Latest news with #MaybeHappyEnding
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘M*A*S*H' star Loretta Swit dies at 87, and more of today's top stories
Gold Derby's for May 30, 2025. The actress, who play Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on the seminal television series M*A*S*H died on Friday at age of 87 at her home in New York City. Swit won two Emmy Awards for the role and was nominated 10 times in all for the series. She appeared in every season of M*A*S*H and 239 episodes in total, the second most of any actor, behind Alan Alda. More from GoldDerby Directors open up about identity, risk and emotional storytelling at Disney's FYC fest 'Maybe Happy Ending' star Darren Criss on his Tony nomination for playing a robot: 'Getting to do this is the true win' Taylor Swift's rights drama explained: What happened and why it matters Two-time Emmy Award winner and 30-time nominee Alf Clausen, who made an indelible musical mark on the longest-running primetime scripted series in history, died May 29, after a decade-long battle with Progressive Supernuclear Palsy (PSP). The composer joined The Simpsons during its second season in 1990, writing some of its best known songs and parodies until 2017, when he was fired due to cost-saving measures, resulting in an uproar from fans. Almost five years after the pop mega-star announced plans to re-record her first six studio albums due to a dispute with the right's holders, Taylor Swift has acquired the masters to her back catalog. The singer-songwriter announced on her socials that the saga that led to her (Taylor's Version) releases had come to a close. "All of the music I've ever made… now belongs… to me," she wrote in a letter posted to her official site. The rights were most recently in the hands of Shamrock Capital, who have reportedly sold them to Swift for an undisclosed nine-figure sum, according to Variety. Months after her first Academy Award nomination, the Wicked star has found her next film project. The singer-turned-blockbuster actress has signed onto the fourth film in the Meet the Parents series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Grande joins Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro, who are reprising their roles as Greg Focker and Jack "Talk Thai" Byrnes respectively. Also set for a return are Teri Polo and Blythe Danner. John Hamburg, who cowrote the first three films, will write and direct the fourth. Hulu has announced when Hank Hill and the gang will be returning for Season 14. King of the Hill is coming back on August 4, after 15 years off the air. The streamer also dropped a first look, a sneak peek at the opening credits, and an official description of the new batch of episodes. "After years working a propane job in Saudi Arabia to earn their retirement nest egg, Hank and Peggy Hill return to a changed Arlen, Texas to reconnect with old friends Dale, Boomhauer and Bill. Meanwhile, Bobby is living his dream as a chef in Dallas and enjoying his 20s with his former classmates Connie, Joseph and Chane." For those who didn't partake in one last reckoning over the weekend, Paramount has released a clip from the final (?) Mission: Impossible movie. And if you did check out Tom Cruise hanging out of a biplane, maybe you'd just like to enjoy a sterling line reading from Tramell Tillman as Captain Bledsoe one more time. Best of GoldDerby 'I cried a lot': Rob Delaney on the heart and humor in FX's 'Dying for Sex' — and Neighbor Guy's kick in the 'zone' TV directors roundtable: 'American Primeval,' 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,' 'Paradise' 'Paradise' directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra on the 'chaos' of crafting 'the world coming to an end' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘I cried a lot': Rob Delaney on the heart and humor in FX's ‘Dying for Sex' — and Neighbor Guy's kick in the ‘zone'
"Worst case scenario, he's this annoying, gross collection of sights, sounds, and smells," jokes Rob Delaney about his character, simply known as Neighbor Guy, in FX's limited series Dying for Sex. The tragic comedy stars Michelle Williams as Molly, a woman diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, who abandons her husband (played by Jay Duplass) of 15 years and begins to fully explore her sexuality. More from GoldDerby Directors open up about identity, risk and emotional storytelling at Disney's FYC fest 'M*A*S*H' star Loretta Swit dies at 87, and more of today's top stories 'Maybe Happy Ending' star Darren Criss on his Tony nomination for playing a robot: 'Getting to do this is the true win' After reading the script, Delaney realized that Neighbor Guy develops into a "pretty fantastic character" — one who ultimately provides Molly with the kinky outlet and emotional connection she craves. "It's funny that he does not have a name," Delaney tells Gold Derby, "but he definitely leaves more of an impression than a lot of people with names do." Delaney says he's in a "sweet spot" in his career — auditioning for roles, pursuing opportunities that excite him, and occasionally receiving direct offers. Neighbor Guy was one such offer. "They thought I had the right brew — the right pervert-kind ratio — to play this wonderful character," he jokes. Working alongside Michelle Williams was a "dream come true" for the actor. Upon meeting the five-time Oscar nominee, Delaney was relieved to find her "just a good person." He adds, "She's an incredibly generous scene partner. She also produced the show, steering a ship that was both enjoyable and accommodating. I can't say enough positive things about her." Sarah Shatz/FX Thankfully, the two forged a strong bond, especially given Molly and Neighbor Guy's intense on-screen interactions — enter the intimacy coordinator. "I sort of feel like me and Sharon Horgan invented intimacy coordination with our show Catastrophe," Delaney says. "We wrote it, produced it, and then every season — without fail — we'd be like, 'Oh, we're in it too?' So all of our stuff would say things like, 'Request permission to caress your face.' We kind of did all that stuff — luckily I've had plenty of experience with that type of coordination and choreography." SEE 'We didn't want Molly to die': 'Dying for Sex' creators on finding the comedy in cancer In one particularly memorable scene, Neighbor Guy reveals he enjoys being kicked in…"a sensitive area." Delaney recalls, "I really do get kicked, but not actually in my private parts. There's a thing you can wear that offers a 'zone' to be kicked, but it's several inches below your gear. So, Michelle got to genuinely kick and I got to react to real physical 'stimuli.' Neighbor Guy likes to be kicked in the nuts, I don't," he laughs. Sarah Shatz/FX Although their relationship begins as purely sexual (and often