Playing the paradox of a robot with complex human emotions is quite a challenge for even the most experienced actors. Leading a role in a new show as well takes a lot of guts. But newcomer Helen J Shen, who is tackling her Broadway debut originating the role of Claire in Maybe Happy Ending, is more than up for the challenge — thanks to not only her sheer skill, talent, and dedication to her craft, but also her genuine heart-and-soul connection to the role.
“From the beginning of working on it in rehearsals, it felt like a role and music that I already had some past-life connection with,” says Shen.
The premiere Broadway production helmed by Tony Award–winning director Michael Arden is one of several stagings over the past decade — it initially debuted in Korea in 2016. With a dreamy score of atmospheric jazz standards sung by an omnipresent crooner named Gil Brentley, and ethereal orchestrations, the new production has captured the heart of Broadway patrons.
Exactly a year prior to Shen’s chat with Broadway Direct, she had her final callback for the show. Just over half a year later, she was taking her first bow alongside costar (and Glee alum) Darren Criss on the stage of the Belasco Theatre when the musical began performances last October. “It was a very fast whirlwind experience,” she admits. But from early childhood, she was already comfortable with bracing for turbulence.
Hailing from northern New Jersey, just a few train stops away from Broadway’s Theatre District, Shen’s musical career began at square one in the fundamentals of music: playing piano. From a young age, she diligently strived to be a vessel for music, notes ringing out and captivating listeners. “I’ve always loved the art of holding an audience in a trance,” she muses. “What I didn’t resonate with was that piano is mainly a lone-wolf sport. You’re in a practice room for long hours every day, and even when you’re playing with an orchestra, it’s you and the conductor. You’re focusing on yourself as opposed to the collective.”
“I fell in love with working on stuff with a group of people,” she continues. “When I got into theater, and we open and close on the same day in the community-theater circuit, you’re holding hands and passing the pulse next to each other. When we fail, we fail together, and it softens the failures, and when we win, we win together, and it sweetens those wins even more.”
Coincidentally, this is a similar sentiment to what Maybe Happy Ending is all about: “The show speaks to connection and taking care of each other and being there for each other, and walking into the possibility of getting hurt because the possibility of being loved is also on the other side of it.”
With just four actors, Maybe Happy Ending is a big story to tell in just one act. It follows two obsolete robots called “Helperbots” nearing the end of their warranties, sequestered in an apartment complex for those no longer employed (or wanted) by their former owners. As far as the audience knows, these Helperbots all keep to themselves, rarely leaving their assigned apartments. When Claire’s battery cord ceases functioning, she knocks on Oliver’s (Criss) door, and an impossible romance unfolds, as they share their hopes, interests, and painful memories from their past lives.
“You’re able to go on a journey in 100 minutes of a whole lifetime. You’re kind of immersed in a rom-com/Pixar/Studio Ghibli film, but these are profound concepts that stick with you,” says Shen, who is just as eager as any Maybe Happy Ending megafan to discuss every aspect of Claire and Oliver’s love story — what she believes their innermost thoughts to be, how she interprets the show’s (maybe happy) ending, and even making inferences on the lore of the universe the show exists in.
The musical finishes off on a somewhat open-ended note, which allows room for fans to speculate that maybe things aren’t as they seem for Oliver and Claire. Shen attests that for every fan theory posted online across Broadway message boards and social media threads, just as many are offered to her at the stage door. Though she might not be able to endorse them, she loves hearing them all.
“All of these things are what make live theater so exciting for me to do. All the theories people have come up to me with, all of the Reddit threads, it all becomes a reflection on the audience. However you want to believe it happened, that’s true for you,” Shen says.
Shen indulges in some remarks on how the Maybe Happy Ending fandom would’ve thrived in the era of mid-2010s Tumblr, where fans of various media (and musicals) congregated to conspire on any subtext in a show, regardless of what’s outlined in the plot. “I was part of the Tumblr circuit, so it’s crazy to now add to the canon that I would have totally been obsessed with as a teenager and beyond!” she enthuses.
In that age, theater fans online also widely revitalized the feat of becoming a repeat attendee of favorite musicals, seeing the same show 5, 10, 15 times on Broadway. Though that culture still lingers, Maybe Happy Ending is helping it to resurge.
“There are some things about the show that reward rewatchability. When you go see it again, especially if you bring someone who’s never seen it before, you can relive the feeling that I think has been rare in Broadway [in recent years], which is going to sit in a theatre and not having any idea what’s about to happen,” says Shen. “It’s very difficult on Broadway to take such a big risk. When we started previews, we were just hoping. We knew that it touched us, and at the end of the day, if we didn’t end up finding our audience, at least it resonated with us. It ended up resonating with a lot of people.”
With all its contemplation on humanity, perhaps the deepest, most profound wound opened — and then healed — throughout Maybe Happy Ending is the same one that afflicts these robots: the feeling of uselessness, a lack, or loss, of worth. “Being obsolete is all about how you contribute to society. There’s always something like, this is the kind of person who contributes the most to society and is the most helpful, or whatever it may be, and I think that erases so many other ways of being. If you don’t think like everybody else, if you don’t move like everybody else, that absolutely does not mean that you’re not worth everything,” says Shen.
Maybe Happy Ending certainly proves this thesis not only through its profound story, but in its success as an original musical on Broadway in an increasingly shaky climate. While there are risks bringing entirely new works to the stage, this one stood the chance, as did newcomer Shen, whose heartfelt commitment to the role helps it shine 10 times brighter. Still, she credits the fan base doubly for the show’s flourishing. “We can only do the show every night, but it’s about other people championing it from the very beginning. That was such an impossible task: to get anybody to care, to get butts in seats! So, honestly, thank you to them.”
See Shen’s starmaking turn in Maybe Happy Ending on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre.