About
the Play:
Winner! Eight 2019
Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score and Best
Orchestrations
Winner! Four 2019
Drama Desk Awards
Winner! Six 2019
Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Outstanding New Broadway
Musical
Winner! 2019 Drama
League Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical
Hadestown is a full-length musical drama with book, music,
and lyrics by Anaïs Mitchell based on the ancient Greek myths
of Orpheus, Eurydice, Hades, and Persephone. Following two
intertwining love stories – one of young dreamers Orpheus and
Eurydice, and the other of King Hades and his wife Persephone –
Anaïs Mitchell's haunting,
jazz-inflected folk opera Hadestown invites audiences
on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back.
Hadestown is an intriguing and
beautiful folk opera that delivers a deeply resonant and defiantly
hopeful theatrical experience. Following two intertwining love
stories – that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of
immortal King Hades and Lady Persephone – Hadestown invites
audiences on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back.
Inspired by traditions of classic American folk music and vintage New
Orleans jazz, Mitchell's beguiling sung-through musical pits industry
against nature, doubt against faith, and fear against love.
Hadestown began in
Vermont as a DIY community theatre project in 2006 and a
studio album in 2010 and has grown into a Tony-and
Grammy-award-winning Broadway phenomenon. Hadestown
electrified audiences with its 2016 world premiere at New York
Theatre Workshop, becoming the longest-running show in that
celebrated theatre's 40-year history. The production then received
its Canadian premiere at Edmonton's Citadel Theatre in 2017 and then
a 2018 sold-out engagement at London's National Theatre. Hadestown
opened on Broadway in 2019 at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
Cast: 5 female, 3 male
What people say:
"Sumptuous... Gorgeous... As
good as it gets... You wish you could live in the glowy moment
forever." — New York Times
"Utterly fabulous... arrives
on Broadway with a furnace-like blast of creativity." —
The Hollywood Reporter
"A transporting musical hit...
Anaïs Mitchell's score is a joyful combination
of folk, pop, Dixieland and blues that will make you want to rehear
it as soon as the lights come up." — Time Out
"Unforgettable. Simply one of
the most exquisite works of musical storytelling I've seen in my more
than 25 years as a theater critic. In its supple convergence of story
and song, Hadestown represents a step forward
for the art form." — Los Angeles Times
"Visionary and ravishing. An
intricate and gorgeous feat of songwriting, a vehicle for dynamite
performances and a courageous experiment with form, Hadestown is
cause for celebration." — New York Magazine
"Heavenly. Haunting.
Exquisite." — WNYC
(New
York Public Radio)
"The songs are gorgeous, the
band is hot, and the lyrics are eerily apt for the times." —
The New Yorker
"Hadestown feels
like something more intuitive, elemental, and finely woven than a
traditional musical." — The Guardian
(UK)
About the Playwright:
Anaïs Mitchell is a Vermont-based singer-songwriter, and
the Tony and Grammy Award-winning creator of the Broadway musical
Hadestown. Dubbed by NPR as "one of the greatest
songwriters of her generation," she was named to the TIME 100
list of the Most Influential People in the World in 2020. She has
headlined shows worldwide and supported tours for Bon Iver, Josh
Ritter and Punch Brothers, and her music has featured in year-end
best lists including NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and
The Sunday Times.