Chicago Sports

Chicago’s ‘Walking Man’ died Sunday afternoon, several months after he was set on fire as he slept on Lower Wabash Avenue.

Joseph Kromelis, 75, died Sunday afternoon, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Kromelis — a homeless man known for walking the streets of the Loop — was sleeping under blankets in the 400 block of North Lower Wabash Avenue on the night of May 25 when surveillance cameras captured Joseph Guardia, 27, walking up and standing over him silently for 16 seconds, prosecutors said in a court hearing in May.

The video allegedly shows Guardia walking to a nearby intersection then returning and pouring gasoline over Kromelis’ uncovered head and igniting it.

Doctors initially said the 75-year-old was not expected to recover after he was lit on fire for nearly three minutes. His upper body was engulfed in flames, and he suffered third-degree burns over 65% of his body.

About four months later, Kromelis was discharged from Stroger Hospital and continued to recover at a rehab facility, having to undergo additional surgeries.

Guardia provided no other motive than “being an angry person, and claimed he wanted to burn trash but did not realize there was a person there.”

Six years earlier — on May 24, 2016 — Kromelis was brutally beaten by someone with a baseball bat in the 400 block of East Lower Wacker Drive. The two were struggling over the bat when police arrived.

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ATLANTA – Derrick Jones Jr. did almost everything right on the play.

Almost.

And for a Bulls team that spends way too many early quarters seemingly OK with nonchalant turnovers and digging themselves into deficits, almost can be haunting.

Even when there’s less than a second left on the clock and victory is in hand.

Thanks to an unbelievable twisting alley-oop lay-in at the horn by AJ Griffin – yes, the son of former Bulls assistant coach Adrian Griffin – Atlanta not only snatched victory away from the Bulls in the 123-122 overtime win, but snatched a couple hearts out along the way.

“We’ve had enough trial and error,” Bulls veteran DeMar DeRozan said of the latest loss. “We know what works when we do it right, and at this point we should know what doesn’t work when we’re doing it wrong. This one sucks, this one hurts.”

DeRozan wasn’t alone in that feeling.

Jones was right there with him, especially after helping the Bulls overcome a 12-point deficit off the bench, and also having a chance to play hero.

With the game tied and 2.1 second left, Trae Young hit a 20-foot step back to put the momentum solely on the shoulders of the home team. Out of the time out and advancing the ball, however, it was DeRozan doing DeRozan things, catching the inbound beyond the three-point line and immediately getting fouled by Bogdan Bogdanovic with that half a second left on the shot attempt.

DeRozan made all three free throws, setting the stage for Griffin’s heroics.

Out of the first set, Young was the inbounder and had to call another timeout after the Bulls defended the back-cut perfectly. Jalen Johnson was the inbounder for the second attempt of running a play, and the Hawks used Young as the decoy, having him run off a stack of picks to pull the defense out.

Jones switched on to Griffin, but as Johnson tossed the ball up towards the hoop, Jones took his eye off the ball for a split second. A split second was all Griffin needed.

He caught the ball in the air, and in one motion twisted his body to connect on the lay-in.

“It wasn’t going in the entire game … they drew a play for me and I really appreciate that,” Griffin said of the play. “You’ve got a lot of things going on in your head, but you just want to get the shot off.”

Which would have been nearly impossible if the high-riser in Jones would have seen the ball.

“I did take my eye off the ball for a second, but I’ve just got to be better in that situation,” Jones said. “Honestly, if I would have seen the ball, nobody in this league jumps higher than me, so I would have definitely got that.”

What Jones and the Bulls (11-15) got was another loss, and more questions to answer, especially about a first half that was there for the taking if they could have only stayed out of their own way.

After playing a very clean game against Dallas just 24 hours earlier, the Bulls had their share of some iffy shot selection, but the head scratcher was a nonchalant attitude with the basketball. There were four Zach LaVine turnovers in the first quarter alone, eight team turnovers by halftime, and 15 by the end of the third quarter.

