The musical Maybe Happy Ending, starring Darren Criss and Helen Shen, has had an unlikely and unique journey to success on Broadway.
The show, which is about two “Helper” robots running out the clock on their batteries and eventually falling in love, started in South Korea in 2016 before making its Broadway debut last year. Now, one year later, the show racked up 10 Tony nominations and won six at the 2025 Tonys on Sunday night.
24-year-old Shen stars opposite Criss, who won a Tony Sunday for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. The pair Criss and Shen also performed one of the songs from the musical for live television and the crowd at Radio City Music Hall. Shen jumped on a Zoom with Teen Vogue the day after the Tonys to talk about the show’s huge night, the “luminescence” of her co-star, and how this is hopefully just the beginning for Maybe Happy Ending.
Helen Shen: Ahh! I’m feeling crazy. I’m so excited the world knows the show has had the impact that it has had. Every time, even in previews, when we were struggling to fill seats, the people who came were impacted by our show, and it was just about getting word of mouth and getting people in that theater to experience it. It was so impossible to explain our show and what it was doing every night to somebody who had no context. Especially the number that we did for the Tonys and to get to sit in a room full of people who were making such beautiful things, I got to see a couple of the shows this season and was so blown away by everything that it just felt really humbling to be on the same plane as them. It's a testament that our industry and our theater makers want to keep taking risks and showing producers that people want something new. That can be so scary to take a chance on in the beginning. But I think our show is and can be an example for the future.
HS: It was insane. I mean, also my seats were literally right behind Audra McDonald. I got to watch her for a lot of it, and she brought her daughter, she was with her husband and her mom, I think. And to get to see this titan that I look up to so much, being a person experiencing the Tonys like an inner theater kid, was really healing for me, too. I got to see a couple of the performances and then was swept backstage to get back into my costume and hair and things. I felt very grateful that we had 250 performances under our belt because that part was, I won't say easy, but at least I know I knew what that was. All of it was baked in my bones by then. So it really was very overwhelming to perform for that many people knowing that it was broadcast. But even Radio City, just the venue is so much bigger than the Belasco. So I'm used to casting the spell on a thousand people every night, and then to blast that open in Radio City was a gift. I think Michael Arden did such a great job staging it and everyone with the lighting and the projections and stuff, it was how do you translate an untranslatable thing in two minutes?
HS: This was always my dream. And then suddenly when you make your hobby and your dream [into] your profession, suddenly your talent or the way that people see you in the industry becomes a reflection on your own identity. I continue to take and have taken a lot of rejection to heart or just more of a realistic idea of how difficult this industry can be [than] going to school for musical theater was. It was so difficult to suddenly not be the big fish in a small pond and be released into the ocean. I had to figure out why I wanted to do it and whether or not there was more than just having other people's perceptions of it and approval. I needed to do it for myself and have more of that inner fire as opposed to waiting for somebody else to tell me where to go, who to be.
Especially with Maybe Happy Ending, it has felt oftentimes like I'm not doing enough or not doing enough gymnastics or acrobatics [in the show]...If you're not sweating and killing yourself eight shows a week, that kind of thing. And that's what I've learned so much from doing Claire and with Maybe Happy Ending that it's so much larger than any one contribution. What I love about my voice, which I didn't even know I loved about it, was there is a softness to it, and that has been a superpower of [the show]. That's been an internal fight for me to even believe that about myself. And I've had so many amazing champions in Darren and Michael and [co-writers] Will [Aronson] and Hue [Park], I mean everyone on the team. And then to get to do it at the Tony Awards! I introduced myself to Audra and I was like, “oh, Ms. Audra, I’m Helen. I'm a huge fan,” and she was like, “Helen, you don't need to introduce yourself to me. I know who you are.” Those are the kinds of moments that I just, yeah. I'm pinching myself. I can't believe it.
