Seen, Heard, Found: Blake McCarty and Aiden Meyndert Take on Dear Evan Hansen at Cygnet Theatre
By Cesar A Reyes
From September 9th through October 4th, Cygnet Theatre is bringing Dear Evan Hansen to its stage in a new production that takes on one of musical theatre’s most emotionally complicated stories: what happens when loneliness, anxiety, and the need to belong collide. At the center are two San Diego theatre artists approaching the story from different sides of the stage. Director Blake McCarty, a longtime member of the local theatre community, brings more than two decades of experience as a director, designer, producer, writer and teaching artist. Taking on the title role is Aiden Meyndert, a young actor whose love of theatre began at age six and who is making his Cygnet Theatre debut. Together, they are exploring a story about truth, grief, mental health, and the human desire to be seen.
For Meyndert, theatre has always been his passion. “I have always wanted to be an actor—it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do,” he says. Growing up in Rancho Cucamonga, he began with city theatre classes, moved into community theatre and landed his first professional contract at 16. “Every day doing theatre is a day that I am living my dream,” he says.
His connection to San Diego began with family vacations, but became permanent when he moved here in 2022 to attend UC San Diego. After earning his B.A. in Theatre, he decided to stay. “It is the best and easiest decision I’ve made to date,” he says. The city initially provided an education; then gave him a community of artists and a place to continue finding his voice.
His love of live theatre was cemented during a middle-school birthday trip when his mother took him to see the national tour of Mamma Mia!. It was his first professional production, and the experience stayed with him. “I was shaken to my core,” he recalls. What moved him was the realization that theatre could be more than entertainment. “It’s impactful, it’s vulnerable, it’s a moment in time that can’t be captured or repeated.”
That belief now shapes how Meyndert approaches Evan Hansen. Rather than reducing Evan to his anxiety or suicidal ideation, he wants audiences to see the teenager underneath it all. “Our goal was always to show Evan as he is: a 17 year old boy who exists in deeply complex circumstances,” Meyndert says. “He wants to fit in like everyone else. He wants to make others happy in the way that he wishes he was.”
That complexity is also what drew McCarty to the musical. He first encountered Dear Evan Hansen when it premiered Off-Broadway nearly a decade ago and was immediately struck by its score and complicated story. For this production, he says the creative team has focused on “compassionately exploring these characters and the ways in which they are navigating loneliness, isolation, and grief.”
The result is a production that refuses to make its characters easy to categorize. “It’s a very human story that asks difficult questions about relationships, identity, and truth,” McCarty says. “I’m proud that it doesn’t necessarily offer easy answers.”
That idea of living in the gray is central to McCarty’s own creative philosophy. Asked to choose one word that represents his work, “The WORD is Nuance. The work I create or find myself drawn to rarely provides easy answers,” he explains. “Instead, it gives audiences agency to forge their own path and create meaning.”
Although this is McCarty’s first time directing for Cygnet, he is hardly new to the organization. This marks his sixteenth collaboration with the company. His background as a video and projection designer, educator and theatre artist working with vulnerable communities also makes the production a natural fit. The show’s visual scale gives him another way to tell its story, while the emotional material connects directly to his work beyond the stage.
For Meyndert, however, the most meaningful part of the process has been the people around him. Playing Evan is emotionally demanding, but he describes the rehearsal process as filled with “joy, comfort, and discovery.” He credits the cast, creative team and Cygnet staff with creating an environment where the weight of the story can be shared.
He also has a special connection with McCarty, whom he first met in 2024. “I pinch myself that I get to call him a collaborator, and I’m endlessly grateful that I get to call him a friend,” Meyndert says. In an industry that can sometimes feel isolating, McCarty made him feel seen. “He showed me that I mattered,” he says. “He is the warmest spirit.”
That sense of being seen may be the heart of Dear Evan Hansen.
McCarty believes the musical captures something that can be difficult to recognize from the outside: “Isolation can hide in plain sight.” Someone can be struggling while everyone around them remains unaware. The story may resonate strongly with young people, but McCarty sees it reaching parents, families and friends, too. “Each of us has more power to affect someone else’s story than we usually realize.”
For Meyndert, the characters cannot be reduced to heroes or villains. “Our show has no villains. Our show has no heroes,” he says. “Our show is about people who yearn for others to see them.” They are messy, hopeful, awkward, joyful and hurting. “They are united in complexity.”
Both artists hope the production leaves audiences with something more than a difficult story. McCarty wants people struggling with depression or social anxiety to know that “you’re not alone.” Meyndert offers an equally direct message: “You matter. You are worthy of happiness and you deserve that happiness just by being you.”
And perhaps that is where the title of the musical becomes something more than a song. Reflecting on his experience with the cast and creative team, Meyndert says, “To the point of end of Act 1 song ‘You Will Be Found,’ I have been found by them.”
For a production built around loneliness, that may be its most powerful discovery: sometimes being found begins with simply having someone willing to look.