So while DeRozan’s 34 points and late-game heroics were nice, the veteran wasn’t at all satisfied and didn’t want his team satisfied.

“We feel it now,” DeRozan said. “We’ve dug ourselves a hole and now we’ve made it hard on ourselves where every single game is extremely important. That’s how we’ve got to approach it if we want to make something happen out of it.”

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Another long weekend of high school basketball is in the books. I’ve now seen 21 of the 25 ranked teams play, so I have a much better handle on things.

The quick list of teams I’d say impressed me as better than I expected them to be in the preseason: Simeon, Joliet West, Benet, Hillcrest, St. Ignatius, Bloom, Lincoln-Way East, Hyde Park, Proviso East, Lemont.

Marist, Rolling Meadows, New Trier and Lyons are the four ranked teams I haven’t had a chance to cover yet.

Marist is the only team added this week. Oak Lawn falls out after losing to Evergreen Park and Hinsdale Central. The Spartans still have that big win over Mount Carmel on their resume though, so don’t forget about them.

A lot of the holiday tournament pairings were released over the weekend. Tomorrow I’ll post a story with everything I’ve seen so far. No word yet on Proviso West. It’s possible I will get the Big Dipper pairings tomorrow.

Super 25 for Dec. 11, 2022With record and last week’s ranking

1. Simeon (6-0) 1Playing in Arkansas next weekend

2. Kenwood (6-1) 2Lost in Atlanta

3. Joliet West (7-2) 3In Madison next weekend

4. St. Rita (4-3) 5Won at Brother Rice

5. Young (4-3) 4Went 1-2 in DC

6. Brother Rice (9-1) 6Knocked off Bloom

7. Benet (8-0) 8Hosts Marian Catholic Friday

8. Hillcrest (8-1) 9Played well vs. East St. Louis

9. St. Ignatius (7-1) 10Reggie Ray can play

10. New Trier (8-1) 18Beat Rolling Meadows

11. Mount Carmel (8-1) 17Took down Curie

12. Curie (7-3) 11Looking for a leader

13. Rolling Meadows (9-1) 7Fell short vs. Trevians

14. Glenbrook North (8-0) 12Patrick Schaller has emerged

15. Bolingbrook (6-1) 13Winning shorthanded

16. Bloom (5-2) 14Loaded with potential

17. Marian Catholic (7-2) 16Handled Evanston

18. Lincoln-Way East (7-1) 20Hosts Andrew Tuesday

19. Oswego East (8-1) 21Faces Curie Saturday

20. Lyons (6-0) 22Beat Glenbard West

21. Hyde Park (7-1) 23Takes on Romeoville Saturday

22. Proviso East (5-1) 24Knocked off De La Salle

23. Lemont (9-0) 25Castillo twins are dominating

24. Evanston (7-2) 19Searching for shooting

25. Marist (8-0) NRYoung and unbeaten

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Marian Catholic senior Quentin Jones had a couple highlight-reel moments in the Spartans’ 57-45 win against Evanston on Sunday in the Team Rose Shootout at Mount Carmel. But that wasn’t really what he and his teammates were focusing on.

“We showed grit,” Jones said.

“It was a messy, sloppy, physical grind of a game. Not the best to watch, but it’s what Marian Catholic coach Mike Taylor really wanted to see out of his team.

“We had to establish some toughness and have a chance to win in the last three minutes,” Taylor said. “That’s the toughest we’ve played all year. That’s the only way we are going to win. We aren’t terifically skilled. We took a step forward today.”

Jones, a Cal Poly recruit, scored 19 points and Donovan Juzang added 12.

Taylor has been impressed with how Jones has started the season.

“If he can just find that happy medium of when to go and when to tempo it we might see something special in the second half of the season because he’s pretty hard to guard,” Taylor said.

Marian Catholic junior James Bullock battled valiantly in the post with Evanston senior Prince Adams and grabbed seven rebounds.

