Maybe Happy Ending Cast Album Sets Release Date and, Yes, It Will Be Available on Vinyl

Helen J Shen and Darren Criss
(Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

The cast album of Maybe Happy Ending, the romantic musical comedy starring Darren Criss and Helen J Shen as robots in love, will be available via streaming on March 14. “The Rainy Day We Met” is now available to stream.

The album will be available in the format preferred by Oliver, the show’s Helperbot hero—vinyl—as well as on CD at a later date to be announced. 

The release will feature a bonus track: “Why Love,” performed by the Gil Brentley Jazz Orchestra, live in Amsterdam in May 1948.

With music and lyrics by Will Aronson and Hue Park, and orchestrations also by Aronson, Maybe Happy Ending opened at the Belasco Theatre on November 12, 2024. Michael Arden directs the Broadway production of the show, which premiered, in its Korean-language version, in Seoul in 2016. The cast also features Dez Duron and Marcus Choi. 

The album is produced by Deborah Abramson, Ian Kagey and Aronson. The show’s musical team also includes musical director and conductor John Yun, associate musical director and associate conductor Eric Kang, musical supervisor Deborah Abramson and musical coordinator Kimberlee Wertz. Instrumentalists include Cenovia Cummins (concertmaster/violin), Rachel Handman Robison (violin), Orlando Wells (viola), Jessica Wang (cello), Conrad Korsch (bass), Joshua Mark Samuels (drums/percussion), Rick Heckman (woodwinds), John Bailey (trumpets) and Julie Dombroski-Jones (trombone). Keyboard programming is by Randy Cohen with associate keyboard programmers Sam Starobin, Tim Crook and Nick Schenkel. 

Inside a one-room apartment in the heart of Seoul, Oliver (Criss) lives a happily quiet life listening to jazz records and caring for his favorite plant. But what else is there to do when you’re a Helper-Bot 3, a robot that has long been retired and considered obsolete? When his fellow Helper-Bot neighbor Claire (Shen) asks to borrow his charger, what starts as an awkward encounter leads to a unique friendship, a surprising adventure and maybe even…love?

Check out the video trailer for the album below.