On Tour: Hadestown in Los Angeles

It’s a sad song, but we’re going to sing it again—this time in the hometown.

This week I had the opportunity to see Hadestown on tour at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Not only was I thrilled to revisit this show after seeing it on Broadway in 2019, but it also is the first time I’m discussing a show I have seen before. I was excited for the opportunity to revisit this story and praise the gods for this show.

Because I had already seen the Broadway production, I tried to filter out and skip reviews of the tour as much as I could before going to see it. Since I was revisiting this story on tour rather than seeing it with fresh eyes, I really wanted to make sure I was able to appreciate the changes that were made to the tour as much as possible. As a heads up for those looking to see the Broadway production or the tour—this post will not be spoiler free!

Right off the bat, I want to say that I am a huge fan of Hadestown, I really love pretty much everything about it from orchestration to set design. It’s a true piece of art and deserves every award it has received. I think bringing this story to a stage really is the perfect medium for it, and it is largely why this production is so successful. Not only is the book and narrative very strong, it’s also a very visually powerful production.

Additionally, the touring cast is phenomenal and I really appreciate the production allowing the cast members to take their own interpretations of the characters. This is so rare on Broadway these days, and I really want to applaud that effort. I think it really strengthens the story that so many performers can tell the same story, but add their own twists and acting choices to it. It works very well with Hadestown and the aesthetic of the show being told as an oral story.

Kimberly Marable’s Persephone had to be one of my favorite parts of this production. My eye was constantly drawn to her and I really love how she interprets Persephone. I really loved her small choices of how disgusted her Persephone is with what Hadestown has become and how soft she is on Orpheus. Her performance makes Persephone very dynamic and displays a range of emotions throughout the show. Her “Our Lady of the Underground” was a standout in a show filled with showstopping moments. I also really enjoyed her “How Long?” which was surprising for me. This is not typically a standout number for me, but the way she is so protective of Orpheus was so distinct and sharp in her performance. Her lover’s spat with Hades is also very sharp and poignant in the production and she definitely was leaning into Persephone’s hurt and masking her loneliness.

I also loved Nicholas Barasch as Orpheus. His character and performance really struck me differently than it did when I saw it on Broadway. I would like to say this is unbiased, but I think given all that has happened in the world around us in the last two years, I think it makes Orpheus’ plight much more uncanny, and the words he speaks about a fictional place hit a little too hard. His delivery of the line “To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now,” held so much weight, and I can’t imagine what it feels like to deliver that line every night in this state of the world. I also found myself very teary at both his performance of “Wait for Me,” and “If it’s true.” Barasch really captures both the naivete and the determination of Orpheus’ journey and I really enjoyed his performance.

Levi Kreis as Hermes was another standout performance for me. To follow Andre de Shields’ footsteps as Hermes is no easy task, but Kreis lifted it like a feather. I really loved how he took on Hermes and made him his own character, which really ties the whole performance together. His Hermes really struck me differently than Andre de Shields’ did, and it was more apparent to me how Hermes kind of changes his tune a little bit in the second act. He takes pity on Orpheus, but his attitude is less paternal and makes the consequences of the course of events stand out. And I can’t talk about Hermes without mentioning how Kreis’ energy with both the audience and his fellow castmates was electric.

I was very intrigued by Morgan Shioban Green’s take on Eurydice. I thought she played a little grittier than I was expecting and I think that stark contrast to Nicholas Barasch’s Orpheus really built a strong connection between the pair on stage. Not only did they have excellent chemistry, but Green’s performance really stood out as an opposite to Orpheus. I don’t recall the Broadway production “chant” being as devastating as it was, but Green’s performance with the Fates was gut-wrenching as you wat Eurydice grapple with her desperation. Her “All I’ve Ever Known,” “Chant,” and “Wait for Me (Reprise)” were all standout moments of the show.

The biggest change between Broadway and the tour is the set design. For those familiar with the Broadway set, a key piece of the set design is the elevator in the floor of the stage. This is obviously a challenge for the traveling production, as not every venue has an elevator that can accommodate that set design, and if they are limited to those types of venues, the houses they could probably play would be limited. They have redesigned the set with a tavern-like set piece in the back of the set that doubles as an elevator-door type piece where the same entrances and exits that are made with the elevator in the Broadway production are done with the new set piece in the back.

Adding this piece obviously changes the set design quite a bit, as the entrances change and some of the movement around the piece change to accommodate for it. I really liked the way this was executed on stage. I think it made the entrances and exits feel more present and eye-catching on stage. It also changed some of the blocking in a way that made other details more noticeable. I feel like when I saw the Broadway production the fates were not as apparent in the blocking as they were on tour. It felt like they had a bigger presence on stage moving around the door than when (as I can recall) they seemed to move more as a singular unit on Broadway.

As was expected, Hadestown is still such a stunning piece of theatre. I really liked the adaptation of the tour and I really think if you weren’t aware of the Broadway set, you would hardly know anything changed. This cast works so well together that the show has really come into its own and remained a breathtaking piece. I’m so glad I was able to catch it at my home city venue, and I highly recommend it to anyone considering catching the show.

Hadestown has an extensive pre-Broadway history, the earliest being the original production premiering in Barre, Vermont, in 2006. After a production in Vergennes and a short tour between Vermont and Massachusetts in 2007, Mitchell turned the musical into a concept album in 2010. In 2012, Mitchell and Rachel Chavkin reworked the stage production, which then premiered Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop in 2016. Productions followed in Edmonton and London before the production hit Broadway in its current home at the Walter Kerr Theatre in 2019.

The Broadway production received high critical acclaim and has won numerous awards. The production received 14 nominations and won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score. The U.S. Tour opened in 2021 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.