Interview: A Maybe Happy Ending on Broadway for Writers Will Aronson and Hue Park

Like a firefly suddenly illuminating a dark sky — an apt metaphor, as those who’ve seen the show already know — Maybe Happy Ending has been charming audiences since it opened at the Belasco Theater last fall.

The new musical, which came to Broadway after productions in South Korea and a stop at the Alliance Theater, centers on two obsolete robots (played by Darren Criss and Helen J Shen) who forge a sweet connection in a futuristic Seoul. Will Aronson and Hue Park, who wrote the show’s book, music, and lyrics, use jazz and acoustic influences to underscore just how human this story is, despite its android leads.

Here, the duo — now back in the States after opening their latest collaboration, Ghost Bakery, in Korea — reflect on Maybe Happy Ending’s origins, their writing process across two languages, and how audiences have been responding to the show.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Where did the idea for Maybe Happy Ending first come from?
Hue Park: I was in a coffee shop in Brooklyn, and this song called “Everyday Robots” by Damon Albarn started to play in the background. It starts with, “We are everyday robots on our phones, in the process of getting home.” And as I was listening to that, I started to imagine a rather intimate love story, but the protagonists are robots. So, I texted Will that idea and we started to develop the story together.

Will Aronson: I tend to get really excited about ideas that, even if they’re about very heartfelt, simple things, there’s framing that suggests something theatrical. So, when you said, “We’re going to write about a relationship, but it’ll be using robots as protagonists,” I thought, that presents all sorts of possibilities.

And then how did you home in on what the music would sound like?
Will: From early on, we knew we had the jazz, but we also wanted something that was acoustic, that still could capture the robot aspect.

Hue: We didn’t necessarily want to imitate the most flashy, grand pop sound. We wanted it to be a little more vintage.

You’ve said that you worked on the Korean and English versions of the songs almost in tandem. I’m so curious about that process.
Will: We tend to write the script in English together, so we’re working on making music sketches while building out a treatment that then becomes the script. But then when we actually write the songs, I usually do the music first, Hue writes Korean lyrics to that music, which then I will adjust as it gets fleshed out into a final Korean language song. And then the Korean lyrics we rework back into English. So, the script is first in English, but the lyrics are first in Korean.

Hue: We’re a bilingual team. My first language is Korean, and his first language is English. When I was at NYU, I met a lot of Korean students who were bilingual, too, and I realized that we all were writing the first drafts of our papers half in Korean, half in English. It was just natural — like, we would compose a sentence that has Korean words that I couldn’t really think of in English on the spot. Our writing process is kind of like that…Sometimes it would be 80 percent in English and 20 percent Korean lyrics. And then we eventually finished the first draft and polished it in both languages.

What did people like your director, Michael Arden, and actors Darren Criss and Helen J Shen bring to the piece?
Will: It was a three-character show in Korea — the same actor who played James also played the jazz singer — and one of the first things Michael said was, “I think those should be two different roles.” That opened up a lot for us. I’d say that was the first and biggest contribution Michael made. He also suggested putting an extra song for Gil Brentley that became “Sentimental Person.”

Hue: [Darren and Helen are] both extremely collaborative and were very excited to originate these roles. The story is set in a future Korea, so when they were asking me questions related to Korean culture, I was like, “I don’t know, because we’re creating this new world!” [Laughs] It’s not about what Korean cars are like right now, it’s about what Korean cars will be like in 2064. But those questions were very imaginative, so it was helpful for me to really envision the world.

Will: They had great chemistry right off the bat. Obviously, it’s in the script that she’s more advanced than he is, but it’s been played different ways in Korea, where they both skew more human, to versions where both of them are being extremely robotic. So, we did not come in with a prescriptive idea of how they have to be played.

Really late in the process, Oliver became much more overtly robotic — not actually acting like a robot, but there’s a really strong physical component — and Helen then went more in the direction of having mostly human physicality, although she adds these touches that make it more robot. They, as a team, developed their take on the material that wasn’t prescribed on our behalf.

I remember back when the show opened and the reviews were so positive, and then seeing that sold out notice posted for the first time. Was there a moment where you could really see that people were responding to this show?
Will: The first public performance is always hard to judge, because it’s fans of the actors and whatever else. But certainly, by the second performance, which was more of what you might call a regular audience, I will say we were stunned by the American crowd’s reaction to certain lines in the show. I remember having this sense of relief; although there’s still the nervousness, it seemed like people were engaged. That was the first sign that maybe it was coming across.

Hue: I see people on social media who say they’ve seen the show multiple times. The fact that people spend that much money and time to see this show multiple times, that feels really special to me.

New original musicals don’t always catch on with audiences. What is it about Maybe Happy Ending that you think is resonating?
Hue: Our show is probably one of the less cynical shows on Broadway, and it’s very transparent in terms of emotions. We’re living in this digital era, and it’s really hard to stay innocent or optimistic when you meet someone and open yourself up to someone new. But you watch these characters who are extremely innocent and open minded in many ways, even though they both have their own baggage a little bit. I think that’s a reminder for us that what it means to be human is that we are capable of making these meaningful connections. We can be less cynical and then enjoy the world together. I like to think that that’s maybe one of the reasons.