Where Is Helperbot Yards in 'Maybe Happy Ending'?

Helen J Shen and Darren Criss originate the roles of Claire and Oliver in 'Maybe Happy Ending' on Broadway 

Congratulations to "Maybe Happy Ending" on winning the Tony awards! 

Broadway doesn't always get the spotlight it deserves here at Places of Fancy, but we're making amends. Because the question running through every theater kid's mind right now isn't just "Can robots fall in love?" but "Where the heck is Helperbot Yards?"

The made-up place where robot rejects go to retire is set on the outskirts of Seoul, but the musical's beginnings sprang to mind in a Brooklyn café. Co-creator Hue Park was studying at New York University when he heard Damon Albarn's then-new track "Everyday Robots":

We are everyday robots on our phones
In the process of getting home
Looking like standing stones
Out there on our own...

The Blur frontman's words struck a chord in Park, a K-pop lyricist, who shared the idea with his NYU schoolmate and composer Will Aronson. In 2014 when the song was released, GenAI wasn't as big a novelty as Instagram or Vine, which makes "Maybe Happy Ending's" long journey to the stage so poetic. Long before its Great White Way debut in 2024, "Maybe Happy Ending" premiered at the Daemyung Cultural Factory in Seoul's Daehak-ro district, the so-called "Broadway of Korea," and toured Japan and China where it built a cult following. 

'Maybe Happy Ending' debuted in Daehangno (Daehak-ro), the Broadway of Seoul

In the leap from Seoul to NYC, the musical has become eerily prophetic. South Korea is now at the forefront of AI, leading the world in robot density with over 1,000 industrial robots for every 10,000 workers, according to the Internal Federation of Robotics. 

In fact, robots have been tackling the surge in waste in the country since the pandemic. A Korean startup, AETECH, has deployed robots to sort waste and recycle materials: timely innovations that won it notices from the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization. (Humans can have their Tonys.)

The idea that the digital ghosts we live with every day—our phones, our robots—can evolve into sentient beings capable of romance probably isn't so farfetched in Seoul. Korea's long history with shamanism, a belief system known for assigning spiritual traits to non-living objects, might explain the nation's early adoption of robotics.

Aronson, who calls himself a cynic in real life, was drawn to Park's vision because robots could be more "open, direct and heartfelt" characters than humans. Characters like Claire and Oliver, discarded helperbots who bond over cassettes and jazz records, are less machines than mammalian substitutes, rediscovering sincerity in a world that looks increasingly unreal. 

That strange, sweet place between resignation and hope? Maybe that's Happy Ending.