With a brand new main man taking on Broadway‘s Possibly Pleased Ending, the South Korean musical’s creators are responding to discourse across the casting of Andrew Barth Feldman.
After Darren Criss, who’s of Asian descent, originated the function of Oliver on Broadway following the present’s Asian-led run in Seoul, writers Hue Park and Will Aronson responded to current backlash over the casting of Feldman, who’s white.
“Our dream on the outset was that our allegorical robotic present might in the future miraculously grow to be a part of the American musical theater canon – a contemporary Fantasticks, capable of be comfortably carried out by anybody, anyplace – but distinctly set in Korea,” they defined in a assertion on Instagram. “This went in opposition to prevailing knowledge that we wanted to set our present in America.”
After the musical’s 2016 premiere in Korea and 2024 Broadway premiere, the pair added partially, “We’re extraordinarily saddened that the present, a decade-long labor of affection for us, might ever grow to be a supply of confusion, anger or ache.”
Park and Aronson concluded that they “will proceed our conversations as Possibly Pleased Ending continues its journey onstage.”
Actress Helen J. Shen, who has not but been confirmed to proceed her run as Claire when Feldman takes over for Criss on Sept. 2, additionally shared an announcement.
“I acknowledge that we will’t management how the present is obtained and the influence that it has had,” she wrote on Instagram. “The vacuum of A/PI tales that don’t focus on ache or tropes wished to be stuffed by our present from our neighborhood. I’ve and proceed to be extraordinarily proud to look the way in which I do and to co-lead this Broadway present. I do know the harm that individuals really feel as a result of rising up, I might have discovered a beacon of hope in seeing our present on television on the Tony Awards. Part of me is mourning that together with the neighborhood.”
Shen added, “This has been an immensely difficult second inside my dwelling with Andrew, and on this constructing crammed with A/PI people to say the least. I don’t know what’s ahead, however to have this chance to play reverse my favourite actor on the earth for 9 weeks, who occurs to be PERFECT for the function is a large second of pleasure for me. Each perspective on this case accommodates fact.”
Andrew Barth Feldman (Bruce Glikas/Getty Photographs)
Bruce Glikas/Getty Photographs
Possibly Pleased Ending follows Oliver and Claire, two life-like robots who develop a commection in late twenty first century Seoul. After its Broadway debut, the present gained six Tony Awards, together with Greatest Musical and Greatest Efficiency by an Actor in a Main Position in a Musical for Criss.
