DWTS Champ Jordan Fisher to Play Title Role in Broadway's Dear Evan Hansen: See the First Photo
Jordan Fisher is heading back to Broadway.
PEOPLE can exclusively reveal that the actor, recording artist, and Dancing with the Stars season 25 champion will join the Broadway production of Dear Evan Hansen this January for a limited 16-week engagement in the Tony-winning musical’s title role.
It’ll be the first time Fisher is back treading the boards on the Great White Way since he made his debut as John Laurens/Philip Hamilton in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton back in 2016.
Fisher’s engagement in Dear Evan Hansen, which is currently playing at New York City’s Music Box Theatre, begins Jan. 28, 2020.
“Evan Hansen is a 16-course meal for an actor. The complexity of this boy is akin to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in my opinion,” Fisher, 25, said in a statement. “I doubt I’ll ever forget the first time I sat in the Music Box to see it, and the idea of being a part of that memory for others is mind-blowing. I’m so honored to join this amazing company.”
The move will also reunite Fisher with Dear Evan Hansen‘s director Michael Greif, who led him in Fox’s Rent: Live at the top of this year.
“Jordan’s a remarkably talented, transformational actor, and a great musician,” Greif gushed in a statement of his own. “I thought he was spectacular in Rent: Live, and I know he’ll be a thrilling Evan.”
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Written by the Tony-winning composing team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul with a book from Steven Levenson, Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of an anxiety-plagued high school loner named Evan who is 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 and rides that error to popularity. (The story is loosely based on an experience Pasek witnessed in high school).
Since opening on Broadway on Dec. 4, 2016, the Stacey Mindich-produced show has become a sold-out smash, its message of teenage isolation and the importance of inclusiveness resonating with audiences of all ages. The show has won six Tonys and the Grammy for best musical theater album. A novel and a 20-track deluxe edition cast recording were later released, with Katy Perry singing a cover of the show’s signature song, “Waving Through a Window.”
The musical is also currently out on a national tour and has opened two international productions, one in Toronto and the other in London’s West End.
Four actors have played Evan full-time on Broadway: Tony-winner Ben Platt, who originated the role; Real O’Neals alumnus Noah Galvin; actor Taylor Trensch; and Andrew Barth Feldman, whose final performance will be on Jan. 26, 2020.
Feldman is the youngest actor to ever play the part, joining the Broadway cast last January at just 16 years old while still a junior at Lawrence Woodmere Academy in Woodmere, New York.
Fisher has 20 television and film credits to his name, including The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Liv and Maddie, Grease: Live, and Netflix’s upcoming sequel to To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, opposite Noah Centineo and Lana Condor.
He won Dancing with the Stars in 2017, beating out violinist and composer Lindsey Stirling and actor and race car driver Frankie Muniz. At 23, Fisher was the youngest male winner of the show. He’s gone on to host Dancing with the Stars: Juniors.
RELATED: Dancing with the Stars‘ Jordan Fisher and Ellie Woods Are Engaged — See Her Stunning Ring
In May, Fisher popped the question to his longtime love Ellie Woods, whom he first met when he was just 13 years old before their relationship turned romantic as adults.
“We were best friends growing up,” Fisher told PEOPLE exclusively of their engagement, adding that he knew “pretty much two months into dating” that Woods was “the one.”
“When I talk to somebody about love and being in love, it’s less the matter of envisioning your life with that person but trying to envision your life without that person,” he added. “When I realized very early on that I couldn’t picture my life without Ellie, I was like ‘I gotta do something about that!’