hilarious), Delaney found the more intimate and heartfelt scenes in the hospital — where Molly is dying — to be the most impactful. "The way they lit the hospital room, combined with the fact that it was often raining outside, really made it feel like we were in some kind of antechamber between the living world and whatever comes next," he recalls. "It was a very different kind of acting than I'd ever done before. I really tried to not act — I cried a lot. I would have to budget my crying for the day. It was pretty intense." Reflecting on why the relationship between Molly and Neighbor Guy worked, Delaney says, "They're very lucky to have found each other. She's having a series of sacred or magical experiences as she consciously moves toward death. Neighbor Guy has met her at the right time — so he can get sort of a contact high from what she's going through. He's a big beneficiary — she really gives him a gift. I must imagine that after Molly dies that Neighbor Guy has a much richer and better life having known her." Looking back on his experience working on Dying for Sex, Delaney considers it his favorite acting job to date."I don't count Catastrophe because I [co-created] that show, but this show was of that stature for me," he says. "I love my career and I'm very grateful for it, but I often am put in stuff to be funny — nothing wrong with that, I'll do it for the rest of my life if they let me — but to do something like this, that was such an educational experience, it spoiled me. Now I just want to do stuff where everybody's firing on all cylinders. This was an example, for me, of what a show can be." Dying for Sex is available to stream on Hulu. Best of GoldDerby TV directors roundtable: 'American Primeval,' 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,' 'Paradise' 'Paradise' directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra on the 'chaos' of crafting 'the world coming to an end' 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' director Charlotte Brändström on Gandalf's 'big reveal' and which scene required 'the most prep' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Maybe Happy Ending' star Darren Criss on his Tony nomination for playing a robot: ‘Getting to do this is the true win'
'I'm just, at a very base level, always so grateful to be getting to do this — that is the true win,' confesses newly minted Tony nominee Darren Criss. The actor is recognized for his performance as a 'Model-3 Helperbot' named Oliver in the touching new musical Maybe Happy Ending. While the accolades of awards season are appreciated — the tuner scooped up a whopping total of 10 Tony nominations — Criss is most affected by the opportunity to work on a show that has formed a deep connection with audiences. 'What art can and should do at its highest function, is connect people to their own human experience with other humans,' he tells Gold Derby (watch the full interview above). 'It's all just part of the amazing divine pleasure that it is to get to work on something that has an additive, if not positive, substantive effect on people who are experiencing it.' More from GoldDerby Directors open up about identity, risk and emotional storytelling at Disney's FYC fest 'M*A*S*H' star Loretta Swit dies at 87, and more of today's top stories Taylor Swift's rights drama explained: What happened and why it matters Maybe Happy Ending marks the first time Criss has been able to originate a role in a new Broadway show. That was always a career goal for Criss, but he admits that 'you can't dream up something like this ... its presence in my life is absolutely miraculous.' The actor admits that he had no idea how long the unique musical about robots would last, but it gave him the right opportunity at the right time. Part of his work in originating the role was finding a specific physical characterization for Oliver. His mannerisms have to telegraph the fact that he's playing an android, yet Oliver needs to have a distinct personality and emotional life. Criss explains that he paid close attention to the concept of the 'uncanny valley' when crafting his role. 'The characters, the closer they are to humans, the more we're endeared to them. But then there's this threshold where once it gets a little too close, it starts becoming repulsive,' he describes, 'so I always kind of wanted to be aware of that line, but also be able to present as much as I could that this was not a human being.' Luckily, Criss has an interest and background in physical theater, having studied Commedia dell'arte in Italy, learning techniques such as clowning, mime, and mask work. The actor pulled from those theater traditions to create Oliver's physical language. 'There's no subtlety with expression. It's all out there for you to see. Everything is telegraphed very explicitly. And that actually is a really fun playground for an actor because you can kind of exist in these big, over expressive places,' notes Criss. The resulting effect is a non-human character who delivers strikingly human emotional beats, which takes the audience by surprise. It's nearly impossible for audiences to watch Maybe Happy Ending without imprinting their own human experiences on these inhuman characters. Criss isn't surprised by their emotional responses, since a similar effect occurs with the cast. 'I think anybody that brings their experience into a piece, you're not necessarily evoking those specific moments or those or specific people, but rather the understanding of that emotional sensation,' he says of connecting with Oliver's journey. The musical, just like our brains and memories, is less concerned with minute details of a memorable event, but more so the lasting emotional impact. 'I apply that to the way that I summon feelings in any piece that I do where my brain may not remember or tap into the exact details of every little moment. But, I do remember, the hard drive remembers the feelings and how they feel and how they make you think and act,' explains the actor, putting things into robot terms. 'So those inevitably go into the character.' Criss won the Critics Choice, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and Emmy Award for his performance in American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. He received an additional Emmy nomination for writing the music and lyrics to the song "Dreams Come True" from Glee. SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby Who Needs a Tony to Reach EGOT? Sadie Sink on her character's 'emotional rage' in 'John Proctor Is the Villain' and her reaction to 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow' 'It should be illegal how much fun I'm having': Lea Salonga on playing Mrs. Lovett and more in 'Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends' Click here to read the full article.
Newsweek
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Tony Nominee Darren Criss on the 'Miracle' That Is 'Maybe Happy Ending'
Darren Criss Darren Criss Laurel Hinton "I always like to say that the victory is in the conversation." Darren Criss is an Emmy-winning actor, but deep down he's a musical theater nerd. Which is why he's so proud to be part of this year's Tony-nominated musical Maybe Happy Ending. "Everybody involved in [Broadway], we all work within a 10-some-odd block radius, and it is really like a campus celebration." For Criss, who plays Oliver, a robot in futuristic Seoul in love with another robot, Claire (played by Helen J. Shen), it's "nothing short of a miracle." "You kind of hope for this your whole life." After picking up 10 Tony nominations, including Criss' for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical, it's clear countless others did too. "I hope it runs for many moons in other countries and in other dimensions." Part of what makes the show unique is its path to Broadway. "Every step along the way, it has been an exponential groundswell of positive response, because everything is just earnest ideas believed in by earnest people." And it's been a benchmark for diversity and Asian stories on Broadway. "I always like to say that the victory is in the conversation." SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARTING SHOT WITH H. ALAN SCOTT ON APPLE PODCASTS OR SPOTIFY AND WATCH ON YOUTUBE Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication. How does it feel to be a Tony nominee? I don't know what to say that can be concise and all-encapsulating without me shortchanging a lot of ideas swirling in my head. Especially if I'm talking to folks like yourself in situations like this, when people ask about these things, something that is a big concept suddenly becomes like a press conference answer. Let's make it easy and good old-fashioned—It's great. Feels great. Cliches exist for a reason. It's an honor, because it is, and it feels great because it is great. And hopefully that doesn't shortchange any of the ideas I mentioned in my head. Criss in "Maybe Happy Ending." Criss in "Maybe Happy Ending." Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Not at all. A lot of millennials, and some Gen Zs too, I suppose, have been with you since the start of your career when it blew up because of Glee. And the fact that you're in a category with a person who was also on Glee, Jonathan Groff... There's a lot of things. I'll be honest—I haven't gotten to unpack this at all. This is the first time anybody has asked me this question, or that I've had to speak about it since I found out. Literally right now. So, you have a very interesting position of watching me process this in real time. You're bringing up something that I haven't even really gotten to get to my head, which is—It is so exciting to be in a category where I know every single person. That's awesome, and not in a sort of superficial way. These are all men whose work I have gladly paid money for to watch them perform time and time again, and I love their stuff. And this isn't some kind of cute, charming way to pose the nomination pool as this brotherhood of men. We all work on Broadway, and we all work just as hard as the other guy, because we all have eight shows a week. It's a nice thing. I've been in situations where I've been nominated with people, and there's people that I've been nominated with that I've never met. I love them. I love their work. And I was so excited. I figured that's a Hollywood thing, where you're only friends at award shows. Hollywood—and I don't mean this in a trivializing or mean way—but it's a very partitioned thing, for better or for worse. It's very impersonal. It's just separated. Again, that's not to pooh-pooh it, but it's just how it is. Whereas working the theater and Broadway, as any stage performer can tell you, is infamously familial, personal. We're all roommates. We all live with each other. Helen J. Shen and Criss in the Broadway show. Helen J. Shen and Criss in the Broadway show. Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Things happen, the backstage is small... Yeah. We're all living in closets, and we all show up, and no matter what happens that day, we got to do the damn thing the next day, if we're lucky, right? All these men and women, everybody involved in this sort of thing, we all work within a 10-some-odd-block radius, and it is really like a campus celebration. And that's why I love the Tonys. I think it's a wonder and a miracle that it's still nationally televised. I think that in this day and age, it's an amazing thing. When things are honored at this level, it's so beyond the self. It's about connecting with kids like me growing up wishing that [the] thing I saw on the Tonys would come to my hometown and be on the cast album that I clung to. any luck, this show that I'm in, I hope it runs from many moons in other countries and in other dimensions. If I'm lucky, I get to see a mishandled version of this show, because it will have survived long enough to be part of the cultural fabric that I can go to a maybe not-so-hot version of a production of this show. When I get to do that, I'll sit there going, "We made it." There's nothing I enjoy more than watching YouTube videos of local theater fails—someone falling, or some set piece falling—like that's all I want to see. I have that s*** for breakfast. It's so enjoyable. I mean, you are watching a little bit for the schadenfreude of it, but there's something so endearing about the Mickey and Judy paradigm of like, "Hey kids, let's put on a show. Let's just do it. Let's make something." And I am so endlessly endeared to that concept. But that's the dream for this show. So again, the breadcrumbs go far. It goes all the way back to things like these accolades. To be with all these people and to celebrate this community and the people that it represents, and just how hard everybody works. I love this community so f****** much, and I love getting to watch the Tonys because I know everybody in there, and I know how hard they work. No one's in here for the glitz and glamor. Everybody's here for the real love of the game. It's an honor to be rubbing shoulders with those people. Criss and Shen in the show. Criss and Shen in the show. Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Maybe Happy Ending feels so unique, not just for you but for a Broadway show in general. Do you see that? And how did it come about for you? Oh my God, it's a big question. I kind of white-lied a little bit being able to process this. I generally stay away from Instagram, but I wrote a small piece this morning to acknowledge what happened yesterday. And the word that I keep coming back to is—this show has just been nothing short of a miracle on so many levels. It's an exponential miracle across so many facets. Making s*** at this level is obscenely expensive. I think what's interesting about this show is that the guys who made it—Will Aronson, Hue Park—they had no intention of this being a Broadway musical. I think that's a really important thing to mention. And every step along the way, nobody was like, "Let's make some money!"—said nobody ever making a Broadway show. That's kind of a way to just paint a target on your back. It's just not a really healthy way to make any piece of art. We know this is not the way to make stuff. Every step along the way, it has been an exponential groundswell of positive response, because everything is just earnest ideas believed in by earnest people. And just incrementally over a long period of time, that sort of lightning-in-a-bottle cream rising to the top over time. This did start in the States, but was originally produced in Korea. You have two writers in New York that have an idea to make something, but because one of them is Korean, he was like, "Well, we can get this made in Korea." Which is a very novel concept, because most things are incubated in the States or maybe overseas in the U.K. So, they kind of moonshot in and got the gravitational pull of what was going on in Korea, because they could get it made instantly over there, and it did very well. And it was with support there—it did so well over there, it kind of got moved. It was in China and in Japan—those ain't the same three places. Those don't have the same culture or language. Yes, it's Asia, but by no means are those the same audiences. So, if that doesn't speak to its universality, I don't know what does. Finally, after however many years, because of the pandemic and [actors'] strike and everything, it finally came back here, like, turnkey. Because it essentially had an out-of-town tryout for years.... It's been just such a gift. You kind of hope for this your whole life. In the way that I gravitated towards Hedwig [and the Angry Inch] when I was a teenager, I loved it because it was just so f****** original. It checked all the boxes for me. It was subversive. It was rock and roll. It was queer, and all the things that means, just like, culturally, or sex. It just had all these things that were just so, like, "F*** you," but like, moving. There's real pathos in Hedwig, which is, I think, why it has stood the test of time, and why it's connected with some people. Like, yeah, it's cool. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, the music kicks ass. But like, those have a ceiling, you know? It really is about the beating heart and the pathos and of storytelling that has made it move on and translate. And that's exactly what's happening with Maybe Happy Ending. The songs are beautiful, the story and the concept is cool, but it's really the beating heart of the storytelling and how strong the dramaturgy is that has made this so interesting to me. And it's something that you kind of pray for as an actor, but you can't just summon that lightning to fall into the bottle. And we got nominated for 10 Tonys yesterday. This was not part of my itinerary. I did this because I was available and because I thought it was beautiful, that's why. And I got to work with my friends. It's why you do things. It's a polite reminder of the zero-loss game that it is to follow your heart. I am not patting myself on the back. Everybody in this piece loved it and was passionate about it before other people told us we should feel that way. And that's what's been so validating and encouraging about the response that we've had, because it's just something that we have cared about, and to have other people respond in the same exact way that we did when we read it or watched it is like, OK, good. There are other human beings that we can connect with on this feeling. With a show like this, this is not a Tony-nominated show, historically. A show like this—and I want to compare it to Oh, Mary! in that respect—they're just so far outside the box that you just think it's almost too not in that lane to get a Tony nomination, even though it is great, you know what I mean? I think folks like us that tend to subscribe to the left of centerness are used to those things not being part of the cultural zeitgeist, which is kind of why we like them. It's this weird catch-22. It's like when you're in high school and you like this band that no one's heard of, and as soon as somebody else hears about it you're like, "I don't know if I like them anymore." Which is really silly, and I'm not saying that's how we are now. But I told Cole [Escola, from Oh, Mary!] this. I got to do an Actors on Actors interview with them, and it was so awesome because I said this; I was like, I saw that off-Broadway, and I felt like it was built in a lab for people like me who just think, I just eat that s*** all day. It's so funny. It's just, again, subversive and clever and original. And I think the key here is being singular and authentic to yourself. This is no new concept. Artists have said this forever and ever. Oscar Wilde said, "Be yourself, darling. Everybody else is taken." It's true. I'd rather see something that is so undeniably of that one person and thing and have it not be very well put together, but authentic, than I would something disingenuous, but, like, glued together really well. Because again, there's only so far that can go. Audiences are smart. They can smell a rat pretty quickly. So yeah, I appreciate the comparison to Oh Mary! because, even though we're different stories, there is something that can cut through if you double down on your own singularity. And I think that's what happened with Maybe Happy Ending as well. Criss as robot Oliver. Criss as robot Oliver. Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman With this show, one of the things that I found so surprising in watching it is with this character, it does feel like you almost have to change how you sing in order to do the character. Because there's a cadence to the way the songs even go that I find so fascinating. I just thought about this recently, because I will sing the songs outside of the show. And this happened with Hedwig. I've actually never sung on Broadway with my own voice, ever. Content dictates form. I'm not gonna sing with my usual flair—another Sondheim line, God, I'm such a musical theater nerd. Hedwig had a voice and an accent and a panache, but it was still my voice at the end of the day. I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that I'm like some chameleonic Daniel Day f****** Lewis. It's me. It's me up there. However, there are margins of difference that have to be applied for the character and the type of show. So Hedwig sounded like Hedwig, because there's an East German accent that's been in the States for a long time. So I'm singing with that accent, and then in this, because it's a robot that's sort of overproving consonants and vowels in the way that a lot of our artificial intelligence [does] now—now, it's becoming a little more colloquial—but like 10 years ago, when you would like put something into a dictation software, it would be very articulate. And to sort of denote that this is not actually a human. Now, it's so humanlike, it's crazy. It'll only get more humanlike. But for me, it was very important to use the body. This is drama school s***, but, like, the body, voice and mask [need] to telegraph as much as possible that this is not a human being. So, I am singing with a certain over-precision, which is a really great gift, because it's the kind of thing that helps you actually lock into notes and lock into character. Maybe Happy Ending is certainly part of the unique amount of diversity currently on Broadway. How do you feel about being part of that? I always like to say that the victory is in the conversation. No matter what the conversation is about, there's no conclusion to any of these conversations. I think there's, like, predominant belief systems that will be popular for a long period of time, but culture is a constant conversation. It's always moving around. And there's going to be some sort of ironclad truths that will hold evident forever, but for the most part, we're always learning. We're our own language model. We're always learning new language and how to identify itself. That prism is constantly shifting in all kinds of directions, and we're always trying to learn and become more aware of what the next paradigm is. And that's a beautiful conversation. And as tricky and as scary as it can get, I treat it like it is an open dialog, and that if, as long as we're treating everybody's input as there's no right or wrong, but we're always just trying to have a conversation so that we can get closer to some sort of, like, agreement, that's what culture is. Culture is not a singular target. It's a moving one, and that's what makes it interesting and beautiful. So that's my sort of macro comment on that. But this is part of that conversation. And what makes it stand out to me is how I think the show means a lot to Asian folks, but it is not exclusive to Asian folks. In the Asian community, especially in Broadway, there's, like, the menu of the Asian shows. For better or for worse. And as a white-presenting Asian, this is not something that is, like, on my menu. But for many of my peers that are very clearly Asian American presenting, or Asian in general, there's the "menu," right? It's like, Miss Saigon, The King and I, Flower Drum Song. These are shows that have employed many men and women in the Asian diaspora for many years. So, no matter how you look at it, there's this "menu," quote, unquote. And in somewhat in a joking way, that's the joke. Like, "Oh, which ones have you done?" And this has been something that I've noticed for a lot of my friends and colleagues. This show is about as exclusively Asian as Romeo and Juliet is exclusively Italian. It is so universal in its construct, and has so much beaming, bursting potential with where it can be contextualized and who it can be contextualized by. It's representation at its best. We'll meet folks afterwards, of any part of the Asian diaspora, that say the show means a lot to them. And yes, that's why visibility and reputation is so important, because it signals what's possible. And that's a very powerful thing to be showcasing. However, nobody is walking away from the show going, like, "Oh, do you see that Asian show?" That's so not part of what your takeaway is of the show. And that, to me, is just such an unintended victory lap for great storytelling. That it can mean something to who it's important to mean something to, but it's not only for them. I hope to do the show for many, many moons. But, you know, after this original cast is done with their time in the show, I love that we can dare to have a non-Asian cast, as opposed to the other way around.
