Zachary Noah Piser and Hannah Kevitt joined 'Maybe Happy Ending' in its beginnings — and now they're its stars

Before playing the lead roles in the Tony-winning Best Musical, Piser led an early workshop of the show, while Kevitt was a standby in the original Broadway cast.

Summary

• Zachary Noah Piser and Hannah Kevitt star as Oliver and Claire in Maybe Happy Ending on Broadway
• Their characters are humanoid robots who unexpectedly fall in love during a road trip across Korea
• The actors discuss their onstage and offstage bond; memorable audience responses to the Tony Award-winning Best Musical; and the futuristic show's human themes of empathy and connection

Like Oliver and Claire, their robotic characters in the Broadway musical Maybe Happy Ending, actors Zachary Noah Piser and Hannah Kevitt started as strangers. Their paths briefly crossed at a workshop for a different show, but they hadn't made an in-depth connection.

Nonetheless, Kevitt became a fan of Piser's, telling New York Theatre Guide she'd watched a video of Piser performing in his last Broadway show, Redwood, "so many times." The feeling, it turns out, was mutual.

"In the Asian American theatre community, there are, like, 20 of us," Piser joked. "So especially when someone is as talented as Hannah is, you learn."

"[Hannah's] vibe was just so chill and so relaxed and so easy to work with. Those are the kind of people, at least for me, that I just love [...] because I'm more neurotic," he added. That dynamic also mirrors their characters, whose story starts in a Seoul, Korea apartment building for retired HelperBots. Claire knocks on the door of Oliver's room, which he's barely left in years, in need of a charger. Initially cold and callous, Oliver soon warms up to Claire enough to agree to a joint road trip to Jeju Island, where she can see wild fireflies and he can reunite with his former owner.

Whereas Oliver and Claire's journey leads to a romantic spark, the bond that's developed between Piser, Kevitt, and co-stars Dez Duron and Marcus Choi is more familial. All four have long histories with the Tony Award-winning Best Musical: Piser joined the Broadway production in May, succeeding Tony Award winner Darren Criss, after participating in an early 2022 workshop of Maybe Happy Ending. Duron and Choi are original cast members, having performed in the Broadway show since October 2024 alongside Kevitt, who began as a standby for original star Helen J. Shen before succeeding her as Claire full-time.

"I've always said I wanted brothers, and this cast gave me a million of them," Kevitt said of her castmates, including the other standbys. The fact that a futuristic, sci-fi-tinged story led to meaningful relationships in the present means a lot to both actors.

"Even though we are playing robots, it's a really human experience as a performer, and hopefully as the audience is experiencing it," Kevitt reflected. The pair discussed their onstage and offstage bond more with New York Theatre Guide below; these are edited excerpts from our conversation.

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What was your first impression of Maybe Happy Ending when you read the script?

Piser: I was in my bedroom, and just by the end, those last couple of pages, just openly weeping [...] That unexpected emotional hit is what still is so beautiful about the piece.

Kevitt: When I got the audition, my agent sent me the draft of the script they had at the time, before Broadway. I sat on my couch and I similarly read it and laughed and gasped and cried and had this full range of experience and emotion.

I emailed my agent and I was like, "I have to be a part of this show. I don't care if I'm like, third tree from the left."

Did you ever expect that you would eventually be the full-time leads of the show?

Kevitt: No.

Piser: I don't think you ever can. I mean, it's leading a show that's essentially a two-hander. The thing I've learned about living in the city for so long is that everyone's talented. Everyone's so good. So when these kinds of roles [come up], especially when it pertains to new work — probably both of us had dreams of doing it full-time, but whether or not that dream would come true...

I still have moments in the show when I'm looking Hannah directly in the eyes where I'm like, "We're doing it. We're doing the show. We're doing the show. That's so crazy." And I'm like, "Oh, say your line!"

