Thursday, August 07, 2025
Maybe Happy Ending Creators and Lead Helen J Shen Respond to Casting Controversy
Playbill: Tony Award-winning musical Maybe Happy Ending has been the topic of avid industry conversation the past week. Last week, the musical announced that Andrew Barth Feldman would take over the show in the lead role of Oliver, following the departure of actor Darren Criss. The decision has led to widespread outcry, due to the role of Oliver having been currently, and previously, played by actors of Asian descent—Feldman is white.
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I have had this conversation more times than I would like about representation in roles that are not "technically" for a specific race of person. While the role does not necessarily dictate that there needs to be an actor/actress with a certain background, if there is a precedence for it and/or it makes sense based off of who else was cast, then the best thing to do would be to continue that (this does not apply to characters that have only been played by white actors). When you put a body on stage, no matter what your intention is, that body tells a story. If you have a role in a show that has been played by a BIPOC actor and the show is set in a certain location with the rest of the cast being some kind of representative of that location, to replace that actor with a white person takes away from the story they are trying to tell.
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