Photo of Helen J. Shen promoting Maybe Happy Ending by Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
A new Broadway star has arrived and her name is Helen J. Shen.
Shen stars alongside Darren Criss in the hit new original musical Maybe Happy Ending. The futuristic sci-fi tale follows two obsolete robots, Claire (Shen) and Oliver (Criss), “Helperbots” living in a retirement apartment complex in Seoul, Korea. One day, the spunky Claire asks her perfectionist Jazz-obsessed neighbor Oliver for a charger. What forms is a friendship that leads the two to go on an adventure to find Oliver’s former owner on Jeju island. Claire is cynical about humans while Oliver holds his former owner in high regard — think Woody and Jesse’s arc in Toy Story 2. Yet, upon their quest, their bond is struck further and develops into something more meaningful.
As someone who is new to theater and hasn’t seen a Broadway musical since Mamma Mia! in 2014, Maybe Happy Ending filled my heart ten times over. Considering that this is Shen’s Broadway debut, they confidently carry the show equally with Criss. (Even as HwaBoon, the inanimate plant, comes close to stealing the show.) Shen is one of the most promising talents currently on stage and screen, a true star in the making.
Shen hopped on a Zoom call with me and discussed everything about Maybe Happy Ending and more. We talk about landing their first Broadway role, working with Darren Criss and HwaBoon, depicting a romance beyond gender archetypes, and their favorite Pixar movies.
Rendy: It’s been officially a year since you found out you were cast as Claire in this show. How has that process been from then to now?
Helen: I feel like a year ago seems like a lifetime ago, even just in the journey of my own self-confidence and how much space I take up on a stage. A year ago, I was doing vastly different things as an actor, and since finding out about Maybe Happy Ending, just letting myself be taken on the ride and letting myself be as open as possible to the lessons that I’ve been faced with, it’s been amazing. I feel like looking back, there were so many crossroads where a lot of things seemed impossible. It seemed impossible to get to the opening. It seemed impossible to get to rehearsals, and so every single next kind of checkpoint that we got to was the greatest gift. I think that helped me stay really present during a time and stay really grounded during a time that can unground people and feel very just kind of nebulous and overwhelming.
That’s not to say that there weren’t moments of overwhelm, chaos, doubt, and imposter syndrome. But I think the way that it all fell into place in hindsight, I’m very grateful for. I feel like I got a lot of opportunities to just check back in with myself, even though it felt very fast. There were definitely moments like, “Yeah, we don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring, so let’s have today be the gift that it is,” which is very similar to the lessons that my character Claire learns in the show too. So I felt like I was living parallel experiences to her during this past year.
Rendy: What was it that attracted you to the project when you were hearing about it?
Helen: Initially, when I read the script, I was super drawn to how clever and thorough the world-building was. I instantly fell in love with Will Aronson and Hugh Park’s writing. Their book writing and also their music writing. I just found all of it to be such a love letter to the art of musical theater, and the piece asks such a profound question packaged in a very lighthearted and heartfelt way. It was such a funny script and a witty script and smart, and so I just really wanted to sink my teeth into the material as soon as I saw it.
I feel like there was a part of me that was like, I know what I want to do with this material. So when I went to go do my self-tape and my one callback chemistry read with Darren, I went into it with the kind of feeling of “I know how Helen would do this.” I feel like I approach my callbacks and my auditions with that same mindset of “this is your opening and closing of whoever character you’re auditioning for,” and then if you get it perfect. Amazing. But auditioning is such a numbers game, and you don’t even know what the other side of the table is going to want. So trying to fit yourself into a mold doesn’t behoove you. I just felt like I knew what I wanted to do with it, and then I followed that, and it ended up aligning with what they wanted when they were looking for people.
Rendy: One of my favorite things about the musical is the connectivity between Claire and Oliver, in the sense that they have this well-developed romance where it doesn’t feel like it plays to any gendered archetype. How is it to depict a sort of universal portrayal of love without getting into those archetypes?
