Hadestown began in small Vermont towns and ended with eight Tony Awards
In 2006 a folk songwriter staged her retelling of Orpheus in two small Vermont towns, with herself playing Eurydice. Unsure it would ever go further, Anaïs Mitchell turned it into an album. Thirteen years and many rewrites later, Hadestown opened on Broadway and took Best Musical among its eight Tonys.
Mitchell wove together two Greek myths, Orpheus and Eurydice alongside Hades and Persephone, and set them in a world of famine and cold. Hermes narrates. Orpheus, a penniless young songwriter, is composing a tune that will bring spring back, while hungry Eurydice is tempted by Hades' underground factory town, which promises safety in exchange for endless labour. She signs his contract, and Orpheus follows her below.
The first sung-through version played Barre and Vergennes, then toured Vermont and Massachusetts in 2007 for seven days across ten towns. The 2010 concept album kept the project alive. After watching Rachel Chavkin direct Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, Mitchell talked with her about holes in the story, wrote 15 more songs and added spoken dialogue to sharpen the characters.
Chavkin's version opened at New York Theatre Workshop in 2016, then went to the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton in 2017 and the Olivier Theatre at London's National Theatre over the winter of 2018. It officially opened at Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre on April 17, 2019. At the 73rd Tony Awards it led the field with 14 nominations and won eight, including Best Original Score. Performances halted during the pandemic in March 2020 and restarted in September 2021, and it became the longest-running show at that theatre. A Korean-language staging in Seoul won Best Musical at the Korea Musical Awards.
The ending does not bend the myth. Hades allows the lovers to leave on condition that Orpheus not look back; near the exit, doubt wins and he turns. Hermes then restarts the tale from the top, and after the bows the actor playing Persephone leads the company in raising a cup to Orpheus for daring to hope. A filmed version with five original Broadway leads followed in 2026.
Source: Hadestown
