The Fairy Princess really hates to be proven correct – but here we go – Maybe Happy Ending, which won the TONY Award for Best Musical this past year, and for it’s star, Darren Criss, has announced that it is seeking replacements for the Broadway production and robots not being Asian presenting is the hill the Producers are going to die on…
So that, as they say, is that.
(Say what you will about R&H, their shows in the current day cannot be done professionally without #AANHPI performers, and their foundation stands by it.)
Yes, all the things you are feeling are justified.
However, it is not the performers’ fault – and TFP stands by that. They didn’t write this casting notice.
Worth noting that the breakdown for James lists the character’s background as Korean, but the actor playing him does not have to be.
If anyone of the AANHPI diaspora goes in, and is asked about their racial identity- THAT is expressly forbidden for CDs to do by the CSA -Casting Society of America.
If that happens, there is an internal review and members are disciplined if violations occur.
Ahem.
Now, if TFP were to think about it – she would warn folks about getting down in the dumps about this situation – she does love a good think – she would say this is your chance to RISE UP – she would say that ALLLLLL the AEA AANHPI performers who are right for this show should go to the EPA – which is
Weds October 15th from 10AM- 6PM
Pearl Studios – 500 Eighth Ave
Holding is in 404, and the audition room is 402
In the audition room will be Craig Burns and Jimmy Larkin.
Get there early and sign up – etc. etc. etc….TFP believes in you, you can do it.
Go hold your musical theater ground…
We, of the AANHPI community who are not ‘right’ for this show, salute you….
Go show them what you are made of in the Year of the Snake….you got this!
TFP knows you will SLAY ALL DAY!!!!
Ok, ok, ok here is the point – It’s only a defeat if you don’t show up and show out.
The Fairy Princess got up this morning to find that the Producers of Maybe Happy Ending, the TONY Award winning production of MAYBE HAPPY ENDING, which is set in Seoul, Korea – intends to replace Darren Criss, who is of Asian descent, with Andrew Barth Feldman – who is an Evan from Dear Evan Hansen, and in, in real life, the boyfriend of Helen J. Shen, who stars in this show.
(They made that part of the marketing, which is the only reason TFP mentions it)
Was Zach Piser (star of KPOP the musical, and a Broadway Evan Hansen, & recently closed on Bway, REDWOOD) not available?
It is giving – for those of you who know TFP is Australian, real throwback vibes of the Sydney Opera House production of The King & I, starring Lisa McCune and HER then boyfriend, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, as The King of Siam. Teddy was not Asian. Teddy is still not Asian. He teaches now in Adelaide.
It was whitewashing then, and it is whitewashing now.
Look, there are some kickass people in Maybe Happy Ending, and Helen J. Shen is one of them – so this is not to come down on ANY of the Actors in the show.
Actors go where they are hired, and right now, the Producers have made this decision to hire a non Asian-descended actor to replace an Asian descended actor – when there is LEGIT AANHPH TALENT ALL OVER BROADWAY!
Has folks feeling all…
However the tone deafness of this casting is particularly painful because:
The show has been touted for it’s casting
This upcoming Broadway season does not, as of yet – seem to have ANY AANHPI leads other than Keanu Reeves, and that is only if you can afford the $150-$950 tickets now available for WAITING FOR GODOT – so frankly, Maybe Happy Ending is ‘it’ for representation right now
AANHPIs just had a remarkable winning TONY season, and now, poof – it goes away just like that
Maybe Happy Ending does not need ‘stars’ – it doesn’t. Whoever plays Oliver becomes, de facto, a Broadway star.
Again, was Zach Piser busy? Cuz…
Ahem.
(No, Zach Piser has no idea TFP is throwing his hat into the ring for this show, it is without his consent, and one should acknowledge that – he is a suggestion based on Mr. Criss and who could replace him, and fulfill all the requirements – particularly having lead a Broadway cast before and having a fan base.)
TFP thinks replacing Darren Criss, who is a mixed Asian descended Actor with someone likeZach Piser, ALSO a mixed Asian descended Actor who has been on Broadway and headlined shows – truth be told the VERY SAME show that Mr. Feldman headlined, would have been a…stronger choice.
TFP was not going to randomly throw out names, however…perhaps she should..now these names are not specifically Korean – because we do not segregate on Broadway and TFP is against any kind of ‘blood quantum’ aspect of an AANHPI Actor excluding themselves from a role based on where one’s grandparents come from.