Helen: I don’t know that in the beginning of when we were working on it that we consciously wanted to make that distinction. The way that I live in my body is something that I like to play with — the masculine and feminine sides of myself — and I think Darren does as well. Yes, the body on the exterior is like Claire’s dressed as this very femme robot, and Oliver has this tie. There’s visual markers for that, but to fully embody these characters, I wouldn’t feel complete just leaning into just the femme side of it all. What was more important to us was that these two beings happened to find solace and comfort in each other, and these beings could look like anything. You could replace any kind of gender or, I don’t know, all avatar’s skin and all of the external things they have, it’s not about the exterior. It’s much more about their essence and their souls, I guess. So yeah, I’m glad that that reads because I feel like that is something.
As a person who enjoys exploring androgyny and doesn’t like to label things, I was worried that Claire is presented much more femme than I present myself in day-to-day life. So I’m glad that my other parts continue to shine through even when it’s different to how I would present myself. I think that’s true about both of us too. I think it just ends up being about their story of connection as opposed to their physical attributes.
Rendy: What were some of your musical background influences?
Helen: I grew up doing a lot of classical piano. I have 15 years of competitive classical piano background in me, which is a lot of music theory and technical music stuff, and I always loved playing and singing the American songbook jazz standards. That’s way more like Dez Duron who plays Gil Brentley, but I also have a love for it and an appreciation for it. I’m obsessed with Chet Baker. All of these things.
Will Aronson’s jazz band background and his love of an obsession with jazz is felt in his work. I love his love of it. So as a music nerd myself, it just felt like coming home to be surrounded by all of these other music nerds. It’s lovely to get to listen to all of this music, and I mean, Duron’s voice on the Gil Brentley stuff is just like, it’s butter. It’s nostalgia for something that you’ve never heard before, which, I think, is such an interesting way to describe this music. There’s a familiarity in your heart, but your mind is new.
Rendy: What would be your entire records of music that you would own and hyperfixate on?
Helen: Oh my God, so many. Just even to expand Oliver’s jazz thing, I think there could be so much more Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald. I would say for me personally in my life, I’m going to put Lady Gaga’s discography. There was a moment in which Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett’s collaboration was going to be explored because it’s like that would become vintage. It was a fun little moment from previews that we ended up cutting. It just took everything out because it then plays with your timeline, and then everyone starts thinking, “Oh my God, this is going to be old one day.” But I would add Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett to my list.
Rendy: How was it working with Darren and the best character of the entire show, HwaBoon?
Helen: Darren is a really wonderful partner to do this with. I think we both have different levels of firsts that we are celebrating doing this show. He has never originated a role before. He has never done something in this way where he has as much agency as he has now, and so there were a lot of firsts, like a cast album. There were a lot of firsts that we were celebrating together, even though this is my Broadway debut so there were more Broadway firsts for me. But I think the fact that we both got to celebrate how rare and novel this was made the experience that much sweeter. He is a very dedicated and smart actor, so I really enjoy after 200 performances, after six months of performances, keeping things fresh, and I think we just have a blast doing the show every night and trying to figure out how alive comedy feels and feeling the energy of the audience. I think that’s something that we’re both very attuned to.
Hwaboon is obviously a diva.
Rendy: I knew it!
Helen: You can feel it through the screen, you can feel it. He’s always talking shit. He’s always doing all this stuff, but when you watch the show, there is something endearing. He has a big personality on that stage. I can’t explain it, and the way that he’s completely taken over the culture for our show. Michael Arden decided to begin and end the show on HwaBoon because he said that this show is about living things and about life, so that gives you a little insight about the hierarchy. If you saw the call sheet, it would be HwaBoon, Darren, then myself.
Rendy: We love a top billing plant king.
Helen: We love the top billing plant.
Rendy: You probably have heard it, but the show feels like a Pixar movie on stage. Then you have references to other robot movies within it, like Terminator 2. What are some of your favorite bot-centric movies?
Helen: Whoa. Big Hero Six is a big one for me. I found Ex Machina to be really fascinating, and Blade Runner. I actually haven’t seen Terminator 2, which is alluded to in the musical, but I’ve seen the first one. It’s a really interesting genre of movie and IP to kind of think about the ethics of AI and robots because then it kind of begs the question, “What makes one human when we make something that looks and acts and behaves like human?” Westworld is another one that’s really great that I often think about the ethics of; you think about if they have an expiration date, and they have consciousness, and they’re utilized in the same way in society, that people of all classes and social statuses are used. Doesn’t that make you human, even if it’s artificially produced? It begs all those questions, and I think obviously Wall-E is a perfect one.
