The Broadway musical “Maybe Happy Ending,” about two helperbots who form a bond at a robot retirement home in Seoul, has been riding high after winning six Tony Awards in June, including the coveted best new musical honor.
But the show’s recent decision to cast Andrew Barth Feldman, a white actor, as one of the helperbots after the current actor in the role, Darren Criss, who is of Filipino descent, departs next month has raised alarms among Asian American actors and spurred a weeklong conversation about representation. Feldman (“Dear Evan Hansen,” “No Hard Feelings”), who is scheduled to step into the production for nine weeks starting Sept. 2, is also the boyfriend of the musical’s lead actress, Helen J Shen.
“Maybe Happy Ending” opened on Broadway last fall, and seven of the show’s eight actors (four onstage and four understudies) are currently played by actors of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and/or Pacific Islander descent.
In a statement, the show said that casting and production decisions were the result of “thoughtful deliberations” by its creative team. “We are proud to have created a show where every role can authentically be portrayed by an Asian actor, although the roles of the robots were not envisioned to always be cast that way,” the statement read. “We also appreciate that, for many within the A.A.P.I. community, seeing the original Broadway cast represented an inspiring milestone of visibility and representation.”
A separate lengthy statement was posted on social media early Thursday, and in the comments, fans and supporters debated the decision. This year three Asian American performers (Nicole Scherzinger, Darren Criss and Francis Jue) won Tony Awards in three acting categories, which was a first; four other Asian American actors were also nominated.
Amid the dialogue about representation, Conrad Ricamora, a star of the Broadway play “Oh, Mary!,” took action. Last weekend, he started a scholarship fund called “The Right to Be There” for Asian American men pursuing an acting degree. He said in an attached letter that he had been carrying grief from being told that he did not belong.
Ricamora said in a phone interview on Wednesday that he had not been able to sleep well over the last week partly because he had witnessed his friends express pain over the “Maybe Happy Ending” casting.
“I just had this image of what can you do with hopelessness, and sometimes you feel like you can’t do anything in the moment,” he said. “But what you can do is put something in the ground that maybe later on can grow and provide sustenance and resources in the future. That is my goal with the scholarship fund.”
Ricamora, a Tony nominee for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in “Oh, Mary!” whose acting credits also include “How to Get Away With Murder” and “How to Die Alone,” said the response to his scholarship effort had felt “fortifying.” As of Thursday, it had raised more than $48,000, with Ricamora contributing $18,000.
Instead of focusing purely on one casting decision, Ricamora said he wanted to address the bigger picture of barriers for Asian American actors. “This has got to be an ongoing conversation,” he said.
A statement from the Asian American Performers Action Coalition on Wednesday said that the organization was disappointed in the show’s decision.
“A different precedent has been set; one that de-emphasizes cultural specificity and the opportunities for a far too often excluded population of actors,” the statement read. “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.”
BD Wong, the veteran stage actor who is also known for his roles in “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and “Jurassic World: Dominion,” was also inspired to take action. He wrote an essay, which he posted on Facebook, highlighting that some Asian American actors felt betrayed by the casting news and underscored the community’s longstanding history of exclusion.
“I know nobody takes casting decisions lightly,” he wrote. “This ‘pivot’ unfortunately retracts the validation and celebration that ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ lent the Asian community. This is agonizing to witness and to feel in my heart. Nobody wins.”
In a phone interview on Wednesday, Wong said was upset about the situation.
“I’d love to demand that they reverse their decision,” he said, adding that there were many complicated elements at play. “We’re not here to oust somebody. But there is such a thing as collateral damage, too, right? What I would like to happen is for an Asian person to play that role.”
More than 1,300 people had signed his essay, lending their names to the chorus of people who were frustrated.
“I feel rather weary by the whole thing and sad about the whole thing,” Wong said. “But I’m also optimistic because I think it’s certainly not over.”
Derrick Bryson Taylor is a Times reporter covering breaking news in culture and the arts.
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