🎭 Theatre: The Best Musical in the U.S. this year is Korean

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🌊 K-Wave Crests on Broadway’s shores

Growing up in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, my childhood fluctuated between understanding and appreciating my own popular culture (Indian) while assimilating with the greater global popular culture (American). With the advent of the internet, and especially in the last decade, I can safely say that global popular culture is not only more global than it’s ever been, it’s decidedly more Korean.

I’m going to list a few things; see what you recognise: Old Boy, Gangnam Style, Samsung, BTS, Blackpink, Parasite, Squid Games, Korean BBQ, Innisfree, Kia/Hyundai… I could go on. And as of last week, you can add Maybe Happy Ending to that list.

The South Korean musical which premiered in 2016, telling the story of two humanoid robots who develop feelings for each other in a future Seoul, debuted on Broadway in New York City in 2024. Last week, the musical swept the most prestigious theatrical award show in the U.S., the Tony Awards, with six wins, including the big one — Best Musical.

In this issue of Signpost, we look at how the story broke in one of the oldest and most prestigious theatre news publications in the U.S., Playbill, alongside one of the longest running, most popular Korean entertainment news websites, Soompi.

🇺🇸 PLAYBILL: Maybe Happy Ending Wins Best Musical at the Tony Awards 2025 [link]

📢 What Playbill is saying
The 141 year-old publication focuses on ensuring all parties in the musical are recognised and mentioned, not just the award winners. This includes everyone in the cast, understudies, and production.

1. 📸 Visuals

Only one visual is used at the top of the article. While the article ends with a gallery of photos from the musical itself, the main image at the top concerns itself with a shot of the cast and crew newly adorned with their many awards.

The image includes seven men, all dressed in black tuxedos and black suits, and one woman in a sage green off-shoulder gown. That woman is Helen J. Shen, the leading actress from the musical. She is also cradling a flower pot.

Four men are on Shen’s right, with three on her left. Immediately to her left is her co-star and Best Actor winner of the night Darren Criss, while on her immediate right, the only person in the photo with his jacket off, is Best Book and Score winner of the night, Hue Park.

All are standing on a red carpet in front of a Tony Awards and CBS, Paramount+ branded background. All are smiling, beaming under the spotlight of their win and the flashlights of the photographers. Only the man at the end, Jeffery Richards, in a maroon bow tie, is looking off to the side.

2. ✍🏽 Words

The headline focuses on the main event, mentioning the title of the award winning musical and it’s achievement of the night. The subheading provides a little more detail, including the ‘six total awards’ that the show ended up winning.

The article begins with a very first-person phrase: ‘well, that’s a wrap’. The award show is described as an ‘exciting evening’ that climaxed with Maybe Happy Ending ‘coming out on top’ with the big one — ‘the evening’s much coveted Best Musical Tony Award’. The article continues to stress the magnitude of the win, calling it a ‘big win’ which ‘capped off a successful night for the musical’ winning ‘six total categories’, before detailing those categories, including ‘Book and Score’, ‘Director of a Musical’, and ‘Leading Actor in a Musical’. The article explains that the musical led nominations for the award show ‘tied’ with two others as the ‘most nominated productions of the season’, which included ‘Buena Vista Social Club’, and ‘Death Becomes Her’, each with ‘10 total nominations’.

The rest of the article focuses on Maybe Happy Ending, immediately referring to the lead actor as ‘2025 Tony winner’ and the lead actress ‘Helen J Shen’ as ‘leading the musical’ on Broadway ‘where it opened November 12, 2024’. The show itself premiered ‘in Korean in South Korea in 2016’ before being made into an ‘English-language version’ (which was ‘written in tandem with the Korean edition’) that first came to ‘Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre’ before ‘coming to Broadway’. The article also mentions that the ‘musical’s original Broadway cast album’ was made available digitally earlier this year, with ‘a vinyl edition’ releasing on ‘June 13’.

Here we get a brief summary of the plot: the two main characters, ‘Claire and Oliver’, are ‘South Korea-based Helperbots that have been deemed obsolete’, before they ‘form an unlikely bond, setting off a surprising and romantic adventure’. Mentions are made next of the names of the people behind the music and lyrics, the remaining cast, the five understudies, and the casting agency. Wrapping up, the article mentions by name the video designer, costume designer, lighting designer, sound designer, a second video designer, music supervisor, and music director, before plugging the official website of the musical.

❓ What it means
Playbill being Playbill has very democratically mentioned practically all people associated with the production of the musical. This is a great way to pay tribute to the many people whose names are never up for awards but do the hard graft of making everybody else look good both on and off stage, ensuring the audience has a terrific time at the theatre. It’s not the usual way an entertainment-focused news media would report a story, and speaks to Playbill’s main audience — people within the industry or supporters in the industry who are deeply entrenched. This is not reading material for the casual pop culture cynic.

⚠️ Why it matters
This focus on the musical and the Tonys in the article establishes the fact that the most important aspect of this story is the winning of the Best Musical award. Were any other show to have won the award, it’s likely Playbill would have reported on it in very similar fashion. The highlight here is the prestige of the Tony Awards, and the winning of it.

