An open letter penned by actor BD Wong condemning the Maybe Happy Ending casting of a white actor in a role originally filled by an actor of Filipino descent has garnered more than 2,400 signatures. Among them the signers: Broadway actors Conrad Ricamora, Anthony Rapp, Joaquina Kalukango, Jon Jon Briones, Telly Leung and many others.
“This deserves attention,” writes Wong (M. Butterfly, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit). “To put it simply: Asian Actors and the Asian Theatergoing Community are fiercely wrestling over a non-Asian actor replacing the Asian male lead in the Broadway musical Maybe Happy Ending. Please google this responsibly. It’s a real, eternal outcry about race and representation, not an irrational rant about robots.
“I posted this longform essay about it, casually asking my followers and friends (and theirs etc.) to attach their names for support. The essay makes no demands, it’s a detailed articulation of our POV.”
Read Wong’s entire letter below.
The controversy began last month when producers announced the replacement casting for the lead role of Oliver, with actor Andrew Barth Feldman set to take over for the departing Darren Criss on September 2. Feldman (Dear Evan Hansen) is scheduled to appear in the show for a nine-week limited engagement, during which he’ll co-star with his real-life romantic partner Helen J Shen, who created the role of Claire alongside Criss last fall.
The musical is set in a futuristic South Korea, and the poignant storyline follows two doomed robots – Oliver and Claire – who despite all odds (and all programming) begin to fall in love. Criss won a Tony Award in June for his performance, and Maybe Happy Ending won Best Musical.
Late last month, the show’s creators Hue Park and Will Aronson responded to the initial backlash over Feldman’s hiring, posting on Instagram, “Our dream at the outset was that our allegorical robot show could one day miraculously become part of the American musical theater canon – a modern Fantasticks, able to be comfortably performed by anyone, anywhere – yet distinctly set in Korea. This went against prevailing wisdom that we needed to set our show in America….We’re extremely saddened that the show, a decade-long labor of love for us, could ever become a source of confusion, anger or pain.”
Park and Aronson concluded that they “will continue our conversations as Maybe Happy Ending continues its journey onstage.”
But in his open letter, Wong writes, “The response to such things is always dismissive, I’ve seen it many times. There’s been no authentic counter that encourages progress. It’s easy to ‘clap back’ in today’s Tweetculture but it helps nobody. We want an AUTHENTIC, productive conversation about this, not one line ‘gotchas’ without having digested what we’re saying, not doubling down and overexplaining your ‘creative intention.’ You can try to undercut or diminish the gravity of this; but I’m here to tell you it’s bigger than you want it to be and it isn’t going away. Also, your privilege is showing and overdue for a pedicure.
“It goes way beyond the back and forth about this particular casting decision and the ‘ownership’ that much of the Asian Community seems to feel over this particular character in this particular musical. At the root of this outcry is a profound lack of us being both seen and heard…”
Deadline has reached out to a spokesperson for the show for a response to the open letter.
Read the entire letter here:
