Mallory Bechtel on Joining Dear Evan Hansen's Newish Cast and How Her YouTube Page Led to Broadway

Only a few weeks after she graduated from her Texas high school in May, Mallory Bechtel stepped into the Tony-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen as Zoe. Audiences might think this was her first foray with Broadway, but the 18-year-old's journey with the production goes way back. When she was only 15, Bechtel auditioned for the role of Zoe. Then, two years later, she was cast as the vacation standby for original Broadway cast member Laura Dreyfuss, covering the part on Broadway in August 2017 (though she never went on) and again in January. On July 31, she took over the role fulltime, even recording a new version of “Requiem.” Post-high school, Bechtel is deferring her start at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts to make her Broadway debut, even though she thought she would attend a typical four-year program right after high school. “This is really great, too!” she laughs.

On Being a Shy Kid
Growing up in The Woodlands, a suburb of Houston, Bechtel didn’t have the obvious makings of a spotlight hog. “I was a really shy kid,” she says. “Even as a senior in English class, I got very nervous to speak in class and my hands were shaking as I shared an opinion on a book," she remembers. Bechtel says enrolling in drama classes and doing shows at a community theater helped relieve that shyness. “It's always felt different if I'm playing a character, I guess,” she explains. “I think as I did more and more theater, I was forced to work with older people. So, I slowly got more confident and was able to talk to people more.”

Barbie Dreams
Bechtel first stepped on stage in a children’s production of Twinderella, in which the Cinderellas are–get this—twins. “There's a really cute video of me in a little trumpeter outfit playing the trumpet,” she says. But her drive to pursue theater wasn’t ingnited until later. “I think what might have really inspired it was a combination of Barbie movies like Princess and the Pauper,” she says. "And High School Musical came out when I was in kindergarten. That was like a really big deal. I really loved that.” That’s not the story her parents will tell you, though, she says. “I think the first professional show I ever saw was Wicked, the tour, and I'm told that after I saw it, I said, ‘That's what I want to do; I want to be on that stage.’”

An OG Lin-Manuel Miranda Fan
Dear Evan Hansen’s “Fansens” are one of Broadway's most fervent fandoms, both at the stage door and online. Bechtel remembers when they found her on social media after her first performance as Zoe, when the Dear Evan Hansen Instagram account posted a photo congratulating her on her Broadway debut. "The followers just came rolling in," she says. "I don't have my notifications turned on, so I would check like every once in a while and just see them in bulks. It's really crazy.” And though Bechtel is a self-proclaimed Fansen, she also fangirls over another Tony-winning musical. “What do you call a Hamilton fan? Is there a name for that? A Familton? I consider myself a Familton,” she says, maintaining that she was an early fan of Lin-Manuel Miranda's. “The first musical I really obsessed over was In the Heights. My music teacher came into my voice class one day, and we were so excited because we were all like nine and had never gotten to rap before. So, he taught us the beginning to “In the Heights,” and we were all so psyched about it.”

Going Viral
Even before the Fansens found her social media platforms, Bechtel’s covers of musical theater songs were racking up more than 50,000 views each on YouTube. The account has 12,000 subscribers, but Bechtel says she has little to do with it. “It's actually totally run by my mom,” she admits. “I have never uploaded a video myself. But I think she put a video of me singing “Don't Rain on My Parade" when I was seven, and then people just really liked it. So, we continued doing it as I've grown up. It's crazy what it's done for me. That's how I have my manager is because of my YouTube channel. People have just reached out, and it's gotten me a lot of places.” Some commenters on her videos say they’ve been following her career for five or six years, and now they’re so proud she’s finally made it. “I love hearing at the stage door that people have known who I am,” she says. “And I think it made me feel more confident coming into the role that there were people out there who knew about me and supported me.”

Showing Her the Ropes
Original cast members Will Roland, Mike Faist and Rachel Bay Jones all departed the show this summer, replaced by Sky Lakota Lynch, Alex Boniello and Lisa Brescia, respectively. So, what's it like to step into a show with a new set of stars? “It's really nice to have new people there because they just went through it, so they really understand how scary and nerve-wracking it is,” Bechtel says. “Especially, Alex [Boniello], who all the time checks in with me before we go on stage. He’s like, ‘Tell me the first time you mess up,’ or whatever. It's like a little buddy.” Of course, she also has original cast members Jennifer Laura Thompson and Michael Park, who play her parents, to turn to. “They knew me as a vacation understudy and were also really supportive through the process," she says. "The very first show, Michael Park, right before we were going to go on for the breakfast table scene, he was just talking my ear off. And I was kind of freaking out, but it was nice because I had this distraction. At the very end, he said, 'I'm distracting you right now so you don't freak out.'”

Justice for Ozark
Now that Bechtel has moved to New York City, she has time for very little. She says she mainly spends what time she does have with her older sister who lives here, and watches The Office. Her other TV obsessions are more in the anti-hero vein: “I really love Ozark, and I was really shocked it didn't get nominated for best show for the Emmy Awards. But Jason Bateman got a Best Actor nomination, so thank God for that. I like Rick and Morty. I love Breaking Bad. I like when there's drugs involved," she jokes. "Makes it fun.”