Universal’s movie adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen has cast The Hate U Give’s Amandla Stenberg to play the role of Alana.
Dear Evan Hansen opened on Broadway in 2016 and it won six Tony Awards including Best Actor in a Musical for Ben Platt and Best Musical. The musical’s about a high school student who has social anxiety and whose letter is mistaken for the suicide note of a classmate, and he gets wrapped up in a lie.
The role of Alana has been expanded from the stage production and she’s a high school senior who’s cheerful and very active on social media but feels lonely and isolated. The way in which she responds to the death of one of her classmates sparks a movement.
In addition to acting in the film, Stenberg will perform an original song which she’s writing with Ben Pasek and Justin Paul, the show’s lyricists.
Unbelievable’s Kaitlyn Dever has also been cast in the film adaptation as Zoe, a girl who dates Hansen after he starts a relationship with the classmate’s family. Ben Platt is rumored to be reprising his role as Evan Hansen.
