Amandla Stenberg To Join The Cast of 'Dear Evan Hansen'

Amandla Stenberg continues to see her profile rise.

Deadline Hollywood has reported that the 21-year-old up-and-coming actress/singer has just signed on to star in Universal Pictures’ adaptation of the Tony Award winning musical Dear Evan Hansen. 

Since its premiere on Broadway in 2016, the musical has become a phenomenon winning six Tony Awards including Best Actor and Best Musical. Dear Evan Hansen centers on the titular lead character, a teenager with with social anxiety who creates a movement by making up a story so he can make amends with the family of one of his classmates who took his own life.

Stenberg will be playing the role of Alana, a high school senior who suffers from her own feelings of loneliness and solitude behind the cherry facade she presents to her classmates. With Stenberg’s casting, Alana’s character will be given an expanded role in the film and she will get to sing an original composition specifically for the adaptation. 

Dear Evan Hansen was first announced to be heading to the big screen in November 2018 and is to be produced by La La Land producer Marc Platt with directing duties to be assumed by Wonder’s Stephen Chbosky. The musical’s original playwright Steven Levenson and lyriscists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul will take over the same duties.

Stenberg made a critically acclaimed breakthrough in 2018 with The Hate U Give which earned her much praise and recognition and was most recently seen on Netflix’s The Eddy. She also starred in The Hunger Games and Everything, Everything.

Alongside Stenberg, Ben Platt is rumoured to be reprising his Tony winning role as the title character while Kaitlyn Dever is in talks to play Zoe, Evan’s love interest. 

We don’t have any word on when Dear Evan Hansen will begin production nor does it have a set release date but there’s a good bet it can start filming at the top of 2021 and we can expect in either Summer or Fall 2022.