How ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ Overcame a Shaky Start and Won Big at the Tonys

“Maybe Happy Ending” had a very unhappy beginning.

The show’s triumph at Sunday night’s Tony Awards, where it won six honors, 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 last fall.

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didn’t know if this show would even open,” said its star, Darren Criss, who won his first Tony for playing Oliver, an outdated helperbot who strikes up a life-changing (well, shelf-life-changing) relationship with a robot across the hall.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.