However she will throw out names – all have been in Broadway shows, all have had great reviews and impact and are very talented – and this is a few, not ALL –
However – and you can look them up:
Michael K. Lee,Kelvin Moon Loh, Marc delaCruz, Raymond J. Lee, Telly Leung, Kevin Woo, Eddy Lee, Conrad Ricamora, Timothy H. Lee, Kennedy Kanagawa, Abraham Lim, Joshua Lee, James Kho, Jinwoo Jung, John Yi etc, etc, etc…
They all should have been considered, because the show really does not make sense with a non AANHPI Helper Bot.
It just does not make sense.
The show takes place in a semi-distant future in Seoul.
Seoul is in South Korea.
Do we really need to go to one of TFP‘s parlor tricks and pull out a map?
FFS
See, that’s Korea – and it is located in the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea – right below it is Japan. In between Japan and South Korea, specifically Seoul is Jeju Island – which plays a major part in the storyline. The Helper Bots drive a car from Seoul to the ferry at Jeju to see the fireflies.
However as performed, this show has always had AANHPI people in the lead roles of Oliver and Claire.
Despite where it is set, there IS a ‘white guy”.
Yes there is one role, Gil Brently, played by Dez Duron who is an amalgam of a white jazz pop singers like Frank Sinatra, like Dean Martin, like Michael Bublè – that is where we see ‘white representation’. In a show set in South Korea. ENTIRELY set in South Korea.
Otherwise the cast is entirely AANHPI – and it has been that way since the show opened and won TONY Awards, including Best Musical, Best Direction, Best Book, Best Score – yadda yadda, Congratulations on all of that…
TFP is a HUGE FAN of all the cast of MAYBE HAPPY ENDING.
She will share a photo now to acknowledge the HUGE PERSONAL RISK she is taking in writing about this at all, because this is NOT an attack on any of the actors coming in to the show, or currently in the show.
It is not right to ignore it either – and kudos to the Producers for shooting TFP’s BP right into the stratosphere with this announcement.
TFP thinks what happened is an ‘accident’ of proximity – there is a Broadway actor, he is around all the time, there is a role the Producers need to fill for 9 weeks – 2 months and a week, and they figure, “Why not?” – after all vocally it is a match and this is the point that TFP thinks it hung on:
Helper Bots are not an ‘actual thing’, they are a made up thing, and Helper Bots are something people in this musical ‘order for purchase’, so yes, ostensibly these South Korean owners – these South Korean owners of the Helper Bots ‘could’ order a non-Korean appearing robot.
To serve all needs in a very Korean household.
Because there is nothing Koreans from Korea like more than diaspora in their homes….
Helper Bots are clearly a South Korean ‘thing’ because the owners that they show of these robots are of South Korean Descent. There has been a climate issue or climate crisis, and that is affecting how people are able to live without assistance, it could also be post the 4B movement in Korea which results population decline. The writers do not ‘spell it out’, but clearly, there is an issue there.
That is their background, and here are who plays the ‘owners’ of these Helper Bots – Arden Cho, who is killing it now as the voice of Rumi in KPOP Demon Hunters on Netflix, is Helper Bot Claire’s owner.
Marcus Choi is Helper Bot Oliver’s owner.
So while TFP can almost ‘hear’ what the justification is for this casting, she thinks that it does not fulfill the the classic way in which actors/directors break down a piece – which is:
WHO – who is this character including physical description, likes, dislikes, cultural background
WHAT – what is the circumstance in which this character is appearing
WHEN – when in the time of the show, when in the time of the writer’s career, and when specifically in the character’s life is this happening
WHERE – physical location generally and then, specifically, and then nuances – in his apartment, in the kitchen, at noon…etc
WHY – why today? Why this moment? Why is whatever happening, why is it happening now?
HOW– How did they get to this point, in the show, in the moment
Now, there have been quotes from the creative team, so there is nothing to be done, except reiterate that this casting does not make sense to TFP, but she can only assume they wanted to use the real life element to propel ticket sales, which, hey – it’s not show friendship, it is show business.
Also, folks may be angry with one of the creators signing off on this- Hue Park, but TFP wants to remind everyone that Creatives who come from a mostly homogeneous country do not travel outside their country with the intent of ‘representing’ for, in this case, AANHPIs.
We have seen this again and again from Filmmakers and Writers of the Asian diaspora- so this should not be a surprise- just an oddly familiar disappointment.
‘We’ cannot honestly be that angry with Mr. Park because he is not going to ‘get ‘ it- and, one supposes we should not expect him to- although he did study at NYU and the show literally campaigned on diversity.
In which case, it was never about representation- it was always about a check.
She still thinks it is a mistake.
