“Hadestown” is coming home.
The musical Addison County native Anais Mitchell created and first presented in Vermont in late 2006 – followed by a reworked production that toured the state the next year – returns to the place of its birth for the first fully-staged Vermont production in 17 years. The four shows Oct. 15-17 come after Mitchell’s scruffy, imaginative folk opera was staged off-Broadway in 2016 and arrived in a big way on Broadway in 2019, winning eight Tony Awards including Best Musical.
As the improbable run of “Hadestown” finally brings the production back to its roots with a Broadway touring production, here are five things you should know about the musical’s past, present and future.
The birth of “Hadestown”
Mitchell, then 25, and Vermont visual artist Ben t. Matchstick created the folk opera and cast in-state friends and musicians in the first productions in Barre and Vergennes in late 2006. Part-Woody Guthrie “stick it to the man” folk project, part-steampunk dreamscape, the production based on the Orpheus myth was esoteric, atmospheric and, according to a Burlington Free Press review of the Vergennes production, told its tale “with clear-eyed creative verve.”
The Free Press caught the Middlebury show when a revamped “Hadestown” toured the state in 2007.
“Another year of experience and a tighter focus made the music more powerful, the visuals more sensual and ‘Hadestown’ much more intense,” according to the Free Press review of that performance. “With no expository dialogue, only songs, it’s still difficult at times to follow the plot, but ‘Hadestown’ is now such a visual and musical wonder, it doesn’t matter. Mitchell presents a bleak world that, through all the angst and despair, is a joy to watch.”
Album on Ani DiFranco’s label
A touring singer-songwriter, Mitchell demonstrated she wasn’t done with “Hadestown.” In 2010 she released an album on which she (as with the stage productions) portrayed Eurydice, condemned to a bleak life of sweatshop-like toil in the world of Hades. The floating voice of Justin Vernon of Bon Iver as Eurydice’s musical lover, Orpheus, and the sassy brass of singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco (whose record label Righteous Babe released the recording) as Hades’ wife, Persephone, set templates for those roles that would carry over to Broadway nearly a decade later.
The toast of Broadway, Tony Awards
Mitchell ceased performing in “Hadestown” by the 2016 off-Broadway retooling (which included in its cast Vermont native and recent Tony-winner Shaina Taub), pre-Broadway tune-ups in London and Edmonton and Broadway in 2019. The Free Press saw the beefed-up Broadway show in April 2019, just before its official opening night.
“The core of ‘Hadestown’ – Mitchell’s songs – remains vividly alive,” the Free Press wrote. “It’s exciting to hear her songs in this fuller context, with the larger Broadway presentation bringing even more richness out of material Mitchell’s Vermont fans have heard for more than a decade. This more-explicitly-explained version helps reveal the brilliance not just of Mitchell’s music but of the storyline that’s always been there, lurking behind the songs that stand as vivid scenes on their own.”
That energy carried over to the Tony Awards that June. “Hadestown” won eight of Broadway’s top prizes, including Best Musical; Best Original Score for Mitchell; Best Direction of a Musical by Rachel Chavkin, who came on board for the off-Broadway show; and Best Orchestrations to Todd Sickafoose and Vermont musician Michael Chorney. Mitchell, Chorney and Vermont bass player Robinson Morse were the only artists to see “Hadestown” through from seed to fully-flourishing flower 13 years later.
The present, future of ‘Hadestown’
In a sign of a Broadway hit, the musical turned a profit by the end of 2019, months before the COVID-19 pandemic shut “Hadestown” down for 18 months. The production continues to thrive at the Walter Kerr Theatre, though almost all performers have changed from opening night.
A new cast member postponed a Vermont show to join the Broadway show. American-roots musician Allison Russell was to perform Oct. 25 at Higher Ground in South Burlington. She delayed that concert until April 30 once she was named as the next singer to portray Persephone, a role that began with Vermont vocalist Miriam Bernardo in 2006 and included DiFranco on Broadway this year. Russell joins “Hadestown” Nov. 12.
Details about the Burlington shows
Vermonters have flocked to New York to see “Hadestown” on Broadway since 2019, but those unable to get to Manhattan or who just want to see it in its state of origin can now witness the Broadway national tour at the Flynn in Burlington.
Those who haven’t bought tickets might be out of luck. Three evening performances sold out quickly. A matinee was added for Oct. 16, but that sold out in early October.
Mitchell announced Oct. 3 on social media that a portion of the proceeds from the Burlington performances will go to the Vermont Community Foundation’s Vermont Flood Response and Recovery Fund. Floods have hit Vermont hard in the past couple of years, including in Barre and Montpelier, two cities where those early creative sparks of “Hadestown” were first lit.
If you go
WHAT: Broadway national tour of “Hadestown”
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15-Thursday, Oct. 17 and 2 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16
WHERE: The Flynn, Burlington
INFORMATION: Sold out. www.flynnvt.org
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.
