Broadway, film, and TV star BD Wong is calling for the creators of the Tony-winning Broadway musical Maybe Happy EndingEnding to reconsider a recent casting decision.Maybe Happy Ending tells the story of two robots, Oliver and Claire, who fall in love in a futuristic Seoul. It was nominated for 10 Tonys, winning Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score. Darren Criss, who played Oliver, also won a Tony for the role. He was the first Asian-American actor to win the award.Now, Criss has stepped down from the role. When the show announced that Andrew Barth Feldman, who is white, would be replacing Criss, some fans spoke out. They argued that the play is an Asian story, and should have Asian main characters. They say that a white man taking over the role erases an opportunity for an Asian man to be the lead in a Broadway musical.Now, Wong has shared an open letter, signed by over 2,400 of his friends and followers, asking the creators to reconsider the decision.See on InstagramIn his post, Wong explained that he wrote a long-form essay about the issue and asked his followers and friends to attach their names for support. Over 2,400 of them signed on."It goes way beyond the back and forth about this particular casting decision and the 'ownership' that much of the Asian Community seems to feel over this particular character in this particular musical," he wrote.Wong spoke of a time in 1990 when he and playwright David Henry Hwang were two names on a list of "Asian Americans and others" calling out the casting of white British actor Jonathan Price as a Vietnamese character in the Broadway production of Miss Saigon. He says the current situation makes him feel "as if no time has passed; as if nothing's changed. As if no one learned anything from that racial dismissal and exclusion 35 years ago.""Last week, Maybe Happy Ending announced that its Tony-winning hero, the charismatic Darren Criss, ending his run, will be replaced by Andrew Barth Feldman. This essay concerns the fact that Mr. Criss is of Asian American descent, and Mr. Feldman is not," Wong's essay says.It adds that the show is a "rare feat of representation" and says "in challenging times, it deserves survival."Wong said that the Asian-American community is arguing that Oliver should be Asian in the play "because we're always at war over our own representation.""Advocating for one's own representation is stultifyingly self-debasing," he continues. "No, we don't want to 'get somebody fired.' We must express, though, how painful it is to be passed over, yet how used to it we've become. How incomprehensibly rare 'Asian Shows' are.""Team MHE does what it thinks it must. Producing a Broadway musical is a b*tch. I feel for them," he says. "Yet, this decision's still taken as a hard slap in the face of both the Asian actor community and the Asian audience. Our long-standing history of exclusion is real. We're incapable of 'rising above' a producer's odd business-based decision, because our life is steeped in exclusion."He says that the creators of the musical seemed to be "unaware" of the effects this casting choice would have, and that the "decision-makers didn't anticipate much reaction."However, he says, the Asian community "is left feeling betrayed."People who signed on to the letter include Broadway actors Ali Stroker, Anthony Rapp, Conrad Ricamora, Joaquina Kalukango, and Telly Leung.Wong shared the post on Monday, August 11, and immediately had more support in his comments, including from Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu.See on InstagramFollowing the initial backlash to the casting, the show's writers, Hue Park and Will Aronson, responded with a statement shared on Instagram, saying they will continue "conversations as Maybe Happy Ending continues its journey onstage.""We wrote a show about robots so we could engage more intimately with the most basic human questions of love and loss, creating the roles of Oliver and Claire to be avatars of these universal questions," the statement reads."They were meant to be products created by a global company, and so never bore Korean names, even in the Korean version of the show. At the same time, we understand that for many in the AAPI community, the makeup of our opening night cast became a meaningful and rare point of visibility," it continues. "We've heard how strongly people connected to that representation, even if it wasn't our original intent, and how this casting decision has reopened old wounds."See on InstagramHelen Shen, who is dating Feldman, wrote on Instagram that she "would have found a beacon of hope in seeing our show on TV on the Tony Awards," adding that "a part of me is mourning that along with the community."However, she added that "to have this opportunity to play opposite my favorite actor in the world for 9 weeks, who happens to be PERFECT for the role, is a huge moment of joy" for her.The creators of Maybe Happy Ending have yet to respond to Wong's letter.