It ends Michael Arden’s record of being the one director who felt like a safe space to People of Color – and this may not even be his choice. However by pulling a quote from him and the composing team and putting it in the press release, it is giving them no choice but to go stand behind it. The check has to clear.
TFP does not think this is a choice by Casting Director Bernie Telsey or his team, they have long been a champion of diversity on Broadway and beyond. In some respects Broadway only started to change when Bernie Telsey came on the scene, and TFP does not say that lightly.
The casting of RENT changed things. It changed things for her personally and for her friends, she saw it – so no, she does not hold casting responsible. They were instructed to bring the actor in for a music run through and then send over a contract.
This is quite clearly a Producer choice.
However TFP will add- if the hook was AANHPI Casting, but the intention was not to keep it once the awards were awarded- DO NOT SET THE SHOW IN SOUTH KOREA, A REAL and ACTUAL PLACE!
If a non AANHPI Cast was going to come up- then do not have them travel from Seoul to Jejun Island, make up somewhere and have them travel from A to B. Do not name anything for Korean culture- because it MAKES NO SENSE!
Key producers for Maybe Happy Ending include Jeffrey Richards, HunterArnold, and Darren Criss. Other producers include Rebecca Gold, Spencer Ross, Adam Zotovich, Kayla Greenspan, M/B/P Productions, Fahs Productions, Ken Greiner, Ruth Hendel, Willette and Manny Klausner, Cody Lassen, Mix and Match Productions, The Nederlander Organization, and Jacob Stuckelman & John Albert Harris.
Lotta names there, we’ll have to remember them….particularly Hunter Arnold…
TFP ventures a guess that for the next few months, the audience for this show will look different. It robs the soul from the production set in Seoul, and that is a shame.
None of the cast has anything to do with it, so please do not harass anyone. We only ‘vote’ on Broadway by purchasing a ticket, so that is all you can do – vote with your ticket choices.
TICKET CHOICES ONLY – do NOT enact hideous internet trolling on any of the Actors and the Creative Team of this show please – there HAS to be a standard here, there HAS to be. Theater MUST hold itself to a higher standard than The House and Congress and certainly, The White House.
You can be sad about it – TFP is sad about it – but making the lives of people who live to entertain you miserable, is NOT IT – get it?
IF you DO want to see a show, starring an AANHPI – you can join TFP this Sunday at The Cutting Room and see ALEC MAPA as he rolls out his next comedy special at 7PM
44 East 32nd Street, NYC, NY 10016 (2120 691-1900
All right then, another day, another time to be AANHPI and be…wistful.
Rather a slap coming right off a very exciting Awards season, but hey – hopefully they will feel the difference and make amends.
People can only learn at the rate they learn, and that is it.
The Fairy Princess wants to acknowledge that when she called the 2024-2025 season ‘the most’ AANHPI season on Broadway without a show being set in an Asian country…she was RIGHT! Let the gloating begin!
While she cannot take credit for ANY of it, and one shouldn’t, she admits to being overwhelmed when the nominations were announced. She did not even write about it. It was personally moving, and it was hard to put words to the feeling of, “I may be done here’, as representation on Broadway was all that TFP ever wanted.
She wanted it for herself, but overwhemingly, she wanted to for her son. She did not want her child to grow up and only see his three stages of life represented in The King and I, and think that was all he could do in life, should he choose performing. So she started writing, and now, as he turns 13 in a week, all she can think is that what she chose to do to change the conversation, it was worth it.
He will never have to worry, should he choose performance (although she is Asian enough to hope he does not, and everyone needs a lawyer or a dermatologist) he will have a wide range of things to choose from, and he has inspirations, and people moving mountains he will never know that existed.
Names of people she has known forever, who have doggedly pursued their dreams when most would have told them, “it will never happen’.
Those people were wrong.
To that, TFP says HA!
We must acknowledge that Daniel Dae Kim is the first in the Lead Male Category of Play to be nominated. THE. FIRST. EVER. MAN. OF. ASIAN. DESCENT. to be nominated as the LEAD in a Play. DDK has been, has HAD to be, an actor, a producer, and an advocate for representation – and that, is actually what this blog is about, but give the man his flowers…he deserves them.
It took 78 years of TONY Award ceremonies for this moment.
Allow TFP to list the AANHPI Nominees, for a moment please…
Best Musical: Maybe Happy Ending (Starring Helen J. Shen, Darren Criss)
Best Musical: Operation Mincemeat (starring Claire-Marie Hall)
Best Musical Revival: Sunset Blvd (starring Nicole Scherzinger)
Best Play Revival: Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang
Best Lead Actor in a Play: Daniel Dae Kim
Best Lead Actress in a Musical: Nicole Sherzinger
Best Lead Actor in a Musical: Darren Criss
Best Direction of a Musical: Saheem Ali
Best Featured Actor in a Play: Francis Jue, Yellow Face
Best Featured Actor in a Play: Conrad Ricamora, Oh, Mary!