“It was a tough matchup [with Adams],” Bullock said. “He gets off the floor quick. I was just trying to play hard and physical.”

Adams finished with 24 points, 12 rebounds and four blocked shots. The Wildkits lost to Glenbrook North on Thursday and are now 7-2.

“We just didn’t get into any flow and rhythm other than Prince,” Evanston coach Mike Ellis said. “He tried to put us on his back and it wasn’t enough.”

Brother Rice 50, Bloom 46: The Crusaders didn’t score a basket in the fourth quarter but held on to win thanks to a late steal by Khalil Ross. Senior guard Ahmad Henderson led Brother Rice with 14 points.

The Blazing Trojans started strong and led by nine in the second quarter. Brother Rice took control with a 9-0 run to end the first half and never trailed again.

Jordan Brown led Bloom with 18 and Jayden Watson added 10 points and five rebounds.

Rich 88, Lindblom 69: This was my first look at Rich freshman Jamson Coulter and he delivered, finishing with 27 points and six rebounds. He gets to the rim and his overall game is a solid and confident as most senior guards.

“He’s probably the best freshman in the state,” Raptors coach Lou Adams said. “The sky is the limit. He can play. He has a motor, can handle it and shoot it.”

Junior Samar Bures added 23 points for Rich, which played without senior Ray Austin. Adams says Austin is expected to return next week.

“We’ve had a chance to win every game we played but Marian Catholic,” Adams said. “We should be 7-1, but I’ll take it. We didn’t have a senior on the floor.”

Junior Je’Shawn Stevenson Jr. led Lindblom with 27 points and five rebounds. Junior guard Quentin McCoy added 14.

Proviso East 74, De La Salle 61: Bryce Coleman continued his resurgence with 16 points and Jaloni Johnson added 13. Richard Lindsey scored 13 for the Metoers.

Hillcrest 73, Normal 44: The Hawks dominated from start to finish. Quentin Heady led with 18 and point guard Bryce Tillery and big man Darrion Baker each added 17. Hillcrest was impressive. Jaheem Webber, Normal’s highly-regarded prospect, finished with 14.

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ATLANTA – The report from back in Chicago was optimistic.

Then again, when discussing an injury and how quickly his return to the lineup will be, veteran guard Alex Caruso has been known to sell his coach some early false hope.

The Bulls’ Billy Donovan, however, spoke to Caruso about the sore tailbone suffered in Saturday’s win over the Mavericks, and was looking forward to having the do-it-all guard back sooner than later, especially with what’s on the schedule heading into Christmas.

Over the next six games, the Bulls play the New York Knicks three times, as well as a game in Miami. Two teams that thrive on physicality, but also pride themselves on paying attention to the details. Not exactly the overall strength of this Bulls roster, especially when Caruso’s not in it.

“There’s the perfect example of a guy that doesn’t need to score a lot of points to impact a stat sheet or impact a game,” Donovan said of Caruso and his importance. “It reminds me – obviously they’re different players – but when I had Andre Roberson in OKC, he was a great complement to Serge Ibaka, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, because he just never really scored, was an opportunistic cutter, occasionally took a couple corner threes, lockdown defender, impact a game with his activity, his offensive rebounds, his steals, covering up for guys, putting his body in plays.”

Basically, the daily job description that Caruso carries around for this Bulls team.

While Caruso entered Sunday 10th in team scoring with 5.2 points per game, he was the clear leader in plus/minus (plus-88), and wasn’t being pushed by anyone, with Goran Dragic second at a plus-59.

And it’s not like Caruso has built that plus/minus with the same group. He’s been a starter, played the role of sixth man, and has often been used to close games.

That’s why the hope was that the treatment he received at the Advocate Center on Sunday will lead to a quick recovery. According to Donovan, Tuesday will tell them a lot, with the team expected to have a full practice that day.

“[Caruso’s] an elite defender, he’s not afraid to put his body in plays,” Donovan said. “So yeah, he’s as good as anybody I’ve been around when you look at stat sheets and you look at points, shot attempts, and say, ‘Geez, this guy’s fingerprints are all over the game with the way he played.’

“And I think Alex is smart enough that when he looks at the group, he always looks at it through the lens of, ‘How can I help the group function well, and what can I do to impact the group positively?’ ”

Work in the lab

While some may have been surprised that Patrick Williams entered Sunday as one of the better three-point shooters on the roster so far this season, Williams wasn’t.

“Reps, reps,” Williams said of his 45.3% from beyond the three-point line this season. “I can’t say that I changed my shot too much. Just more so being ready [to shoot]. When you’ve got guys like Zach [LaVine] and DeMar [DeRozan], pick-and-roll genius like Goran [Dragic], and just the guys that can get downhill and create their own shot, you get a lot of closeouts where a shot-fake can go or just a catch-and-shoot. So just be poised in those situations to make the right decision.”

Then again, it’s easy to forget that while it was a small sample size last season – just nine games – Williams did shoot 51.7% from three.

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After the Blackhawks’ surprisingly hot start through their first eight games, general manager Kyle Davidson — asked if he’d alter his plans if the team’s success continued — essentially kicked that question down the road.

“I don’t think we’re going to change our course at all,” he said. “We’ll see where we’re at and go from there. How we handle it, we’ll see, but we’ll get there first.”

Well, the Hawks are now a few miles down the road, and Davidson’s lack of early concern about them potentially being better than planned has been completely justified. He has consistently insisted he does want them to win, but there’s no denying a top draft pick helps the organization long-term.

They’ve lost 17 of their last 20 games, falling to 7-15-4 on the season. They have a minus-32 goal differential. Their five-on-five ratios all sit around 40%, among the league’s worst.

They’re struggling to defend the slot defensively, struggling to stop conceding odd-man rushes and struggling to actually shoot during their offensive opportunities. Even their penalty kill, an October bright spot, no longer looks unique.

They’ve conceded the first goal in 12 of their last 13 games, and they don’t have the necessary neutral-zone speed and playmaking to break through a team protecting a lead. The past three losses — against the stout Islanders, Devils and Jets — in which they’ve scored just one goal (off an offensive-zone takeaway, not a rush or sustained possession) exemplify that.

Patrick Kane, with 20 points in 26 games, entered Sunday tied for 109th in the NHL in scoring and on track for the least productive full season of his career — and he’s still the Hawks’ leading scorer this season. Every other team’s leading scorer has more points; the Stars have six players with more points.

Jonathan Toews, with just four points in his last 12 games, has cooled off after his strong start. Max Domi and Andreas Athanasiou have been fine, but aren’t significantly altering the course of the season (and the forward depth chart will look even uglier once they’re traded). The Hawks still haven’t had a defenseman score a power-play goal since May 2021.

Indeed, the tank appears right on track after all.

The biggest obstacle at the moment appears to — strangely enough — be the Ducks, who have managed to be even more disastrous than the Hawks.

The Ducks are 7-18-3, earning 17 points in 28 games, the only team worse than the Hawks’ 18 points through 26 games. They have, somehow, won only once in regulation. They have a minus-50 goal differential and an abysmal .892 team save percentage.

The Hawks are on pace for 57 points this season, which wouldn’t have been bad enough to finish in last place last season (the Canadiens finished with 55) but would have been three of the previous four full seasons.

Finishing in last place gives them only a 25.5% chance of winning the No. 1 pick in the draft lottery, but it does guarantee a top-three pick. They’re definitely exhibiting the necessary incompetence to wind up in that conversation.

The Ducks, however, are on pace for just 50 points, which would make them the NHL’s second-worst team since the 2005 lockout. They might be historically awful.