What is lost however is the fact that this is a major recognition for Korean theatre and pop culture. The Korean beginnings of the show are mentioned only briefly before the focus of the article quickly shifts stateside and is not mentioned again. Instead, the article focuses on ensuring that as many names of people within the production are mentioned. This unfortunately leaves the fairly critical foreign-ness of the show out of the discussion.

🇰🇷 SOOMPI: Korean Musical "Maybe Happy Ending" Makes History With 6 Wins At Tony Awards 2025 [link]

📢 What Soompi is saying
The 27 year-old Soompi also tries to keep their reporting professional and sober, but cannot help but take pride in emphasising the Korean-ness of the win.

1. 📸 Visuals

There are two visuals used in this article. At the top we have a still from the musical, showing the main characters holding hands. On the left is the male lead character, dressed in a white button-down shirt, dark red tie, and sky blue trousers. His right hand is held out, as if holding a plate, and in it is placed the left hand of the female lead character. The male lead is looking at the female lead’s hand in his.

The female lead is on the right of the image, dressed in a white sleeveless top and a yellow ochre skirt. She has a light blue band in her hair. She is also looking at her left hand in his right.

Further down is an embedded Instagram post from The Tony Awards account showing a post celebrating the Best Musical win for Maybe Happy Ending. The image is once again a still from the show, showing both characters mid-dance, as the male character, again on the left, twirls the female character with his left hand as she turns with her right. Here we can also see their shoes, with him wearing off-white sneakers and she wearing black heels. Also visible are four red buttons on the female lead’s top. Both character’s mouths are open as if mid-song. It is clear that this a still taken from one of the songs from the show.

2. ✍🏽 Words

The headline and the first line of the article both begin with the word ‘Korean’. The title claims the show ‘makes history’, while the first line says the show has ‘won big’, by explaining that it won ‘the most awards scored by a single production’ that night. A quick aside is mentioned to explain what the Tony Awards are, saying the awards were ‘first held in 1947’ and celebrates ‘excellence in live Broadway theater’.

Next, the article lists all the other awards the show won apart from Best Musical, including the four nominations where it didn’t win, which were in Costume Design, Lighting Design, Sound Design, and Orchestrations. A quick summary of the plot follows, before a short history of the musical is shared.

The musical ‘is an original Korean musical’ that premiered in 2016 ‘at a theater which seated approximately 300 people’, after which it started achieving ‘gradual success in Korea’, followed by ‘critical acclaim’ and sellout shows. A few Korean names are then mentioned as ‘popular cast members’. The article clarifies that from the beginning ‘an English version of the musical was also prepared in tandem’, before the show’s ‘Broadway debut in 2024’ at a theatre that sat ‘approximately 1000 people’.

The article ends with the phrase ‘Congratulations to “Maybe Happy Ending”!’

❓ What it means
Unlike Playbill, Soompi focuses only on the award winners of the musical — they are the only people who are named. The article also provides a bit more backstory to the beginnings of the musical in Korea, including, oddly, the seating capacity of the theatre it premiered in, in both Seoul and on Broadway. I suspect that was done to indicate the growth and reach of the musical over time.

Most importantly, both the headline and the first line of the article begin with the words ‘Korean’, and some famous Korean cast members from it’s local run are also mentioned. This is a celebration of Korean theatre and culture, and the article, while relatively restrained in it’s focus on South Korea, still manages to highlight the importance of the roots of the show.

Finally, both the first line and the last line end in exclamation marks (!), making clear the excitement and pride that many Koreans feel.

⚠️ Why it matters
There’s a shift in focus in how the story is reported compared to Playbill. Here, it’s clear that the audience is interested in Korean pop culture, which is why the article leads with the words ‘Korean’. Also, the website does not have an industry focused audience like Playbill, which is why it mentions only those who won awards, and were nominated, but nobody else associated with the production. In short, the story is reported just like you would expect of a broad entertainment focused news website.

Unlike Playbill, there is not as much focus on the prestige of the Tony Awards per se. Yes, a quick aside to introduce the history of the Tonys is thrown in for context, but otherwise not much else. In this case, the focus is purely on the win for a Korean musical.

WHAT’S GOING ON? 

🏆 What’s left to win?

There’s a great article in the BBC about this story, which has a headline that says ‘South Korea cements cultural status with six Tonys for Maybe Happy Ending’. The article leans heavily on the narrative that this is but the latest win for the country in globally recognised American award shows. To reiterate the point, the article states:

With the final infinity stone of American awards in place upon the K-wave gauntlet, will we continue to see regular wins by Korean films, TV shows, and plays? Have we reached the stage (pun unintended) where a Korean win lends more legitimacy to an award show rather than the other way round? Or is this a one-off anomaly that, now done, will not be replicated?

The truth, as always, is somewhere in between.
Read widely. Question thoroughly. Decide accordingly.

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Was this forwarded to you? Signpost is a free weekly newsletter analysing what the media says, what it means, and why it matters. It’s free to subscribe. Alternatively, you can add me on LinkedIn.