HOW MAYBE BECAME DEFINITELY

MAYBE HAPPY ENDING OVERCAME A SHAKY START AND WON BIG AT THE TONYS

- STORY: MICHAEL PAULSON / NYT

Maybe Happy Ending had a very unhappy beginning.

The show's triumph at last Sunday night's Tony Awards, where it won six honours, including best new musical, capped a remarkable turnaround for a small production with a baffling title and a hard-to-sell premise that was seen by industry insiders as dead on arrival when it began previews in the autumn.

But in the wee hours of Monday morning, as the quirky show's performers and producers partied with their creative team and investors at the Bryant Park Grill, the celebrants finally allowed themselves to acknowledge that their against-all-odds show is breaking through.

“We didn’t know if this show would even open,” said its star, Darren Criss, who won his first Tony for playing Oliver, an outdated helperbot who strikes up a life-changing (well, shelf-life-changing) relationship with a robot across the hall. Criss, an Emmy winner (for American Crime Story) and Glee alumnus, is also a member of the show’s producing team.

“We didn’t have the luxury to dream about a scenario like this,” he said. “This was definitely the little show that could.”

How bad did things get? Last summer, the show’s lead producers, Jeffrey Richards and Hunter Arnold, postponed the first performance by a month, citing supply chain issues, which the producers insist were real (there was a delay in the availability of digital video tiles from China), but which many thought was a cover story to hide financial problems.

“They put a fork in us,” said Allan Williams, the show’s executive producer.

The production temporarily laid off workers, refunded tickets for the month of cancelled performances and contended with a TikTok theatre influencer's suggestion that the musical might not open.

“People started texting me with sympathy,” said Helen J. Shen, Criss’ co-star, who plays a later-model robot named Claire. “We never really felt secure.”