Illustrating ‘You Will Be Found’, by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul

This was a massive job.

Hence, this is a fairly massive blog.

If you want to read the lot — get the kettle on! And settle in.

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When I was first contacted about this job by Sasha at Little, Brown, I knew nothing about the musical ‘Dear Evan Hansen’, nor its story; I was ignorant of its success and didn’t know anything about its songwriters, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (though I later found out I knew a lot about their songs!)

I’m not generally a musical fan, and as such, this was totally off my radar.

Unusually for me, I didn’t immediately set-to with an hours-long Duck Duck Go search of the musical, its characters or its writers. Knowing only that this was to be a ‘the book of the song’ — the most famous and well-loved song of this extremely successful Broadway musical — all I was eager to find were as many renditions as possible of it, learn its words, understand its rhythm and cadence. Which I found, and listened to, and watched, over and over.