Helen J Shen got the role she’s been waiting for with Maybe Happy Ending.
The 24-year-old actress, who uses she/they pronouns, made her Broadway debut opposite Darren Criss in the new musical by Hue Park and Will Aronson on Nov. 16 at the Belasco Theatre in New York City. The work, directed by Michael Arden, follows two retired robots in the distant future as they form an unlikely relationship.
Shen was no stranger to the stage when she landed her role as Claire, having starred in Off-Broadway’s The Lonely Few and Teeth earlier in the year. However, they tell PEOPLE in an exclusive interview that it feels extra special to have made their debut in this particular show.
“Any Broadway debut is to be celebrated,” she says. “That’s a huge accomplishment for anybody. It takes so much work and dedication and perseverance to get to that spot. But for me, to have my Broadway debut in this way, with this group of people, telling this particular story, I couldn’t have even manifested how perfect it is.”
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Shen describes the experience as a “dream come true,” noting that they had a lot of freedom and access to resources when stepping into their role. As the show had its world premiere in Seoul, Korea in 2016, the actress was able to pick “the brains of the people who have been working on this for 10 plus years.”
Additionally, they sees value in making their debut in an original musical with an original score — which has become a rarity on the Broadway stage with the popularity of revivals and jukebox musicals. “It is important to me as a theater artist, maker and consumer that we champion new works,” she says.
Growing up in the theater scene, many actors connect with dream roles at a young age. Think Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, Maureen Johnson in Rent or Elphaba in Wicked. But Shen struggled to do so and often felt that her own dream roles hadn’t “been written yet” or that she hadn’t come across them. “I would love to embody iconic characters,” they explains. “But now I’m like, I was waiting for this role.”
Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Fortunately, the show was just as excited to have found Helen as she was to have gotten the role. In fact, they were cast just a week after getting the request to send in a self-tape from her manager. “I taped for it and then I got a call back asking me to come in for a chemistry read with Darren [Criss], and then the next day I found out that I got it,” they explain. “Normally you’d probably be in callbacks and sessions for months or weeks.”
As for starring alongside Emmy winner Criss — who had his breakthrough role in the musical comedy series Glee before hitting the Main Stem in productions of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and American Buffalo — Shen says they had an instant connection.
Along with being both University of Michigan alums, the two are also self-proclaimed music nerds. “We’ll talk about scansion, we’ll talk about rhymes and all that stuff,” they say of their interactions in the rehearsal room. “We’ve both been very open and receptive to being vessels to tell this story. We both care about the story and care about portraying these characters well. So I think that’s been the best and he’s such a golden retriever. I feel like I’m the black cat to his Golden Retriever.”
Despite their flawless chemistry, the two play characters with very different personalities. Shen finds that Claire’s “sarcasm and dryness” is a fun contrast to Criss’ Oliver, who is “kind of square, immoveable.”
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“He’s just a little bit more rigid in his ways at first and Claire’s so much more like nonchalant and blasé in a way that feels like she has accepted the circumstances of life,” she says. “That is really fun to do, especially since Darren and I have such a fun banter as friends already.”
The production’s star power and reputation draws people from near and far. “We have had people coming from Chile, from Australia, just for one day to see this show, which is amazing,” Shen says. But what holds a dear place in her heart is that when they exit the theater, they’re seeing “a lot more Asian faces at the stage door, which means a lot to me and just people saying, ‘Oh, I never saw myself doing something like this and seeing you do it has opened my eyes in a way.’ ”
The actress relates to the experience, saying she has been there before. “I went to see Billy Elliot when I was like 12 and there was an understudy on for Billy Elliot. He was the first Asian Billy,” they share. “I waited at the stage door and I told my parents, ‘Okay, when he comes over, we’re going to take a nice picture. It’s going to be really cool. I’m going to look really cool in my Abercrombie zip-up sweatshirt.’ ”
They say the photo turned out “derpy,” although the interaction still remains a core memory.
Courtesy of Helen J Shen
Shen has met many fellow actors over the years who have given her advice for her burgeoning career. “I did a regional production of Sunset Boulevard with Pearl Sun and she’s been my big sister,” they say. “[Sun] is this amazing Asian American actress who has been working her whole life and she’s always a person that I can reach out to.”
“My partner is also in the industry,” they add, referring to No Hard Feelings actor Andrew Barth Feldman. “I’ve had a lot of amazing people in my corner telling me to soak it all in and be as present as you possibly can. But it is an experience that’s beyond human scale, so I’m grabbing onto the people in front of me and spending time with the people around me.”
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As for the future of the musical, tickets of which are no on sale through September 2025, Shen says, “I hope it runs for a long time.”
While the Broadway production features groundbreaking stage design and video elements, they note that previous versions were more paired down and can be replicated by smaller theater companies. “The story itself survives with just a black box theater. It doesn’t need all of that stuff to touch the audience,” Shen says. “I hope it gets to be done in high schools and runs for a long time, and people get to have this story as a new classic for them in the musical theater canon.”
Tickets for Maybe Happy Ending are now on sale.
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