HADESTOWN THE MUSICAL

Director: Brett Sullivan and Rachel Chavkin
Starring: Eva Noblezada, Reeve Carney, Andre DeShields, Patrick Page, Amber Gray, Bella Brown, Madeline Charlemagne, Allie Daniel

This smash hit Broadway musical Hadestown won 8 Tonys after premiering on Broadway in 2018. It’s still going strong and five of the original cast members returned to the show for a limited run in London in 2025. It was filmed and now that pro-shot is in movie theaters for a limited run. Anais Mitchell is the genius creator of Hadestown, and the pro-shot proves why it has remained a popular hit on Broadway, London and the national tours thanks to her gorgeous music and creative retelling of Greek characters. Anais Mitchell and stage director Rachel Chavkin use a very presentational Brechtian style approach at telling this story. It has a New Orleans-French quarter inspired setting as Tony winner Andre DeShields opens the show as Hermes and introduces the audience to all the key players and the band who are all on stage. At the center of this story is Eurydice (Noblezada). She’s described as a songbird, a runaway wandering town to town. It’s love at first sight for Reeve Carney’s Orpheus who instantly declares his love to Eurydice hoping she’ll marry him. He’s an aspiring musician working on his next great song. Looking down at all of this is Hades (Page) he’s the leader of the underworld, Hadestown, which his presented as a stark, dirty factory. His wife, Persephone, is frequently drunk lamenting about their life. Amber Gray is sublime returning to the role of the damaged, Persephone. Hadestown continues those universal truths of love, evil, temptation, and the desperate choices we make in hard times.

Here’s my review