Maybe Happy Ending’s run during the 2024–25 Broadway season was the ultimate feel-good underdog story, but now the show is facing controversy for casting a white actor, Andrew Barth Feldman, to replace Darren Criss in the show’s lead role as the robot Oliver. The Tony-winning production announced on July 24 that Feldman (No Hard Feelings) would be joining the show for nine weeks alongside his girlfriend and current star Helen J. Shen. The Seoul-set musical was celebrated by fans for its majority-Asian cast, and Criss made history in June when he became the first Asian American actor to win Best Lead Actor in a Musical at the Tony Awards. Now, fans and members of the Asian American theater community alike are voicing criticisms over Oliver being played by a white actor, embroiling the musical in discourse. Below, a full breakdown of the very human dialogue including a statement from Shen and one from the writers.
How did the theater community respond?
In the days after Feldman’s casting was first revealed, both fans and members of the theater industry expressed disappointment. Actor BD Wong wrote a statement on Facebook on July 30, formatted as a draft of a letter to the editor for the New York Times. “Some say ‘robots know no race,’ or fixate on (and labor to justify) what ‘robots’ are or aren’t, sure, but MHE’s world actually supports the use of actors who’ll deliver us to that Korean place,” he argued. “In some ways, yeah, ‘it doesn’t matter’ if Oliver ‘is Asian or not.’ If he’s not, though, he will clash with the ‘Korea-verse.’ In this world, written Korean language takes up visual space; a Korean man listens to American jazz crooners because they transport him. If you ‘recast’ Hwaboon (Oliver’s trusty houseplant pet) with a cactus and rename him ‘Dakota,’ it would also disrupt this meticulous Korean world.” He added, “Advocating for one’s own representation is stultifyingly self-debasing. No, we don’t want to ‘get somebody fired.’ We must express, though, how painful it is to be passed over, yet how used to it we’ve become. How rare ‘Asian Shows’ are.”
The Asian American Performers Action Coalition, which received the 2022 honorary Tony Award for its work advocating for diversity in theater, released a statement on July 30 expressing “profound disappointment at the Broadway production Maybe Happy Ending’s decision to cast a non-AANHPI actor in the role of Oliver.” The statement described MHE as “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.” The statement continued, “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.”
Conrad Ricamora, a Tony nominee in 2025 for Oh, Mary!, did not directly address the casting but instead posted on Instagram on July 28 that he was creating a scholarship for Asian American male actors called “The Right to Be There.” “There’s a lot of pain right now,” he wrote in the announcement. “Pain from being told — subtly and explicitly — that we don’t belong. Pain from watching history repeat itself, even as we fight for representation. Pain that I know so many other Asian American men in this industry have felt before me. But grief can rot, or it can plant.” The show’s director, Michael Arden, commented, “🙌 Yes! You are incredible! ❤️”
Has the cast said anything?
Shen said the discourse has been an “immensely challenging moment within my home with Andrew, and in this building filled with A/PI folks” on July 31. “I’ve been struggling to hold multiple truths within me that seem to contradict,” she began in a statement shared on Instagram. “I think that is an objectively hard thing to do, but I do think we’re called to do that in the moment. 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 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.”
“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,” she continued, indicating there’s no changes to the casting as of yet.
What did the show’s team say?
The Maybe Happy Ending team responded to the controversy for the first time on July 31 with a statement from the show’s authors, Hue Park and Will Aronson, posted to Instagram. “We wrote a show about robots so we could engage more intimately with the most basic human questions of love and loss, creating the roles of Oliver and Claire to be avatars of these universal questions,” they wrote. “They were meant to be products created by a global company, and so never bore Korean names, even in the Korean version of the show. 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.”
Current standby in Maybe Happy Ending Christopher James Tamayo commented on the post that “the online discourse has lost the plot”: “I really can’t help that I’m Asian. I can’t help that I’m here. But the vilification that has dominated these conversations has to be redirected to the larger systemic issues that exist throughout the entirety of our industry, not at the expense of the very real artists and real people working in the building to help tell this story.”
Is the casting still on?
As of now, Feldman will still be taking on the role as expected. “We fell in love with Andrew’s take on the role of Oliver when he appeared as the reader in Helen J. Shen’s initial audition tape, so to have him join her onstage at the Belasco is indeed a special treat, and a pairing we feel certain audiences will love as much as we (and they) do,” Park, Aronson, and Arden jointly said in a statement at the time. “At its core, Maybe Happy Ending is a story about the longing for connection and the complexities of being human (and Helperbot, and Vegetable) — universal themes that transcend all backgrounds. We’re proud to continue embracing infinite and exciting possibilities in casting, and to showcase this role as one that welcomes different interpretations and lived experiences.” His run in the show begins September 2 and will last for nine weeks. Then, Maybe Happy Ending will have to make another casting choice.
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