Best Book of a Musical: Hue Park (& Will Aronson) Maybe Happy Ending
Best Scenic Design of a Musical: (Dane Laffrey)Maybe Happy Ending
Best Lighting Design of a Play: David Bengali (& Heather Gilbert) – Good Night and Good Luck
Best Costume Design of a Play: Brenda Abbandandolo – Good Night & Good Luck
Best Orchestrations: Marco Paguia – Buena Vista Social Club
Best Original Score: Hue Park (& Will Aronson) – Maybe Happy Ending
Best Costume Design of a Musical: Clint Ramos – Maybe Happy Ending
Best Lighting Design of a Musical: Ruey Horng Sun (& Scott Zielinski) – Floyd Collins
In addition, you are perfectly able to go and see Lea Salonga on Broadway now in OLD FRIENDS, which is a Sondheim revue, although it seems an injustice to call it that – TFP saw it in London, it is remarkable.
(If the work stars AANHPI performers, TFP has included it on that list. If the designer is working in conjunction with another person, she has put brackets around the partner who is not Asian. If the person nominated is of Asian descent, but the play/musical is not – TFP has included it on the list. If the nominee is mixed Asian descent, in all parts of that diaspora, she has included it on this list.)
Truly, it is the list of her dreams. Did it irk her that the men have 6 nominations in the leads of musicals and the women have 5? Yes. Is there room for ONE more for the women….absolutely there is.
Ahem.
That list would not be possible, even ten years ago because AANHPIs did not have access like they have now. TFP repeats, that list would not have been possible 10 years ago because we did not have interest from either the public or the producers ten years ago in ‘our’ stories. TFP has been writing this blog for 14 years, and when she started, a list like the above was unthinkable.
It just would not have happened – and you cannot impose the open-ness of now onto the closed-ness of then. That is a very weird thing to her, to constantly go back and act like people have not changed, Broadway has not changed, and audiences have not changed in 14 years. She understands that ‘the kids’ who are very vocal about speaking up and out NOW, insist it all would have been different sooner if ‘we’ (the ones who were around back then, and before) had railed against the dying of the light at the time – and we did, but that list is GENERATIONAL CHANGE.
People have to be ready for change – and as we can tell from this last election – where they could have propelled us forward by voting for the Bi-racial Lawyer who was a prosecutor and always the best questioner on ANY inquiry panel she was on, and who was selected to be ONE heartbeat away from the Presidency – who would have taken seriously revisions on health care, vaccinations, tax relief, housing, who had plans all day long – and they voted for the Sundowning Tarriff Bogeyman and his makeup loving “I can’t be racist because I am married to a woman of color’ clown car of a disaster side piece.
Because white America was not ready to admit the white guy was unqualified, and she was qualified.
Yes, they are ignorant and racist. Yes, they are. However they were not ready to admit that, and so here we are, America.
So when TFP tells you, a list like that has taken deliberate and repeated attacks on the ‘establishment’ of white theater over and over and over, just by EXISTING – you should believe her. It has been a GROUP project by people like Ralph B. Peña, Tisa Chang, Baayork Lee, Mia Katigbak, DHH, Jon Lawrence Rivera, Roger Tang, AAPAC, East West Players, Lodestone, SLANT, NAAP, Pan Asian, NAATCO, Ma-Yi, Silk Road Rising, CAATA, MAM, Artists at Play, Grateful Crane Ensemble, Kumu Kahua Theatre, Pangea World Theater, TeAda, Theater Mu, A Squared and whoever else has contributed to this – she means it.
It took EVERYONE to change that narrative that AANHPIs could not act, or sing, or dance unless they were doing Flower Drum Song or King & I or Miss Saigon or Bollywood Dreams.
It is OPPORTUNITY and ACCESS meeting ‘the moment’.
WHICH IS WHY when TFP read the article in the New Yorker, she had some thoughts on one very specific section (well, she had thoughts on the whole thing, but most of that was that someone needed a nap or a cocktail…)
Now, placing a two-hander play next to a musical was not a great producing decision, but perhaps the theater was the only one available. However, she should not have taken it upon herself to contact the Producers of Hell’s Kitchen directly. That is and will always be, a producer discussion. That is a conversation that actors can and should never be involved in, because it falls outside the parameters of what is your responsibility as an actor.
