Poignant, powerful and maybe prophetic: Broadway’s 'Maybe Happy Ending' packs a big punch

WBUR | By Here & Now Newsroom

Published April 21, 2025 at 11:51 AM EDT

Darren Criss and Helen J Shen in "Maybe Happy Ending" on Broadway. (Courtesy of Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Editor’s note: This segment was rebroadcast on June 20, 2025. Click here for that audio.

What does it mean to age? To decline? To love? Is it worth taking big risks for big rewards that will inevitably also mean unfathomable sorrow? Some of life’s biggest questions are, ironically, the heart of Broadway’s “Maybe Happy Ending,” a musical whose protagonists aren’t human at all.

Instead, the show’s protagonists are two failing ‘Helper-Bots’ navigating their retirement years in a community for obsolete — yet disturbingly sentient — robots.

“Maybe Happy Ending,” as funny as it is poignant, is also the first show to land on Broadway from South Korea, featuring a mostly Asian cast, including stars Helen J. Shen and Darren Criss as those two Helper-Bots.

Here & Now host Robin Young talked to Criss and Shen after a recent performance.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.