the identical for Enjoyable Dwelling in 2021. “That present was beloved as properly, not possibly as a lot of a blockbuster as Expensive Evan Hansen, however nonetheless, so many individuals had seen it on Broadway or in London. I’ve the identical strategy I might take to any basic and even new work, which is, what does it really feel just like the writers have been aspiring to do? What does it really feel prefer it’s saying about psychological well being in 2024 and the way in which youngsters and fogeys speak in 2024, whereas utilizing the set textual content that you simply’re given?”

In his staging, “The [theatre] house looks like Evan’s thoughts, compressing him, with screens used sparingly, swamping the characters, very like we expertise social media [and the internet],” he says.

Natalie O’Donnell, who performs Connor’s mom Cynthia, has two youngsters of her personal and says she’s notably struck by the authenticity of Bryant’s manufacturing. “What I feel this present captures fantastically is the way in which the youngsters have interaction with one another, and the way conversations between the dad and mom and youngsters sit in a really completely different world. For me, that basically resonated, and I don’t say that flippantly, as a result of I’m a mum seeing my children do the identical.”

Woodbridge noticed the Broadway manufacturing along with his personal mom. “I bear in mind each of us turning to one another on the finish and we have been each in tears. You come away wanting to speak, simply to allow them to know you recognize them being there. You’ve watched these characters transferring via all these ethical and moral gray areas and it’s so actual, so just like the world we’re in daily. It’s actually transferring to see a musical that’s not all glitz and glam.”

• Expensive Evan Hansen is at Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney, from 12 October; Arts Centre Melbourne from 14 December; Canberra Theatre Centre from 27 February 2025; and Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide, from 3 April