Wow, really loved this show. Was not familiar with the musical at all prior, but it's definitely left an impact on me.
The most impressive part of the show was the direction. I could feel the directors hand (in a positive way), and the creation of imagery, pacing and flow throughout the musical was really impressive and perhaps the best I've seen this season. I'll be disappointed if Arden doesn't make the slate of best director nominees.
Micaela and Alex stood out the most to me from a performance perspective. Yes, Micaela's accent was a bit distracting at times (especially how it sometimes came in and out of songs was weird), but her vocal and emotional performance were perfect. Alex commanded probably the largest applauses after his songs and with good reason.
I love Ben Platt through and through, and thought he did a great job here. I did think so many of the mannerisms -- the way he sings, belts, moves, etc -- was so reminiscent to Dear Evan Hansen that it didn't fully land for me because I kept seeing Ben as Evan. That's probably just a me problem though because of how many times I saw DEH back in the day lol. I don't think it's the best performance of the year, but he was still very effective as the lead. There was just a little "oomph" that felt missing to me to make it a standout performance.
Side note but the front row center of the mezzanine was glorious seating for this production. I was worried about sound initially because the opening Soldier number I could understand almost none of the words, but someone else earlier in the thread pointed out a similar issue so could just be the enunciation from the actor.
The revivals this year are so fantastic!