Alana Beck

Kristolyn Lloyd as Alana Beck

Samantha Williams

Phoebe Koyabe

Nicole Raquel Dennis

Alana Beck is Evan's classmate. She is constantly looking for academic and extracurricular activities to boost her college résumé. She was a "close acquaintance" with Connor and used to be his lab partner, and also did a presentation on Huckleberry Finn with him in tenth grade. Although she was not necessarily his friend, she was still greatly affected by his death due to relating to his experiences with mental illnesses. She started the memorial page that was the precursor to the Connor Project, and jumped to join the Connor Project team at its creation. make you mine lyrics

## Character Description

Alana is tall and has dark eyes. She wears colorful but practical dresses and skirts and carries a big backpack. She strives for the top grades and the most extracurriculars because she believes that it is the path to success and happiness, but is also deeply afraid of failure and overworks herself as a result. Her ambition can annoy others, as well as often being oblivious and tone-deaf, without her realizing it. Once she starts something, she works on it until it's finished. She has what the script refers to as "barely concealed desperation in her almost-too-wide smile." It's not well-known, but Alana also suffers from anxiety.

When Alana is first introduced, she's trying desperately to start a conversation in any way, starting with a simple "How was your summer?" The first impression that the audience is given of her isn't very good, as she doesn't really listen to Evan that well, but she has good intentions, as some people say.

## Personality

Alana Beck is an overachiever who doesn't have many friends. She usually just feels "invisible and alone and like no one would care if she just vanished into thin air." She's shown one night, "all traces of her typical studied cheeriness gone entirely" while checking her phone for literally anything from anyone at all. That's when she learns that Connor Murphy, one of her classmates, committed suicide really recently. She realizes that this kid was her lab partner in Chemistry, and they also once did a project together on Huckleberry Finn together! So off she goes to social media, trying to find anyone who'd maybe listen for once.

But she's not gonna lie, she still crack that they weren't exactly friends. More of acquaintances. She tries to find anyone who she could talk to now, using the excuse "In times like these, we could all use a friend." When some kid, Jared Kleinman, starts telling everyone that Evan Hansen, an acquaintance of hers, was Connor's best friend, she realizes that some level of her's always known they were close.

About a week later, EVERYBODY'S FORGOTTEN ABOUT CONNOR. He's just... disappeared. It's not fair. No one who felt as alone as Connor probably did should /ever/ just vanish from everyone's memory. So she does what a sensible person would do, and approaches Evan for help. But he just doesn't seem to know what to say about it. So she insists he does /something/, and leaves. The next day, Evan comes up to Alana and the Jared kid (who's now kinda becoming her close acquaintance) and tells them that he has an idea. Something called the Connor Project. A group that's dedicated to making sure Connor's memory stays alive, to making sure that he's not forgotten! So Alana accepts what she interprets to be an invite as Evan's co-president, and they start making the blog.

On the day that the Connor Project takes off, Evan gives a speech to the entire school. Really inspiring, too. Well, someone posts a video of the speech online, and it BLOWS. UP. When she checks the blog again, she sees that the followers have not doubled, not tripled, no, not even quadrupled. They now have more than EIGHTY-ONE TIMES the followers that they had that very morning. After that, it was up to Evan, Jared, and her to keep the blog alive. And that's when they get yet another big idea.

A Kickstarter fundraiser to raise FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. In three weeks. They need the money so they could re-open a closed apple orchard that was Connor's favorite place while he was alive. Evan slowly starts neglecting the Connor Project though, so Alana takes it upon herself to do whatever she needs to raise the money, even posting some of the emails that Connor and Evan used to send to each other while Connor was still alive. But when she actually starts reading into the emails, they don't seem to make that much sense. Every email said that Connor was getting better- so then why did he kill himself?

So she approaches Evan about it, and he gets really, /really/ defensive about it. It's like he's just been faking everything this whole time. So she's furious that he won't just tell her the truth. But then, he finally caves. And he shows her one letter. The suicide note! And with just a few days left to raise seventeen thousand dollars, she decides to take matters into her own hands, and posts it online. It's the only way to get Connor's story around, to honor his memory, and to open the orchard! And it all... blows out of control, to say the least. Everyone goes insane about it online.. But it blows over soon. Evan completely erases himself from all Connor-related things for some reason, and Alana raises all the money she needs to finally, /finally/ open the orchard.

It all turns out well, and Alana goes to a good college and lives a happy and successful life.