HS: It was really emotional for me. To get to do this with him… he is such a big star. He is so luminescent and he commands this attention because he's so great and he has proven time and time again that he can be a chameleon. Whatever he touches, he goes for wholeheartedly. From the very beginning, he's been so loud about cheering me on and pushing me towards the front. I'm really grateful that in his moment of getting to share his flowers, that he shared that with me. We don't leave the stage for most of [the show], and it is such a team effort on all parties, our stage management team, the rest of our cast and everyone. But the way that we have to hold each other in this piece and be present with each other, I'm very grateful that in that moment he shared that with me. And to share that with his wife, too, I think he said some really beautiful things about Mia, and he's worked so hard this year and continued to do so. I mean, hosting the first part [of the Tony Awards, with Renee Elise Goldberry]—
HS: He's addicted to it. He loves it so much, and it fuels him. And so I've learned so much from him and this process. We all still have to do eight shows a week. A lot of us still did a matinee that day after the dress rehearsal, [before the awards].
HS: Yeah, it was a 24 hour day. You either nap or you just stare at a wall in silence, turn off and stare and just dissociate.
HS: Firstly, Lea Salonga [introduced us] before our performance. She has been such a huge champion of our show. She's come to see it a couple of times and has just always been such a loud advocate for us. But she was my beacon growing up, and I attest a lot of my thoughts that this was ever a possibility [for me], to her career.
We've had Asian families at the stage door say, “I bring my kids to Broadway shows all the time and I never thought in my lifetime that I would see a show like this where these characters are portrayed by Asian actors, and the story feels very inherently Asian.” It feels like baked in the bones, and yet it's not about that, it's actually about the universality of humanity. And I feel really excited that it's reached kind of mainstream in this way. It's just not to say that let's tell Asian stories for Asian people. These stories matter because everyone can be seen in them.
It trickles down to, then, what people think is possible. I feel very emotional thinking about if 11-year-old Helen saw Maybe Happy Ending, listened to the cast recording, knew the journey of where it came from in Korea, that it's not just about trying to be a Western idea and trying to fit yourself into this mold…All you can do is keep being yourself, and that will click at some point. I feel it so profoundly.
Also in the microcosm way at the theater, we get to really celebrate what's fun about it and order dim sum and go out to the barbecue. There's little things like that when you're not the minority in a cast, you can kind of experience in a way that you didn't really experience before. And we have AAPI representation across the board — the stage managers and our designers, and everyone at the Belasco, even though it's a four person cast, it is filled to the brim with the most amazing women, the most amazing queer people. It's just the best building to go to work in. And I'm going back to work tomorrow. It feels like there's an ending of some sorts that feels like a conclusion or a culmination, a chapter ending [with the Tonys wins]. But actually, we go to work.
HS: I just hope that as many people [possible] can see this show and get to experience this story. We're living now [in a time] where technology is a bullet train barreling towards us, and there's no stopping it. There's only: how can we have it while maintaining our humanity? In terms of the way that media has portrayed technology, this [show] is a very compassionate way of portraying it. It has a warmth to it. I hope that we get to do it all over the world. I don't know. I hope that more people get to see it. I think other audiences would love it, too.
HS: It's becoming a more casual use, which I find that to be a bit scary. There's so many cautionary tales that we've seen about not letting our human hubris think that trying to make this thing that's artificial intelligence, that we can somehow be superior to that and always control that. There's a Pandora's box that we're opening. I think that the evil part of it is the people who are designing this technology, trying to better their own lives and make more money from it. I think if we can use that technology to continue connecting people and make a way to help the world with this technology and think of more solutions to these problems that have wracked our human brains for centuries. We can use AI to think of better solutions to the evils of capitalism, but the evils of capitalism are making the technology. I think we have to know that it’s inevitable and then do with that what we will, with kindness and connectivity.
HS: I believe in this piece because I believe in the music and the book and my creative team and the story that we're telling. I believe in so much, so much more than I have any other project that I've ever done. And it felt rare. But it was like trying to explain a new color to people. Even the log line of: “two robots falling in love,” like, womp womp. Okay, that's crazy. I can't really picture it. I can't really empathize with it. And so even though we were playing sometimes to emptier houses or just trying to get the word out, it felt like we were shouting into the void sometimes. But whoever came really resonated with it. The sentiment of the show personally helped me stay present throughout all of it because Claire, her whole motto is that, it's the way that it has to be, and tomorrow is not promised. So instead of using that to make me feel dread or there's an expiration date, and that being an impending doom feeling, it can feel like release — that I can just experience now to the fullest.
I remember when there was a lot of doubt floating around the internet, all this internet gossip, all of these things that were really scary. I said to one of my castmates, if I can get one thing out of this, I just want to do this for one audience one time. I really hope we get there. There was also a world in which that didn't even happen, that we didn't even get to previews. So every step was a new dream come true. The fact that we got to opening, and then when we got to opening, we got so many amazing reviews. We got those reviews and our producers still said, don't relax, because we still don't know — it's still never a guarantee. The industry is just so hard. It's so hard. All of these amazing shows closed after fall openings, and that is not a testament to how hard they were working or how much they believed in their pieces. That was so out of their control as well. I think that really sobered us up and made us feel grateful for every single audience that we ever had.
HS: Yes! We call them the “fireflies.” They have been instrumental in getting this word out, especially in the beginning. Someone told me that a couple of the fireflies pooled together and helped pay for tickets for people who couldn't afford to do so. It’s a testament to how much they believed in this show. At every turn, they've been so supportive. And they support our standbys so much too. Whenever a standby goes on, they're pooling to the theaters to go see them and it’s really amazing. They're so kind. They're a kind group of people. I think our show invites a kind of person who… there's a cerebral-ness to the show, there's a softness to the show, maybe it's the jazz elements and Marcus, and there's a warmth to it that I feel a lot of familiarity and kinship with these people who resonate with this show. I resonate with it. If I wasn't a part of it, I would be a firefly.
HS: It's for you. It’s for you. I haven't seen John Proctor yet, but I've read a couple of script dialogue moments, and what I appreciate about Kimberly Belflower's writing is that it doesn't talk down to the youth. Actually, it reveres and respects and has dignity to the young voice. And I think that's what a lot might've been missing from representation of young people in the past — it's been people writing from a point of, look how naive this kid is. Look at this kind of perspective. They have so much to learn. They have so far to go. Which is true. There's a lot to learn and there is a lot of wisdom in youth, and our generation has a lot of language to explain things that maybe other generations struggled with.
Instead of [being] like, I'm defensive about the fact that these kids have this language, it can be like, we can share information of the age of information. We grew up with the internet. We grew up with having everything at our fingertips to a lot of our generation’s detriment. There's a lot of isolation that happens. A lot of our generation had the pandemic during a time when you're supposed to experience the difficulties of middle school and that socializing is really important. I had it when I was in college, so I can't imagine what it would have been like experiencing it in elementary school or middle school or these very fundamental years of socializing. But especially with live theater, there's no substitution for getting into a space together and experiencing one thing and being affected and being open to it. So I'm really excited that John Proctor and Romeo + Juliet and all of these pieces are resonating with young people. We have a lot of Gen Z people resonating with Maybe Happy Ending. There is an accessibility issue. Tickets keep getting more and more expensive, and that's just tough, because it's for the people and shouldn't be gatekept from people just because of prices. But there's rush and there's ways that people are trying to make it more affordable and lower that accessibility. I would say just get in a rush line, see something and think about it and form your own opinion about it. It's irreplaceable.
HS: Well, first of all, in their creative collaboration, [co-writers] Will and Hue are very Claire and Oliver-coded. They do switch off between which one's which. Will is more Oliver and Hue is more Claire. He is so sardonic and witty, and they're both super self-deprecating individuals. So I would say [his type], I don't know, somebody who could be really kind and loving to Hue, I would invite to hit him up in the DMs.
HS: If you had asked me that before Maybe Happy Ending, it would've been trying to describe something like Maybe Happy Ending. So, I guess my journey now is what happens after your dream comes true.
HS: I would love to dip my toes into some TV, on-camera, or film work. Theater is my flesh and blood and bone: The way you're able to zero in on a moment and get into the psyche of a character because the camera's right here. I'm really hungry to do that and write something one day. I have a background in classical music, and I think there's a story percolating within me about the classical piano world.
