Live theatre can shine a spotlight on social issues, provide insight to emotional situations or offer escape from everyday life. Lisa Brescia’s most recent production – Dear Evan Hansen – delves into raw, emotional issues like loneliness, mental illness and social anxiety all while managing to be incredibly uplifting. Learn more about Lisa Brescia and how she brings her Broadway experience into the classroom at mindseye.missouristate.edu.

“Tony-winning best musical “Dear Evan Hansen” continues breaking hearts on Broadway nightly, in no small part due to the act 2 tearjerker “So Big/So Small.” Sung to Evan by his mother Heidi, the tune is arguably the emotional climax of an entirely emotional show and for that reason, the temptation for the actor to self-serve looms. But Lisa Brescia, who’s portrayed the single mother full-time since August (replacing Rachel Bay Jones, who won a Tony for the role), insists that making the moment about oneself is not only indulgent, it’s boring…”

Mallory Bechtel and Lisa Brescia have seen Dear Evan Hansen from a number of perspectives. Both actors almost took part in workshops of it. Both saw the show as audience members. And both served as vacation covers for the roles they’re playing now, Zoe Murphy and Heidi Hansen, early in the Broadway run. Bechtel, fresh off her high school graduation, and Brescia, a former leading lady of Mamma Mia! and Wicked and currently a professor of acting at Missouri State University, are putting their academic pursuits on hold to take in the view from a Broadway stage.

Broadway.com #LiveatFive with Lisa Brescia of DEAR EVAN HANSEN

Does anybody have a map for replacing a Tony-winning actor in running Broadway show? The road isn’t easy, but Lisa Brescia has traveled it before. Earlier this week, the Broadway veteran joined the company of Dear Evan Hansen as ‘Heidi Hansen,’ marking her return to Broadway after six years since departing the cast of Mamma Mia!. Brescia succeeds Rachel Bay Jones, who played her final performance on August 5, 2018.

Assistant Professor Lisa Brescia has appeared in seven Broadway productions. “How can we truthfully live under imaginary circumstances on stage?” asks Lisa Brescia, assistant professor in the department of theatre and dance. It’s the essential question for a professional actor, she says. “Honestly living in the world of the play as someone else, seemingly effortlessly, is the job.” And she says, “How I prepare may be different from other people; I’ve found what works best for me.”