The theaters are close together and they are old, however there is much that can be done, and again – THAT IS A PRODUCER DISCUSSION, STAY IN YOUR LANE.
So the ‘clap-back’ by Ms. Lewis was warranted. That is why Audra McDonald liked it – because ‘get off my lawn’ is not the right energy for Broadway.
If you act up and act out then you take your licks – you open that door, be prepared for someone to close it for you.
It was this next part that TFP really did not like:
Comparing your 28 Broadway shows, as a person who attended Julliard, and who has, as a white actress (yes, yes, even when she started, she would have been seen as a white actress, though in the 1800’s that was not the case because her family hails from Sicily) been offered things on a scale that is almost unheard of ALL her life….that is not the look, M’am.
She is confusing access with talent level.
Which, TFP wants to remind you, that Kecia Lewis has TEN Broadway shows as an African American woman living her life in the Predominantly White Industry that is Broadway. There are very few people that can claim 10 Broadway shows to their credit, so it is not a flex to compare 28 to 10.
Ms. Lewis did not have the ACCESS that Patti LuPone had, ever. She never, ever had it. She DESERVED it – but it was not available to her because, and TFP is going to say this AGAIN for the folks in the back – BROADWAY IS A PREDOMINANTLY WHITE INDUSTRY!
In fact, they BOTH won Best Featured Actress in a Musical – Ms. LuPone in 2022, and Ms. Lewis in 2024. Two years apart. To be so dismissive of a colleague that is, by definition of that award alone, in the same category as you?
Ms. Lewis started performing on Broadway AT AGE 18!
18!
Ms. LuPone did not perform on Broadway at 18, she was in Julliard at 18.
Journeys are always different – some are harder than others.
Ms. LuPone had career ups and downs – however with as many fights as she has gotten in with cast members and producers – would she have been allowed to continue those ups and downs post the Andrew Lloyd Webber Sunset Blvd debacle if she was a Black woman?
Patti LuPone trashed a dressing room. She sued Andrew Lloyd Webber. Over a role. She has called former cast mates names in the press. She left the Union because she didn’t feel like paying and then abruptly came back with a new show. She moans about the folks who come and see Broadway shows and the space they take up.
TFP has no doubt she can be a wonderful colleague and super fun to get drinks with, but if she had that rep, as a woman of color – would she have been allowed to continue at the level she has?
It is just a question.
A question from a Mixed Asian Woman who watched all her classmates bounce to Broadway before she did because she did not fit a body type or a look that most thought of as Asian – so there were very few shows she could ‘fit’ into – even though she could see herself in all of them. Then she started writing and pointing out disparities and Broadway CDs said “no thanks’ for THREE years.
Just as an example.
Just food for thought.
Because TFP has seen what this industry does to POC who speak up.
TFP could say more. She could.
This is simply a woman who cannot see her privilege who continues to lash out, not realizing the damage she is doing to herself and her reputation. These are two colleagues she is lashing out at, in a ridiculous and unfair way. She doesn’t want to do Broadway again? TFP does not think that will be an issue, though she has enjoyed her performances for years.
As they say in COMPANY ‘I think there’s a time to come to New York and a time to leave”
Let’s discuss someone who is sticking around…Ms. Kecia Lewis!
However, as it turns out, TFP saw the luminescent Ms. Lewis SEVERAL times in her life on the stage INCLUDING just this past Saturday night on Broadway. She and her son were in the front row (they punk’d her at TKTS, y’all cuz the guy just said “i have two in the orchestra’ and didn’t say where) and Ms. Lewis was a revelation and a dream, she sang that stage up and down, and put us all in our places as we watched her perform in HELL’s KITCHEN.
The entire cast was FIRE, and you would think if sound was SUCH an issue, TFP would be deaf, being in the front row.
She is not deaf. The sound was particularly well managed from the front of house perspective.
She also got to see her son be totally captivated by Ms. Lewis and the cast’s performances, which, honestly is a win for a parent. He loved it. Particularly because he plays piano, and Ms. Lewis’s character teaches piano in the show.
Ms. Lewis and her ten Broadway shows and her TONY award in 2024 is a testament to her staying in the industry as it changed, and being the change she wanted to see. The two journeys are not comparable. That is all TFP wanted to say.
TFP is going to end by reminding people that access is not talent – and they should never be confused.
Some of the greatest performers the world does not know, have never been on Broadway because of access – very often there is little they can do to change it.
That is the way the world works, but to paraphrase Lorrell Robinson in Dreamgirls…from one Long Island gal to another….
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