'Maybe Happy Ending' Breakout Helen J. Shen Talks New Chapter in Growing Legacy of Asian American Theater
Issue No. 35: The "Hwaboon" issue
It's about three hours before Helen J. Shen is set to take the stage to perform as a retired HelperBot in the buzzy musical sci-fi dramedy Maybe Happy Ending. I am sitting with the actress at a restaurant in New York's Times Square a block over from the Belasco Theater. It's too early for dinner and too late for lunch. I jokingly insist that she get a fried chicken sandwich right before her 7 pm show.
"Can you imagine if I did?!" she laughs.
We both ordered tea like proper ladies.
In August 2024, I met Shen when she was in Los Angeles to celebrate being highlighted in Variety's "Young Hollywood Impact Report". Maybe Happy Ending was on the way to a November premiere and Shen was revving up for her Broadway debut as Claire, a HelperBot in near-future Seoul, Korea. She stars opposite Darren Criss, who plays Oliver, an older version of a HelperBot. The two live in a community for HelperBots that have been retired and considered obsolete. In other words, a HelperBot retirement community.
Claire meets Oliver when her battery is about to run out of juice. Her desperate need for a charger starts an odd couple relationship. As they go on an adventure, the two tell a story of mortality, acceptance, the finiteness of relationships and existence, and, ultimately, love.
"I couldn't have possibly imagined this," said Shen in regards to originating the role of Claire on Broadway. "I only hoped to be a replacement someday -- or at least touch the golden ticket of Broadway."
Shen said that she has always been a musician first -- and in a close second, acting. She said her parents always tell a story about how she was transfixed by a woman playing the piano at a holiday party.
"I'm probably three or four at this at this time, and I plant my little butt next to that piano -- and I don't leave it all night," she said. "There's all sorts of stories like that from my parents."
With an Asian American cast and a narrative rooted -- but not leading with -- Asian identity, Maybe Happy Ending might be the start of a new era of Asian American theater.
"I've been hungry for Asian American theater my whole life, and that has been in the form of when white people write musicals that center around an Asian experience. That's what we had and that's what we clung to," said Shen. She pointed out that there have been plays written and backed by AAPI creative teams, but their time on Broadway is but a blip on the radar.
She added, "As an AAPI performer, how do I not get discouraged by that? It's like the market doesn't want me here. That's what it felt like growing up and going to school... and then to feel a sense of competition with my siblings who are also AAPI -- that's a whole other thing!"
"I've been hungry for what we would call the 'canon'," Shen explained. "There's Jewish American canon, right? There are August Wilson plays. We get to add to that. We're at the nascence of Asian American theater, We get to create it."
View the full interview at thediasporatimes.com.