Andrew is so young — and so new to the rigors of Broadway — that he’s going to begin his run doing just five performances a week, while taking vocal lessons to shore up his stamina. This will be his first professional production, and the creative team, determined to protect him as well as their smash-hit show, has decided the reduced schedule is their way of investing in his long-term success; the show’s alternate, Michael Lee Brown, will do the other three performances as Andrew builds comfort and strength.

“It’s a little scary for all of us — for him, for me, for his mom — because we’re asking a lot of him,” said Stacey Mindich, the show’s lead producer. “But in every single moment he has grown with us already — at every passage he has shown us he is uber-capable.”

A fan of musicals and more

This is not one of those stories about someone who happened into theater unwittingly. This is a story about an unabashed theater geek — a child who has adored Broadway since he saw “Beauty and the Beast” at age 3, who has been happily singing on stage since he landed the role of Mr. Bundles in a community theater production of “Annie” at age 8; who writes songs and plays the piano, guitar, drums, ukulele and bass; who has been to all four editions of BroadwayCon, including the one last year where he won a lip-syncing competition while performing as Angelica Schuyler from “Hamilton.”

His passion for the imaginary goes way beyond musicals. He’s a huge fan of “Star Wars” — “We watched ‘A New Hope’ in English class to learn about archetypes, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is the coolest thing’” — and has dressed as General Grievous and Kylo Ren for Halloween. (It’s not that he’s drawn to the dark side; it’s just, he says, that those characters look cooler.)

He’s an even huger fan of Disney (which now owns “Star Wars,” so maybe that’s redundant). He estimates that he’s been to Disney theme parks, including Disneyworld, Disneyland and Disneyland Paris, at least 20 times, starting when he was 6 months old. “Something draws me to the idea of being able to live in another world,” he said.

And now he really, really loves “Dear Evan Hansen.” The first time he saw the musical, a couple of weeks after it opened on Broadway in 2016, he was so overcome he couldn’t find the words to talk about it when his mother came to pick him up.