“Maybe Happy ending” had a very unhappy start.
The triumph of the show at the Sunday Night Tony Awards, where he won six honors, including the best new musical, closed an extraordinary turnaround for a small production with a disconcerting title and a difficult premise to sell that was seen by professionals in the sector as died on arrival when he started previews last autumn.
But in the early hours of Monday morning, while the artists and producers of the extravagant show celebrated with their creative team and investors at the Bryant Park Grill, the celebrants finally let themselves be recognized that their show against everyone is breaking.
“We didn't know if this show would also be opened,” said his star, Darren Criss, who won his first Tony for interpreting Oliver, an obsolete Helperbot that affects a relationship that changes life (well, shelf-life that changed life) with a robot in the whole room. Criss, winner of theMy (for “American Crime Story”) and “Glee”, is also a member of the show production team.
“We didn't have the luxury of dreaming of a scenario like this,” he said. “This was definitely the small show that could.”
How caught things are? Last summer, the producers of protagonists of the show, Jeffrey Richards and Hunter Arnold, postponed the first performance of a month, citing problems of the supply chain, that the producers insist were real (there was a delay in the availability of digital video card from China), but that many thought it was a cover story to hide financial problems.
“They put a fork in the United States,” said Allan Williams, executive producer of the show.
The production temporarily fired the workers, the tickets reimbursed for the month of the erased performances and contested with a suggestion of an influencer of the Tiktok theater according to which the musical may not open.
“People started to send me messages with sympathy,” said Helen J Shen, Criss's co-protagonist, who plays a model robot later named Claire. “We have never felt really sure.”
Some of those who expected to help finance the show began to detach, not wanting to put their money in a ship that sinking.
“We have lost many investors because of that Tiktok,” Arnold said. “No investor wants to write a check and think that they won't even see the show.”
When “perhaps the happy ending” finally started the previews on October 16, he had only sold $ 450,000 of tickets – terribly low for a new Broadway musical.
“Perhaps Happy Ending”, who has not finished collecting his capitalization of $ 16 million until the week of his opening evening, he emerged from the previews. The gross weekly were lower than $ 300,000, which is well below the weekly management costs of $ 765,000 in the show. The 973 -seater Belasco theater was empty of about 20 %. At the fourth week of shows, the average show price had fallen to $ 45 disastrous, in part because the producers decided to offer all tickets between $ 30 and $ 69 in a calculated, but also desperate effort, to fill the places and build word of mouth.
Then there was a huge marketing challenge: how to describe a show with only four actors, two of whom play robots, which explores intensely isolation, memory and love. Music is a mix of pop Indies, American jazz and Broadway, and design is a show that is slowly taking place that uses automation and projections to advance the narrative.
“Every time you try to explain:” Well, there are these two robots, in a Soul not so facing, South Korea, “people are like,” it doesn't seem like a musical, “Arnold said.
The show website does not use the word “robot” when explaining what it is. The director, Michael Arden, defined the musical “a kind and contemplative piece, in many ways, which is not an easy sale”. Shen said his favorite discussion for the show was “only trust me”.
“It's like describing a new color,” he said. “We didn't know how to describe this piece to people.”
Those who saw the show have been moved and began to tell others. “I think people liked to be able to share a secret,” said Arden.
The show was opened on November 12th and criticism reviews were extraordinarily positive. “Ravishing,” wrote the New York Times. “A dear gem,” said the Washington Post.
But anyway, the doubt remained. Broadway is an industry at risk of failure and the shows can crash quickly-the end of 2022, the musical “kpop” closed only two weeks after opening and last year, the musical “Tammy Faye” lasted only three weeks after opening.
“We left the city in the morning after the opening evening, and we said these very emotional goodbyes to everyone because we thought it would be a very short race,” said Will Aronson, who wrote “perhaps Happy Ending” with Hue Park.
The producers, encouraged by word of mouth and reviews, collected another 1.75 million dollars to promote the show. A turn started. “He simply built incrementally,” Arnold said. “We were burning a lot of money. But we were able to see that online feeling was changing, the sales models were changing.”
The week after opening, the show grossed $ 591,000. During the Christmas holidays, he had his first week of $ 1 million and since then his gross have passed the management costs almost every week. And the show was substantially exhausted since Tony's nominations were announced in early May.
It is not yet clear if the show will transform a Broadway profit. The increase in production costs has made almost impossible for new musicals to make money in New York – in the last three seasons, only “& Juliet” has done so. But the Tony Awards should help: usually there are misunderstood who want to see the best musical winner.
“Maybe Happy ending” has an unusual story. Aronson and Park, who have made their debut at Broadway with the show, are a binational team of songwriting: Aronson comes from the United States and Park is from South Korea. They worked in both countries and both languages.
Park had the idea that he became “perhaps happy ending” while he was sitting in a Brooklyn cafeteria in 2014. He listened to the song “Everyday Robots” and began to reflect on the interaction between technology, isolation and connection.
The first commercial production of the show was in Seoul in 2016; Later that year, the writers presented the English language version in New York, where Richards saw it. He saw many shows during more than 50 years working on Broadway and fascinated by what he considered this “pure inventive”, he acquired commercial rights.
The musical was coming. Korean production has been successful and has had several runs. There were also productions in Japan and China. In 2017, the English version, then called “What I Sad from People” and with only three actors, won the Richard Rodgers Award, which supports the development of new musicals.
Richards began to help assemble a creative team, keeping seminars and raising funds. Arden signed in 2018, telling Richards in one and -mail of having found the material “devastating and beautiful and eventually affirming life”.
The American premiere of the show, directed by Arden, was at the beginning of 2020 at the Theater alliance in Atlanta; The Atlanta diary commission called him “dazzling” and the critic of the Times Jesse Green called him “ready for Broadway”. Richards had hoped to bring him to Broadway the following season, but then the Pandemia di Coronavirus arrived.
When the theaters began to reopen, the momentum had been lost, the investors were in great demand and theaters were booked. “We had to go back to the beginning,” said Richards.
But there have also been positive developments. Criss, performing in a production of “American Buffalo” that Richards produced, agreed to do “perhaps happy ending” and his participation encouraged both theater owners and investors.
“Maybe Happy ending” needed a theater with a small house (the show is on a small scale) and a large stage (the set is processed and needs an elevator under its floor) and has not been able to find one for several seasons. But finally, last autumn, Belasco became available.
The space has worked and also has a compelling story. Richards noticed that in 1960, a scarcely reviewed comedy called “All the way home” had an almost closed and rebound experience, gaining the nickname “The Miracle on 44th Street”. Now, Richards said: “We are the 21st century miracle in 44th street”.
Shortly before 2 on Monday, the winners of Tony della show were still cradling their silver statuettes while putting for photos with supporters in an outdoor dining room, celebrating how fully the voters of the prizes had embraced the foundations of their show: he won for his score, his book, his scenic design and his direction.
“You could hear that the industry put it behind because it is exactly the type of theater that everyone in this business want,” said Dane Laffrey, the scenic designer. “It is sincere, it is original, it is innovative – they are all the things that are frightening and are risky but in the end they bring most of the reward if you can remain the course.”