The Tony Award winning musical “Maybe Happy Ending” features actors, understudies, and standbys of Asian ancestry. But with the departure of Darren Criss in the role of Oliver, the show has chosen Andrew Barth Feldman to take over the role. The decision has caused some controversy. Feldman has no Asian ancestry.
In a post on social media, show creators Hue Park and Will Aronson stated they wanted “Maybe Happy Ending” to be “comfortably performed by anyone, anywhere—yet distinctly set in Korea.”
Adding, “at the same time, we understand that for many in the AAPI community, the makeup of our opening night cast became a meaningful and rare point of visibility. We’ve heard how strongly people connected to that representation, even if it wasn’t our original intent, and how this casting decision has re-opened old wounds.”
They continued, “throughout the American development, we tried various approaches to casting. At some points along the journey, we cast the roles explicitly as Asian, thinking that it might help make the setting more quickly apparent. However, on seeing that, we also were not satisfied. To say that seeing *any* Asian actor on stage ‘quickly suggests Korea’ seemed not only like a stretch, but regressive, or even offensive to the uniqueness of Korean culture.”
To date, the lead roles have always been played by Asian actors.
Park and Aronson noted, “leading roles for Asian performers have long been painfully scarce, and these shows excitingly made gestures toward universality with expansive casting, and rightly gave opportunities to actors from identity categories who previously had few options. With Maybe Happy Ending, we wanted to write a show in which every role could be played by an Asian performer, but without the intention that the robot roles always would be.”
Actors involved with the show and those in other productions expressed their thoughts on the decision…
“Maybe Happy Ending” standby Christopher James Tamayo said, “I fear the online discourse has lost the plot. In trying to highlight a larger issue, it is inadvertently undermining the very thing that we want to hold dear and preserve for opportunities for all of us.”
“Maybe Happy Ending” female lead Helen J Shen wrote, “I acknowledge that we can’t control how the show is received and the impact that it has had. The vacuum of A/PI stories that don’t center around pain or tropes wanted to be filled by our show from our community. I have and continue to be extremely proud to look the way I do and to co-lead this Broadway show. I know the hurt that people feel because growing up, I would have found a beacon of hope in seeing our show on tv on the Tony Awards. A part of me is mourning that along with the community. This has been an immensely challenging moment within my home with Andrew, and in this building filled with A/PI folks to say the least. I don’t know what’s forward, but to have this opportunity to play opposite my favorite actor in the world for 9 weeks, who happens to be PERFECT for the role is a huge moment of joy for me. Every perspective on this situation contains truth.”
“Aladdin actor Telly Leung posted on social media saying, “during awards season, the show leaned into its Asian excellence narrative. That’s why our community felt pride and ownership in MHE.—and why this decision hurts so deeply now … It shows a lack of awareness, a lack of accountability, and, frankly, feels like a betrayal—especially to a community that’s long been excluded from Broadway stages. Their statement not only failed to acknowledge that—it effectively gave future productions permission to erase the Asian representation they once celebrated. That’s not progress. That’s erasure.”
Tony Award winning actor BD Wong, who is collecting signatures for an open letter, wrote, “there was a subtle attempt to characterize a non-Asian actor playing this role as an example of ‘inclusion.’ A ‘now, anyone can play it!’ spin, because ‘anyone’ sounds so ‘expansive.’ This almost mocks the struggle for opportunities of the marginalized! It ignores the statistical dominance of white actors in musical leading roles (MHE was a glorious, rare exception to this). It undermines the effort to discuss yellowface and appropriation. It also seemed unaware of its potentially negative optics. I know nobody takes casting decisions lightly. This ‘pivot’ unfortunately retracts the validation and celebration that MHE lent the Asian community. This is agonizing to witness and to feel in my heart. Nobody is winning.”
The Asian American Performers Action Coalition also released a statement saying, AAPAC (The Asian American Performers Action Coalition) expresses its profound disappointment at the Broadway production ‘Maybe Happy Ending’s’ decision to cast a non-AANHPI actor in the role of Oliver, following Tony Award-winner Darren Criss’s departure from the show.
Set in South Korea, ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ by Will Aronson and Hue Park opened on Broadway with six of its seven principal characters played by AANHPI actors, creating a rare opportunity for AANHPI actors to play both leading and supporting roles in its original Broadway cast and setting the precedent for future productions. Instead, a different precedent has been set; one that de-emphasizes cultural specificity and the opportunities for a far too often excluded population of actors that come with it. If the intent has been to show the story’s “universality,” we are reminded that though we have long been expected to view white stories populated by only white actors as “universal,” stories about people who look like us that are populated by people who look like us are rarely considered universal enough. It is the same perception (conscious or not) that once made “yellowface” accepted as the status quo and continues to justify “whitewashing” today.
While our community celebrates a historical number of Tony nominations and awards for AANHPI theatre artists this season, it is also a time when our histories are being rampantly erased, censored, and banned, and our stories colonized. This is a time when we need more intentionality, not less. We are acutely aware of how much representation matters, as does intent vs. impact, and we implore the producers and creative team of ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ to consider the damaging ramifications of their actions, no matter their intent.
Acknowledging the strength of our many vantage points, AAPAC stands in solidarity with all our AANHPI colleagues including but not limited to CAATA (The Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists), NAAP (National Asian Artists Project), Conrad Ricamora’s “The Right to Be There” scholarship, and BD Wong and the hundreds of co-signers of his cogent essay on the subject, in the ongoing fight for narrative justice and equity.”
In response, actor Conrad Ricamora has created “The Right to Be There” scholarship which is designed to offer Asian male actors a chance to earn a degree in performance. To date the scholarship has brought in $47,000 – $18,000 from Ricamora.
Ricamora noted, “progress in our industry can be real and inspiring—but it’s often fragile. Even after decades of work and some recent wins, Asian American men still face enormous barriers in the world of acting—especially in roles that are complex, leading, and human. And especially on stage.”