Why He's The Toast Of New York

The Pitch Perfect Alum Becomes Broadway’s Hottest Rising Star With the Hit Musical Dear Evan Hansen

- Dave Quinn

Ben Platt has been in love with musicals since age 6—when he would watch his favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz, every day after school. “I wanted to be Dorothy really badly,” he says with a laugh. “I would wear red slippers around my house, had this blue jumper that was close enough to what she wore and a giant yellow Lab that I would call Toto. I just loved the idea of going to this completely different world of unknown fantasy where the sky’s the limit.”

Now 23, Platt is getting the chance to live out his dream for eight shows a week on Broadway— though his role is a little different from the one Judy Garland made famous. In the acclaimed new musical Dear Evan Hansen, the Pitch Perfect star plays an anxiety-plagued teen paralyzed by the hyper connectivity of social media and forced to watch the world from the outside looking in. Trying to improve his self-image, Evan writes himself a letter that is mistaken for a classmate’s suicide note—an error he rides to popularity.