The Coyotes, the preseason favorite to finish in last place, are barely ahead of the Hawks at the moment — with 20 points in 25 games entering Sunday. The Sharks and Flyers, the preseason dark horses to slip into the tanking competition, aren’t far off pace with 23 and 24 points, respectively, entering Sunday. The Blue Jackets have also been surprisingly poor, with 20 points in 26 games and a minus-32 goal differential of their own.

Regardless, there’s still two-thirds of the season left to play.

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The Chicago Bulls just put together two of their best quarters in franchise history.

On Saturday night, the opening game of a back-to-back, the Chicago Bulls easily defeated the Dallas Mavericks 144-115. The Bulls improved their record to 11-14 and currently hold the 11th spot in the Eastern Conference.

On their approach to setting a franchise record for first-half scoring with 82 points, the Chicago Bulls got off to a hot start, scoring a season-high 40 points in the opening quarter. They had a first-half field goal percentage of 58.8% and a total of 65.9%. An early 18-point deficit was reduced by the Mavericks to five points in the first quarter. But by the conclusion of the first half, the Bulls had completely taken control of the contest and led 82-53 at the break.

DeMar DeRozan was the top scorer with 17 points on a flawless 9-9 shooting effort from the free throw line. Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic combined for 29 points on 12-17 shooting from the field in the meanwhile. They dominated the Mavericks with selfless passing, fastbreak opportunities, and some of their finest 3-point shooting of the year, dishing out 21 assists on 29 made field goals.

Halftime: Bulls 82, Mavs 53.

Franchise record for scoring in the first half by Chicago.

— Darnell Mayberry (@DarnellMayberry) December 11, 2022

 

Per Xavier Santos “The second quarter was the DeRozan show. On three occasions, he pump-faked a Mavericks defender and was able to get to the line. It was during this stretch that Jason Kidd waved the white flag. With DeRozan clearly feeling it, the Mavericks deployed a lineup with Frank Ntilikina, Jaden Hardy, Kemba Walker, Davis Bertans, and JaVale McGee. He didn’t bring a credible wing defender or Dinwiddie into the game until the Mavericks were once again down 20 and the Bulls never looked back”.

All things considered, it was precisely what you expected from a team that is trying its hardest to salvage its season. Not to mention, it should allow them to rest their starters before their game, which is in less than a day in Atlanta.

 

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The Chicago Bulls just put together two of their best quarters in franchise history.

On Saturday night, the opening game of a back-to-back, the Chicago Bulls easily defeated the Dallas Mavericks 144-115. The Bulls improved their record to 11-14 and currently hold the 11th spot in the Eastern Conference.

On their approach to setting a franchise record for first-half scoring with 82 points, the Chicago Bulls got off to a hot start, scoring a season-high 40 points in the opening quarter. They had a first-half field goal percentage of 58.8% and a total of 65.9%. An early 18-point deficit was reduced by the Mavericks to five points in the first quarter. But by the conclusion of the first half, the Bulls had completely taken control of the contest and led 82-53 at the break.

DeMar DeRozan was the top scorer with 17 points on a flawless 9-9 shooting effort from the free throw line. Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic combined for 29 points on 12-17 shooting from the field in the meanwhile. They dominated the Mavericks with selfless passing, fastbreak opportunities, and some of their finest 3-point shooting of the year, dishing out 21 assists on 29 made field goals.

Halftime: Bulls 82, Mavs 53.

Franchise record for scoring in the first half by Chicago.

— Darnell Mayberry (@DarnellMayberry) December 11, 2022

 

Per Xavier Santos “The second quarter was the DeRozan show. On three occasions, he pump-faked a Mavericks defender and was able to get to the line. It was during this stretch that Jason Kidd waved the white flag. With DeRozan clearly feeling it, the Mavericks deployed a lineup with Frank Ntilikina, Jaden Hardy, Kemba Walker, Davis Bertans, and JaVale McGee. He didn’t bring a credible wing defender or Dinwiddie into the game until the Mavericks were once again down 20 and the Bulls never looked back”.