Time Out
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Maybe Happy Ending creators Michael Arden and Dane Laffrey on their enchanting musical
Director Michael Arden and set designer Dane Laffrey make real magic onstage, and they've been practicing it for more than 25 years. The two met when they were teenagers at Interlochen, the Michigan boarding school for the arts, where they became fast friends and roommates. "Our mischief started then, and we've been working together ever since," Arden says. Their collaboration intensified in the 2010s, when Arden shifted from acting to directing, and they've recently been on a stunning Broadway roll. In the 2022–23 season, the two gave us A Christmas Carol and Parade; they are now at work on a pair of new musicals, The Queen of Versailles and The Lost Boys, that are scheduled to open in the season ahead. And this past season, they poured their creative energies into the most enchanting show on Broadway: Maybe Happy Ending, for which they have both earned Tony Award nominations. (It's the fourth for Arden and the third for Laffrey; Arden won in 2023 for Parade.) Maybe Happy Ending, an entirely original musical by Will Aronson and Hue Park, is the bittersweet story of two helper robots consigned to a retirement home in a near-future Seoul, where they find ways to connect in the shadow of obsolescence. The show's excellent cast is small: Darren Criss and Helen J Shen as the bots, Oliver and Claire; Marcus Choi as Oliver's former owner, James (and James's son Junseo); and Dez Duron as Gil Brentley, a 1950s jazz crooner for whom James and Oliver have a special affection. But while its heroes are androids, Maybe Happy Ending comes fully alive in Arden exceptional staging, in which Laffrey's designs—including the video he has created with co-nominee George Reeve—play a central, indispensable role. We talked about the specific ways in which the duo's dynamic choices guide the way audiences experience the show. You've been friends since high school, but when did you begin your current creative partnership in earnest? Laffrey: As soon as Michael started to move into directing, I think I was among the first people that he was like, 'I wanna do this. We gotta do this.' Arden: I did one little immersive thing that Dane consulted on, but Spring Awakening in downtown L.A. was kind of our first time working together. And I've been lucky enough to never be without him. Laffrey: I really only work with Michael now. With only one current exception. When I was preparing for this interview, I realized that I've given all three of your most recent Broadway collaborations five-star reviews. But they've all been very different from each other. Arden: That's what we really enjoy. We've been lucky that each thing we've done has been wildly different from the thing before. And Queen of Versailles will be wildly different from this, and The Lost Boys wildly different from that. It's just fun. It allows us to cleanse our minds. And part of the beauty of this long-term collaboration is that once we've done something, we're not interested in repeating ourselves, for better or worse. Hopefully we won't run out of ideas. One thing your shows do have in common is that the design is unusually central to the storytelling; it's hard to imagine them without the specific ways they look. At what point do you, Dane, get involved in the conceptualization of these productions? Laffrey: As you might imagine, it's at the earliest possible point. There's never a question about whether we would be working together, and in fact we discuss together which projects we do wish to be doing. So the conversation begins there. Arden: Our collaboration is implicit. If something comes across my desk, the first person I talk to is Dane. What do we think about this? Do we have an idea? What will people want to see? And then I might go work with writers for a while and then bring something back for Dane to look at, because it's great to have someone to share something with and get a fresh perspective. But he's the first port. Laffrey: I don't participate in the day-to-day in the way that he does, but I start to get a sense pretty early what he's thinking and kind of have a feel about what kind of event we're making. That's baked into our whole collaboration; it's got its fingers in every possible pie. Michael, does that growing sense of how it's going to come together visually inform what you might suggest for the writing? Arden: When I'm working with writers, I try to encourage them to first write what's in their minds, and then I'll begin to round the corners and whittle it into something that Dane and I might be interested in. It's a bit like being at a pottery wheel; you begin to shape it to what you're thinking. And then Dane will come into the process and usually the writers are thrilled, because we all want lines to draw inside of—especially in the writing process, so it becomes a choice when we go outside them. But the first thing is that the writer should write whatever they want to, with no limits. And if they write, 'They get in a spaceship and fly to the moon,' then that will be a metaphor for me. It's never going to be exactly what's on the page, but we want to be able to understand their complete impulse. I was struck by the way that the design expands the world of the story as the show moves forward. You start out in a very enclosed space, enclosed by borders of light, but the space keeps getting wider until eventually Oliver and Claire go on the road and it opens up even more. Before that, though, they do an internet search together and the data sprawls out to the periphery of the stage, and we get a sense of a whole big world outside their windows (which then collapses back into their heads). T hat kind of expansion and contraction seems like an essential element of the world-building in this show. Laffrey: Yeah, very much. You're talking about it exactly the way that we would, which is that it's about making as wide as possible a range of