Kevitt: Maybe Happy Ending is the gift that keeps on giving. When I got the standby offer for the original Broadway company [...] I remember counting how many solos Claire had and being like, there's no way I can do that. I grew up being like, "I'm a dancer. I want to be in the ensemble," so I was like, "Whoa, that's a big old lead role right there!"

When they asked me to take over full-time, it was new, exciting, and scary, but I feel really lucky that I get to learn doing a show that I love.

You two did a workshop together before joining this production, but did you know each other well?

Piser: We started out as relative strangers to each other when we started the production. In a existing Broadway show, you have your rehearsal process, but Hannah was already in the show at that point. I was being rehearsed with other people. Hannah and I only really had three runs, including our put-in, before they were like, "Okay, and now go do it in front of 1,200 people at the Belasco. Good luck!"

I remember being really anxious about that at first, but then remembered that Oliver and Claire are actually strangers to each other in the beginning, which was enriching to that journey to start off that way.

Kevitt: I have been a fan of Zach's from afar for a while, and known of your work and known you're so loved in our industry and you're so talented. [You] have this amazing presence and aura about you that is so giving, and now to get to experience it like right up in my face every night is really, really exciting.

What resonates with each of you about Oliver and Claire?

Kevitt: What I initially loved on the page of Claire is that you meet her in this time where she's so resolute. She has opinions and she has a worldview, but then as you watch [...] her journey with Oliver, she changes her mind, and she literally changes her programming.

I love the way she's written, that she's funny and sarcastic and witty. Getting to play a full, well-rounded character is super exciting.

Piser: As I've gotten older, I have become a little bit more precious with my recharging time, if you will. That's something with Oliver that I very much am attuned to. But also, our characters really do have a big change even though they're robots and they're not really meant to.

Oliver is so terrified of so many new things, of meeting new people, of going outside of his room. The lesson I've learned from Oliver the most is to embrace those things you're scared of because they might turn out to be something really wonderful.

How are your performances informed by each other's takes on the characters?

Piser: Our energies are so connected and therefore affect each other so deeply. It really, to me, has been the epitome of, "every night is different in the theatre." No show is the same because [I'm] bringing in things that have happened in the day. It might affect the way I'm feeling on a certain line, which then might affect the way you feel.

Those small nuances are what make our characters our characters, which we will always continue to develop until the last show we do. But I feel so in tune with Hannah that I feel safe to not say, "I have to do the exact same show and the exact same timing, otherwise everything's going to fall apart."

Kevitt: I think I've done the show with every Oliver. Obviously, because it's just the two [characters] for so much of the show, that changes a little bit from day to day and from person to person. But I feel so lucky because doing the show full-time, eight shows a week, with [me and Zach], we have our rhythm. We have our way we like to do things.

No show is ever the same, but it also feels so comfortable. If I'm having a day where I'm like, (sings) "Ooh, girl, I don't know about this one," I can just look at Zach's eyes and be like, "It's going to be okay.”

What is it like to perform Maybe Happy Ending in today's rapidly changing world of technology? Some people might think robots developing feelings sounds dystopian, but in this show, it's touching.

Kevitt: Michael Arden, our director, talked a lot about how sometimes it takes nonhuman things for us to be able, as humans, to project onto them, if that makes sense. Like when you watch the movie Wall-E, and you really feel for these robots, and you can project these feelings of loss and love.

Piser: This show has taught me — and I think has taught you, has taught and continues to teach audiences — what it means to be human. That is so unexpected.

You walk into the show thinking it's going to be a romcom, a meet-cute about robots in the future. And instead, you end up seeing these two incredible technological beings learn these basic building blocks of connection and humanity. Every single night, when I listen to Hannah sing "How to Not Be Alone," listening to the lyrics of what it feels like to encounter someone who is different than you and how to make space for them, how to interact with them even though it might make you uncomfortable — that's what being human is, baby. It gives me hope.