All things considered, it was precisely what you expected from a team that is trying its hardest to salvage its season. Not to mention, it should allow them to rest their starters before their game, which is in less than a day in Atlanta.

 

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The Hydra-like power of social media is emphasized early in “Dear Evan Hansen.” The high school teens at the epicenter of the musical running through New Year’s Eve at the Nederlander Theatre are often framed (engulfed, more like) by an ever-scrolling onslaught of hashtags, texts, photos and emojis, perhaps never so poignantly as in the second number, when the socially awkward title character unleashes “Waving Through a Window.”

The song (score and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul) is a sonic high point in the six-time Tony-winning musical. The melody is as soaring, wistful and lonesome as a Roy Orbison ballad. It’s impossible not to relate to Anthony Norman’s emotive Evan Hansen, singing about isolation, surrounded by relentlessly curated pix of his smiling peers. The yearning disaffection in the lyrics foreshadow the first-act suicide that sets the musical’s plot into motion.

“Dear Evan Hansen” is an irresistibly upbeat, insistent testimony to the belief that no one is alone. The tunefully arcing optimism of “You Will Be Found” hits like a blast of sunshine. But despite the euphoria that informs much of the score and the sense of well-being that concludes Steven Levenson’s book, “Dear Evan Hansen” also shows the irrecoverable losses that occur when feelings of alienation shut out all the light.

Finally, its pointed commentary on the self-serving impulse at (or near) the heart of so many supposedly selfless social media campaigns remains as timely as it was when the show premiered in 2015. Directed by Michael Grief, the musical still runs like clockwork — or a late-model phone — and hits all the right notes.

The somewhat convoluted story hinges on the first act (offstage) suicide. Evan (Jeffrey Cornelius at some performances) winds up posing as the dead student’s best friend, even though they barely knew each other. The ruse starts accidentally, but Evan eventually becomes a willing participant in a tangled, elaborate email scheme that draws in the entire family of the deceased. When Evan’s memorial speech goes viral, he’s forced to take the deception to ever-deeper levels.

He’s aided and abetted by his comic sidekick pal Jared Kleinman (Pablo David Laucerica, giving bad advice with hilariously fearless conviction), who agrees to create a trove of “backdated” electronic records that will “prove” how close Evan was to the suicide victim.

Meanwhile, chronic high school overachiever Alana Beck (Micaela Lamas) laments to anyone in earshot that she’s lost her “closest acquaintance,” and appoints herself co-president of a campaign to raise $50,000 for a memorial grove.

Teenagers not being masterminds and social media being the searchable trove of receipts that it is, the skein of exaggerations, lies, omissions and underlying agendas comes to light, resulting in humiliation and emotional devastation on all sides.

One of the flaws in “Dear Evan Hansen” is that it glosses over the fallout from the viral mendacity. Instead of dealing with it, the plot leaps from crisis point to many months later. The strife has apparently evaporated off stage. The set (projection design by Peter Nigrini, set by David Korins) is no longer dominated by a barrage of social media posts but by a romantically lit orchard.

The other problem lies in Evan’s memorial speech, a remembrance supposedly so powerful that it makes him an insta-celebrity. We never actually hear most of that speech. What we do hear is about as viral as an office breakroom poster.

That said, the cast here is terrific. As Evan, Norman captures the contradictions and messiness of being a flawed human teenager. As badboy Connor Murphy, Nikhil Saboo channels a long line of them, shades of James Dean, Judd Nelson and Fezco merging with a puckish charisma.

As Evan and Connor’s respective moms, Coleen Sexton and Lili Thomas duet with fiery maternal attitude in the parental lament “Anybody Have a Map?” Lamas’ delivery of a single line turns Alana 180 degrees from craven to empathetic. And as Connor’s sister Zoe, Alaina Anderson finds layers in a poker-faced character with a nearly ironclad shell.

There are no big boffo dance numbers here. “Dear Evan Hansen” is a chamber musical powerfully grounded in emotion. As its protagonists struggle to navigate its extremes on- and offline, you’ll feel for them.

