Valley Youth Performers Phoebe Koyabe and Sam Primack announced for Broadway and National Tour casts of DEAR EVAN HANSEN

Phoebe Koyabe and Sam Primack

by Gil Benbrook

Phoebe Koyabe and Sam Primack are well known Valley youth performers who have appeared in dozens of shows in the Valley in the past several years, garnering ariZoni nominations and wins, National Youth Theatre Awards, and other accolades for their performances. Primack even represented Phoenix at the 2017 Jimmy Awards, the National High School Musical Theatre Awards, in New York City.

While they are both still in their teens, this duo have also already had lengthy associations with the Tony winning Best Musical Dear Evan Hansen. It was just announced that both Koyabe and Primack are extending their stays with the show by moving up into more prominent roles in the Broadway and national tour productions, respectively.

Koyabe, who has been playing Alana Beck in the national tour of the show ever since it launched last Fall, will take over that part in the Broadway production of the show, making her Broadway debut on October 22nd at the Music Box Theatre.

Primack, who just left the Broadway cast where he's been the understudy since April for the roles of Evan Hansen, Connor Murphy and Jared Kleinman, making his Broadway debut on June 22nd in the part of Evan Hansen, will play the lead role on the National tour, as the alternate, currently set to play Evan at the Thursday, Friday and Saturday matinees and all Sunday evening performances.

Koyabe and Primack appeared in five shows together in town, including Flat Stanley and Little Mermaid at Valley Youth Theatre, Les Miserables at Theatreworks' Youth Works, and Bring it On and American Idiot at Spotlight Youth Theatre.

Many of Koyabe's cast mates from the national tour will also be assuming those parts on Broadway this fall, including Jessica Phillips as Hedi Hansen, Tony Award-nominee Christiane Noll as Cynthia Murphy, and Jared Goldsmith as Jared Kleinman.

Joining Primack on the road for the second year of Dear Evan Hansen's recording-breaking North American Tour, which begins performances in Milwaukee on September 24, will be members of the Toronto production, including Jessica Sherman as Heidi Hansen, Claire Rankin as Cynthia Murphy, Stephanie La Rochelle as Zoe Murphy, Alessandro Costantini as Jared Kleinman in addition to Stephen Christopher Anthony as Evan.

We wish the best of luck to these two incredibly talented local performers as Phoebe leaves the tour for the Broadway cast and as Sam leaves the Broadway cast for the tour.