I hope another thing people take away from [the show] is, maybe we should reinvest in those initial building blocks of looking someone in the eye and [...] connecting, whatever that looks like. It could be [sitting] side by side in a car or going on a walk with someone. Those physical, tangible things that you can do outside of our technology might be the things missing from our current lives.

What conversations have you had with Darren and Helen about the show?

Kevitt: One of the biggest gifts this show has given me was Helen J. Shen and our friendship. I got to be her standby for the whole year and a half [that Shen performed], and we got really close. There's a sisterhood and a camaraderie that comes along with that. I'll call Helen to this day and be like, "Girl, this is hard."

Piser: Darren was so sweet when he found out I was taking over the role. He was like, "Dude, I made a book of Oliver." It's all these small tips or things he found, like, "If you stand up at this moment, then you can do this."

What does it mean to you to lead a show that spotlights Asian talent?

Piser: When I came to the city, it was very limiting, the roles [for] someone who looked like me. People still don't know what I am. I'm Asian, for the record. One of my dreams was always to be a part of a show that honored my Asian identity and my heritage, but wasn't relegated only to that, and especially wasn't relegated to some kind of trauma.

This show does all those things. I get to look the way I look on a stage, and it doesn't have to be all about that, but I get to honor it, and I get to play an incredibly complex character, a funny character, a goofy character, a sad character — all these things that as an actor, regardless of what my race is, that's anyone's dream.

Kevitt: My stage door experience doing this show has been so amazing and gratifying, especially when I see people who look like me. Little girls and young people will tell me, "I want to do this because of you, because I saw you on stage," which is just beyond. I wanted to do this because I saw a video of Lea Salonga auditioning for Miss Saigon.

To get to do that for people just by being who I am is the best thing ever. It feels so, so rewarding, and it's so special watching two Asian people fall in love on stage.

What's a memorable audience reaction you've experienced to the show?

Kevitt: We had an awesome event where we celebrated that Maybe Happy Ending was the longest-running show at the Belasco Theatre. [...] Our social team had planned for everybody in the audience to have a glow stick to be like a firefly, and they gave them a cue line.

We've just learned something really sad in the show. It's a pretty heavy moment, and we're transitioning to another more somber moment, and Zach says [the line].

Piser: You want to be the glow stick and I'll be me? "Let's go see the fireflies."

Kevitt: (loud cracking noises)

It was actually so beautiful to look out and see all our fans. It was people who love the show and are the reason that we're here. We're so grateful, but it really was so funny.

Piser: Because it is a somber moment, we share this deep, knowing look as Oliver and Claire, and we shared a deep, knowing look as Zach and Hannah.

Kevitt: Then, my next line is like, "Um, I think this should be the right area. I can't promise we're going to see anything," and the whole audience laughs because they're holding these things that are supposed to be representing the fireflies, and I'm looking out at them.

How do you make your dressing room feel like home?

Kevitt: During tech, one of our standbys, Steven, was like, "Guys, we should all get these things called Udies," which are giant — basically if you could wear a big, fuzzy blanket. I wear it every two-show day, and it's like a hoodie, and it's pink, and all the standbys got them.

I have a little dumpling that says "all that and dim sum." That came from my cast at Back to the Future. They all won it for me at Dave and Busters. I have a [knitted] positive potato. It has a little sign on it that says "I may be a little potato, but go do your thing," or whatever. I love it.

Piser: I have lots of photos of loved ones. I have lots of food. I mean, it's an Asian show, so everyone is eating all the time.

And the most important thing there is my dog, Scout, when she comes to the theatre. She is our our emotional animal and the unsung mascot. Oliver's pet, if I could bring a dog on stage. Can you imagine, though, just one show I bring her on?

Oliver's houseplant, HwaBoon, would get jealous.

Piser: Yeah. HwaBoon is not in my dressing room because HwaBoon is a diva.

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Photo credit: Hannah Kevitt and Zachary Noah Piser in Maybe Happy Ending on Broadway. (Photos by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)