“Maybe happy ending” had a very unfortunate beginning.
The Sunday Night’s Tony Awards triumph, where he won six awards, including the best new musical, reduced a remarkable turn for small production with an incomprehensible title and hard to sell industry as dead on arrival when it started last fall.
But on Monday hours Monday morning, when artists and producers of unpredictable shows said goodbye to their creative team and investors in Bryant Park Grill, but celebrants finally allowed to recognize that their versatile shows would break.
“We didn’t know if this show would even open,” said her star Darren Criss, who won her first Tony to play Oliver, outdated helperbot, who came across a life -changing (well -changing) relationship with a robot over the hall. Criss, the winner of Emmy (for “American Crime Story”) and “Glee” Alumnus, is also a member of the Show production team.
“We didn’t have luxury to dream of such a scenario,” he said. “That was definitely a small show that could.”
How bad things got? Last summer, the lead producers of the show, Jeffrey Richards and Hunter Arnold, postponed the first performance of a month and quoted supplier chain problems that producers insisted on the fact that they were delayed in the availability of digital video tiles), but many thought it was a cover that hides financial problems.
“They put a fork in us,” said Allan Williams, a powerful producer show.
Production temporarily released workers, returned tickets to the month of canceled performances and claimed with the influential Tiktok Theater Theater suggestion that the musical may not open.
“People started my compassion,” said Helen J Shen, Criss’s star, who later plays a robot named Claire. “We never felt safely.”
Some of those who were expected to help finance the show began with peeling and did not want to put their money in a sinking ship.
“We have lost many investors because of this tiktoku,” Arnold said. “No investor wants to write a check and think he won’t even see each other.”
Before the “maybe happy ending”, he finally began previews on October 16, sold tickets worth only $ 450,000 – pitifully low for the new Broadway musical.
“Maybe a happy ending”, which did not complete an increase in its capitalization of $ 16 million until its opening nights, broke money through previews. The weekly grose was below $ 300,000, which is deep below the running costs of a 765,000 USD show. The Belasco Theater with 973 seats was about 20 percent empty. The fourth week of the performance was reduced by the average price of the program ticket to a disastrous low $ 45, partly because manufacturers decided to offer all tickets for $ 30 to $ 69 in the calculated but also desperate efforts to fulfill the seats and build storage words.
Then there was a huge marketing challenge: how to describe a show with only four actors, two of them play robots who are exploring the Poignles, memory and love. Music is a combination of independent pop, American jazz and Broadway and design is a slowly developing spectacle that uses automation and projection to strengthen narration.
“Every time you try to explain,” Well, there are these two robots, not so-so-footoul in South Korea, “people are just like,” that doesn’t sound like music, “Arnold said.
Own web show does not use the word “robot” to explain what it is about. Director, Michael Arden, called the musical “a fine, contemplative piece in many ways, which is not easy selling”. Shen said that her preferred argument for the show was “just believe me”.
“It’s like describing a new color,” she said. “We didn’t know how to describe this piece of people.”
Those who saw the show were moved and began to call others. “I think people liked sharing secrets,” Arden said.
The show was opened on November 12 and critics’ reviews were tremendously positive. “Burning,” wrote The New York Times. “Honey,” Declared Washington Post.
Yet doubts remained. Broadway is an industry susceptible to failure, and shows can quickly come across-at the end of 2022 the musical “KPOP” closed only two weeks after opening and last year the musical “Tammy Faye” only three weeks after opening.
“After the start of the night we left the city in the morning and said that this very emotional farewell to everyone, because we thought it would be very short -term,” said Will Aronson, who wrote “maybe happy ending” with Hue Park.
The producers, encouraged by the word mouth and reviews, gained another $ 1.75 million to promote the show. The tournament began. “It simply built it gradually,” Arnold said. “We burned a lot of money. But we have seen that online sentiment is changing, sales formulas are changing.”
A week after the opening of the show scared $ 591,000. During the Christmas holidays she had the first $ 1 million a week, and since then his groses exceeded his running costs for most weeks. And the show was basically sold out since Tony’s nominations were announced in early May.
It is still unclear whether the show will get a Broadway. Increasing production costs have made it impossible for new musicals to make money in New York – in the last three seasons it has only done “& Juliet”. However, Tony’s award should help: there are usually theatermen who want to see the best music winner.
“Maybe happy ending” has an unusual history. Aronson and Park, who debuted by Broadway with the Show, are the Binning Team of Song Writing – Aronson comes from the United States and the park comes from South Korea. They worked in both countries and both languages.
The park had the idea of becoming a “maybe happy ending”, while in 2014 he was sitting in a Brooklyn cafe. Heard the song “Daily robots“And he began to think about interplay between technology, insulation and interconnection.
The first commercial production of the show was in Seoul in 2016; Later, the writers introduced the English language version in New York, where Richards saw it. For more than 50 years he worked on Broadway and captured what he considered “complete ingenuity”, gained many performances, gained commercial rights.
The musical was on the way. Korean production was successful and had several runs. There were also productions in Japan and China. In 2017, the English version, then called “What I learned from people” and represented only three actors, won the Richard Rodgers Award, which supports the development of new musicals.
Richards decided to help build a creative team, organize workshops and raise money. Arden enrolled in 2018 and told Richards in -mail that he found the material “devastating and beautiful and finally confirming life”.
The American premiere of the show, directed by Arden, was at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta at the beginning of 2020; Atlanta Journal-Constitution called it “dazzling” And the critic of Times Jesse Green called it “ready for Broadway”. Richards hoped to bring it to Broadway next season, but then came Pandemia Coronavirus.
At the time the theater began to be reophed, momentum was lost, investors were highly demanding and the theaters were booked. “We had to go back to the beginning,” Richards said.
But there was also a positive development. Criss, who produced “American Buffalo” produced by Richards, agreed to make a “maybe happy ending” and encouraged the theater owners and investors.
“Maybe a happy ending” needed a theater with a small house (the show is small) and a large stage (the set is sophisticated and needs a lift under the floor), and could not find it for several seasons. But finally, last autumn, Belasco was available.
The space worked and also has a convincing history. Richards noted that in 1960 she had a game called “The whole way home” and a almost closing experience was reflected and earned it the nickname “Miracle on the 44th Street”. Richards now said, “We are a miracle of the 21st century on the 44th street.”
Just before 2. Monday in the morning, the winners of Tony the show still held their silver statues as they posed for pictures with good friends in the dining room with a turnout and celebrated how fully the prizes were accepted by the foundations of their show-playing for scores, book, scenic design and direction.
“You felt you would get the industry behind it, because it is exactly the kind of theater that everyone wants in this field,” said Dane Laffrey, a scenic designer. “It’s honest, it’s original, it’s innovative – it’s all things that are scary and risky, but eventually bears the biggest reward if you can stay in the course.”
