Musical Theatre Adapting to a Mediatized Audience Shown Through The Analysis of Dear Evan Hansen

Within this empirical study, Dear Evan Hansen has been analysed with the intention of finding how musical theatre is changing to suit a mediatized audience; an audience inhabited by digital natives. In order to achieve this, the musical’s portrayal of social media has been scrutinised through two case studies dissecting the two songs from the show, Waving through a Window and You Will Be Found. These case studies have been analysed using criteria laid out in the methodology which has then been used to interpret themes through thematic analysis. It was concluded that Dear Evan Hansen majorly favoured more negative aspects of social media and that Dear Evan Hansen has been created with a mediatized audience in mind. Thematic analysis was able to reveal these results through finding dominant features of social media through themes and recurring motifs throughout the case studies