scale. We begin in an incredibly small frame, on just [Oliver's plant] HwaBoon, and then we grow into a bit more, and you see a window and you meet Oliver, and then you see the whole room, and then you get Claire, and then you get a little more. We're using these neon irises to aggressively control the visual aperture. But also we're working towards building a sense that the space is larger than it is—we're moving toward a sense of something boundless, and to do that in the confines of a Broadway theater requires that you be very economical with scale up to that point. Arden: We also wanted the framing of the action to be in sync with Oliver's experience. We're trying to mimic, with our aperture, his understanding of his place in the world. Here's a guy whose wifi chip is broken—'The World Within My Room' is the first number—so it's about keeping it as tight as possible for as long as possible. But then we get a glimpse of Claire and it starts to open up a bit. And we're moving from a kind of digital portrait mode of how we digest information on our phones to a landscape world that feels much more organic and natural, so that by the time he's in nature, his world has never been bigger. It's never bigger than when he's with the fireflies. Yet the expansion into the natural world in that scene isn't strictly literal—as you mentioned before, it has a metaphorical quality. Yes, there's the tall grass and the fireflies, but there are also live human musicians on a turntable, and Gil Brentley conducting them and James at his piano. And those are almost dreamlike elements of Oliver's experience. Arden: The script said something like, 'A firefly appears, and then millions of fireflies.' That's all that was in the script. But we'd be crucified by PETA if we actually put that many fireflies into the air. So I was looking for the metaphor. I had a thought that, for Claire, a firefly represents deity in a way—there's religion in the fact that these living things produce light and battery on their own, which she can't. And what could that be for Oliver? It's James, it's jazz music. Like her dream is to see the fireflies, his would be, like, to see Gil Brentley play the Hollywood Bowl. Because his version of deity is humans. So to be deprived of human beings for that long and suddenly to see them felt like an apt metaphor for that. It just kind of made sense. Laffrey: And I think to see that volume of human bodies in space—after that's been withheld for every moment of the show up until then—is sort of startling. The idea that a community can exist feels like a beautiful metaphor for something that is organic and boundless. You cannot put a field of fireflies on stage in a literal way. So the thing that will unlock it is the theatrical gesture. The show has a prominent filmic aspect. Our scope of vision is strictly limited by those irises, as it would be by a camera, and there are even supertitles sometimes. There's an especially cinematic moment in which a change to the framing of a doorway gives us what amounts to a camera's pan effect. Arden: When we first got the script, one of the first things Dane said to me was, "Oh, this is a movie." It's written like a movie. Laffrey: And we constantly get scripts of movies that people want to make into musicals! So it was ironic that this is an original musical, but it has like 75 scenes in it. It's a film! Tonally, it could almost be a Pixar film. Arden: Yeah, and that's how we approached the iris: If we were doing this movie, we'd want to pan and see. And so that's how we began choreographing the no listed choreographer; it's us choreographing the interaction between the actors and the world around 'em. The production's video effects feel hugely important in establishing the world of the show. Some of them are highly detailed and realistic—like the data that comes up in the internet search, or the scenes they play back as memories—whereas when Oliver and Claire actually end up in the natural world, the background is much vaguer and more painterly. Arden: It's interesting you mention that. As we were talking about it, we thought, We want to absorb the world in the way that the bots would. What's interesting to them isn't necessarily the landscape that we as humans would see and go, "Oh my God, this is so beautiful"; for them, that is slightly watercolor, slightly blurred. What they do track are people. They are programmed to track people; any time you see video of people, you've got a tracking box around them with all the information about them. So that was how we approached that—not needing to make it too realistic or too clear. Laffrey: We remain in their POV. Video is introduced as their interiority: the way they can transfer information to each other, or how that information looks in there. You get Claire's memories and Oliver's memories, all before you see that landscape. And then in that moment, Oliver and Claire are focused on each other—or on Junseo when he comes in—and not the environment behind them. And that allows us to not fall into the trap of creating photo-real scenery. That's a slippery slope with video, I think. And we are blessed in this show that it's in conversation with technology in a way that allows us to integrate it with a lot of DNA that is born out of the story. That blurred-background effect feels cinematic as well, as though we were seeing them in closeup against a background that is out of focus. Arden: And we basically made a movie as well: of Claire's memories of her owners, both when she's having a flashback and when she downloads the memory to Oliver, and of Oliver's memories, which are all from his point of view. How we used the cameras had to do with how each robot would view the world. If she's accessing her own memories, what would that look like? How does a robot daydream versus how do they want to show you something? It was endlessly fun and gave us a lot of different modes to plan. Another striking aspect of the design is the way it uses color schemes. At first there's a