Read More

The Hydra-like power of social media is emphasized early in “Dear Evan Hansen.” The high school teens at the epicenter of the musical running through New Year’s Eve at the Nederlander Theatre are often framed (engulfed, more like) by an ever-scrolling onslaught of hashtags, texts, photos and emojis, perhaps never so poignantly as in the second number, when the socially awkward title character unleashes “Waving Through a Window.”

The song (score and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul) is a sonic high point in the six-time Tony-winning musical. The melody is as soaring, wistful and lonesome as a Roy Orbison ballad. It’s impossible not to relate to Anthony Norman’s emotive Evan Hansen, singing about isolation, surrounded by relentlessly curated pix of his smiling peers. The yearning disaffection in the lyrics foreshadow the first-act suicide that sets the musical’s plot into motion.

“Dear Evan Hansen” is an irresistibly upbeat, insistent testimony to the belief that no one is alone. The tunefully arcing optimism of “You Will Be Found” hits like a blast of sunshine. But despite the euphoria that informs much of the score and the sense of well-being that concludes Steven Levenson’s book, “Dear Evan Hansen” also shows the irrecoverable losses that occur when feelings of alienation shut out all the light.

Finally, its pointed commentary on the self-serving impulse at (or near) the heart of so many supposedly selfless social media campaigns remains as timely as it was when the show premiered in 2015. Directed by Michael Grief, the musical still runs like clockwork — or a late-model phone — and hits all the right notes.

The somewhat convoluted story hinges on the first act (offstage) suicide. Evan (Jeffrey Cornelius at some performances) winds up posing as the dead student’s best friend, even though they barely knew each other. The ruse starts accidentally, but Evan eventually becomes a willing participant in a tangled, elaborate email scheme that draws in the entire family of the deceased. When Evan’s memorial speech goes viral, he’s forced to take the deception to ever-deeper levels.

He’s aided and abetted by his comic sidekick pal Jared Kleinman (Pablo David Laucerica, giving bad advice with hilariously fearless conviction), who agrees to create a trove of “backdated” electronic records that will “prove” how close Evan was to the suicide victim.

Meanwhile, chronic high school overachiever Alana Beck (Micaela Lamas) laments to anyone in earshot that she’s lost her “closest acquaintance,” and appoints herself co-president of a campaign to raise $50,000 for a memorial grove.

Teenagers not being masterminds and social media being the searchable trove of receipts that it is, the skein of exaggerations, lies, omissions and underlying agendas comes to light, resulting in humiliation and emotional devastation on all sides.

One of the flaws in “Dear Evan Hansen” is that it glosses over the fallout from the viral mendacity. Instead of dealing with it, the plot leaps from crisis point to many months later. The strife has apparently evaporated off stage. The set (projection design by Peter Nigrini, set by David Korins) is no longer dominated by a barrage of social media posts but by a romantically lit orchard.

The other problem lies in Evan’s memorial speech, a remembrance supposedly so powerful that it makes him an insta-celebrity. We never actually hear most of that speech. What we do hear is about as viral as an office breakroom poster.

That said, the cast here is terrific. As Evan, Norman captures the contradictions and messiness of being a flawed human teenager. As badboy Connor Murphy, Nikhil Saboo channels a long line of them, shades of James Dean, Judd Nelson and Fezco merging with a puckish charisma.

As Evan and Connor’s respective moms, Coleen Sexton and Lili Thomas duet with fiery maternal attitude in the parental lament “Anybody Have a Map?” Lamas’ delivery of a single line turns Alana 180 degrees from craven to empathetic. And as Connor’s sister Zoe, Alaina Anderson finds layers in a poker-faced character with a nearly ironclad shell.

There are no big boffo dance numbers here. “Dear Evan Hansen” is a chamber musical powerfully grounded in emotion. As its protagonists struggle to navigate its extremes on- and offline, you’ll feel for them.

Read More