Darren Criss, who parlayed a breakout position on “Glee” right into a multifaceted occupation in tv, theater and tune, will go back to Broadway this autumn in a unutilized musical this is nominally about robots however could also be about future, love and loss.
The display, “Maybe Happy Ending,” is a insufficiency for Broadway: a completely fresh musical — no longer tailored from a pre-existing tale or track catalog. Criss will big name along Helen J Shen and two alternative actors within the musical, which is about in Seoul within the past due twenty first century and is ready two outdated helperbots who meet at a robotic depart house and forge a dating future grappling with their very own obsolescence.
The musical, via Will Aronson and Hue Terrain, had an preliminary Korean-language manufacturing in Seoul in 2016, and an English-language manufacturing in Atlanta, on the Alliance Theater, in 2020, the place Jesse Inexperienced, a Unutilized York Instances leading theater critic, known as it “a charming, Broadway-ready new musical about robots in love.”
The Broadway manufacturing, introduced Tuesday, shall be directed via Michael Arden, who additionally directed the Atlanta manufacturing, and who endmost week gained a Tony Award for steering a revival of “Parade.” “Maybe Happy Ending” is scheduled to start previews Sept. 18 and to noticeable Oct. 17 on the Belasco Theater.
“It’s a strange, futuristic look at love, with a beautiful score that feels quite classic,” Arden stated in a phone interview. “When I first read it I found it absolutely devastating and heartbreaking and beautiful — it was one of the most human stories I’d come across, even though our leads aren’t human.”
Criss, an Emmy winner for “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” endmost gave the impression on Broadway in a 2022 revival of “American Buffalo”; he had in the past starred in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
“Maybe Happy Ending” would be the first Broadway display for Shen, who’s recently in “The Lonely Few” at Off Broadway’s MCC Theater. Criss and Shen will play games the robots; the forged may also come with Dez Duron, a onetime contestant on “The Voice.”
“Maybe Happy Ending” is being capitalized for $18.25 million, in keeping with a submitting with the Securities and Alternate Fee. However a spokeswoman for the manufacturing stated the latest finances could be decrease; she stated the manufacturers are looking for to boost between $16 million and $18.25 million to finance the display.
The musical’s govern manufacturers are Jeffrey Richards and Hunter Arnold, who on Friday introduced that also they are a number of the manufacturers of a unutilized Off Broadway play games, “N/A,” starring Holland Taylor and Ana Villafañe. That play games, written via Mario Correa and directed via Diane Paulus, is to start previews June 11 and to noticeable June 23 on the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. The play games, described in a information let fall as impressed via actual community and occasions, is ready tensions between the primary feminine speaker of the Area and the youngest lady elected to Congress; the characters have parallels to Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