I think what Pixar does, to your point, is make these big questions palatable and digestible in a hundred minutes and doesn’t alienate you. I think it’s such a beautiful way that audiences can feel like they can project their experiences on something else so it doesn’t feel too close to home, and then suddenly something happens, you’re like, “Oh, I’m affected. It got me right to the heart.” That’s what Pixar does: it pretends it’s not you, and suddenly at the end you’re like, “That’s me.”
Rendy: What are some of your favorite Pixar flicks?
Helen: I’m so glad you asked. Oh, God. Obviously, Finding Nemo was just such a huge one for me growing up. Toy Story, I’m going to say my favorite toy story is Toy Story 3. Both Incredibles are very exciting to me. Ratatouille, obviously. Oh, the short Bao and then Turning Red.
Rendy: Oh yeah. I love them. Domee Shi is amazing.
Helen: Just all these amazing creators pitching these. My partner is a big Pixar person too, and he was telling me there is a rule maybe or some kind of practice that for every three Pixar pitches you do, one has to be pitchable, one has to be such a crazy out of left field idea that does not make sense on paper, and they end up being our favorite stories because it’s like, why? How did they think of this? So I am so inspired by everything that Pixar does. Inside Out! I mean, come on. They’re so creative.
Rendy: I’m very curious to hear from your perspective. Something that I see is very exciting within theater today is seeing so many different people at Gen Z going into lead roles and finding their voices and finding their place in the theater culture. How’s it like for you to experience that, especially since this is your Broadway debut?
Helen: I have such reverence for my peers now. It feels crazy to call them peers, but yes, these people that I looked up to for my whole life and never thought that I could get the opportunity to meet them, let alone have them know who I am before I introduced myself. That is a very mind-blowing, overwhelming, and humbling experience. I’m excited to continue to add to the tapestry of voices who are trying to make Broadway and the media at large a more open and inclusive space and more welcoming space because a lot of the doubt that I had growing up wasn’t explicit. It was just a lack of representation and a lack of things that were possible.
I’m excited to, just as me embodying a lead role on Broadway, inspire people who might not look like a traditional leading lady and think that that’s possible. So I feel really excited about it. A really huge example to me was I grew up loving Lea Salonga. She was such a huge beacon of hope for me personally, to want to do theater and musical theater specifically. I loved her acting. I loved her singing. She’s come to see the show twice now and has been super amazing, generous, and lovely. I honor my inner child by freaking out about it. And so it makes sense because I am doing the show eight shows a week, and now I get to commiserate with them, and they know exactly what this experience has been. I have a lot of amazing people in my corner who are also excited for me as opposed to being like, “Oh, who’s this person? I feel like I need to be competitive with them,” or whatever. Sure, there’s that stuff, but for the most part, I am just so embraced by the theater community and excited about it.
Rendy: That’s amazing. About Lea. I mean, Mulan was like, it is my non-binary foreshadowing. That was one of my go-to VHS tapes growing up, and I always questioned, “Why do I love reflection so much?” Oh, this makes so much sense. The moment I came out.
Helen: Those lyrics. I understand those lyrics to the T.
Rendy: Is there anything that Claire has taught you when playing her character, and what’s a lesson you wish you could teach Claire as Helen?
Helen: I think I’ve learned that realism can set you free a little bit. There’s some kind of calm and peace that brings Claire when she knows there’s going to be an end date, and that means that whatever I do until then, I can really give myself to, and that’s something that I’ve really loved portraying throughout Claire. I think something that I would like to teach Claire is, there’s so much out there. I want her to take so many trips to Juju and beyond. I want her to just know that she decided, “Oh, I don’t have to just stay in the help robot yards and wait for my death, essentially. I can go traveling.” I want her to take a cruise. I want her to go traveling and see the world and see people and experience life, and not just talk to her other power-down robot friends. That’s what I would say.
Maybe Happy Ending is now on Broadway.