very clear boy/girl, blue/pink distinction between Oliver and Claire's worlds. But their colors bleed into more of a mix, and then there's one point where a house ends up appearing—with Gil in the attic—and it's all in a warm, nostalgic orange that I don't think we've seen. Arden: No, that's the first time we use that color. We wanted to save that for the idea of how time passes and what that means, and how they at that point in their relationship have abandoned their own color schemes and found something new together. The idea of late afternoon came to mind, and that fabulous midcentury orange was exciting to us. If you're sitting upstairs, I think his carpet is that color. Laffrey: He has a kind of horrible-amazing burnt-orange rug. It all has a sort of Kodachrome feel. Gil is such a wonderful feature in this world because he lets so many different modalities bleed into the landscape. And in that one, it's like you're part of his Frank Sinatra-by-the-fireplace vibe. The show's employment of a midcentury-modern aesthetic is so interesting, I think. Oliver has clearly designed his room in imitation of James's room, which itself was a tribute to the rooms of Gil's era. Arden: A very American aesthetic. Yes, but also an aesthetic that in its time was vaguely futuristic. So Oliver's room is someone in the future trying to reproduce someone in the past's idea of the future. And it couldn't be more different from Claire's room, which is like a college dorm that she's never unpacked, with boxes of clothing and a poster askew. Laffrey: I think the difference there is the melancholy about the fact that Oliver is a bit delusional. He does not understand that he is retired. So he is making a home that he believes, when James finally comes to get him, he will be able to point to in an I-want-to-impress-my-parent kind of way—like, "See, you've taught me so well and I've been living in the way you taught me to.' Whereas Claire understands. She knows she's never going back. Arden: She's got all these old clothes her owner gave her. I imagine that Jiyeon, Claire's owner, had a phase where she loved K-pop and pink, and everything was that. Then she grew out of it and didn't want to throw it away because it was expensive. So she's basically using this as a shitty storage unit. And Claire isn't interested in that. She hasn't unpacked it. She knows too much. She doesn't need to put the poster upright. It's just there. There's a poignancy to Oliver's delusion, but there's maybe also a poignancy to Claire's knowingness. Believing in something fake and not believing in anything at all are both kind of disappointing ways to live. Arden: Right. And I think it's the hole they fill for each other. Oliver gives her a reason to imagine there is something beyond these walls, even though she knows certain things he doesn't, or won't take on. And it's beautifully put in the script when she says, 'I was wrong. He did care about you.' She needs him just as much as he needs her to try to get what they think they want. And they end up not getting those things and finding they actually just need each other. And I love what you said about how we wanted to look to the past to look to the future. Because the minute we try to design futurism, it's just terrible. Luckily we were working with a script that had Gil Brentley, so we took all of our cues from that. If James is obsessed with this singer, then that means this, and then that means this. It was a fun series of doors that kept leading to other doors. It may even be why Oliver looks a little bit like Gil—certainly in the clothes. There was a choice made. He was a doll, in some ways, for James as his companion here. It's all very sad. [ Laughs. ] Laffrey: And that section, 'Where You Belong,' when Oliver shows Claire what he thinks is going to happen when he goes back to James—it's such an interesting thing. It's sort of a memory, but it's different. He's not remembering something; he's telling her exactly what's going to happen when he shows back up at the house and James is waiting for him. He's projecting forward. There's something beautifully idyllic about that, and that's why it looks the way it does. We know that's not what their memories look like. Their memories are black and white, and have boxes around people and lots of information: how many ounces of gin James has in his martini, all that stuff. But this opens up. It's lush, and it's in color. It's a fantasy. And I love the melancholy of that because it is presumably based in reality, but we're not sure. There's Vaseline on the lens. And we're seeing a full realistic set in that song, with multiple rooms on a turntable. We're getting a different sense of the world. Laffrey: Yes—we're introducing a new axis of movement in that. We wanted that sequence to feel very unlikely but to be the most real thing we saw. Arden: There's no video in that sequence. Oftentimes for a robot, the most radical fantasy is an imagined reality. And then the other time the turntable is prominently featured is the fireflies moment, which is surrealistic. Laffrey: That's right. It helps us move into another mode. The rest has this kind of filmic, parallax, camera-on-a-dolly feeling. But that sequence is totally different: organic. Arden: In many ways, that moment is more for the audience than the characters. We want to feel what they feel about fireflies. It's like: Don't I miss people? Don't I want to see people when this is done? And then the fireflies make a reappearance at one point. Just for a moment. Arden: Again, that wasn't something that was in the script. But it just made sense. I said, 'Of course you meant them to be fireflies.' [ Laughs. ] Laffrey: It's an idea that's been with us for so long. It felt so natural. And again, it's a metaphor—it's like we've moved inside some circuits or something, so anything's possible. Ardan: We're talking about all this, but actually, Will and Hue just wrote an amazing musical. Truly. It's cool to approach work we're just trying to keep up with.
