In 2006, Vermont singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and a handful of local actors, musicians and artists staged the very first production of her so-called “folk opera,” Hadestown, at the Old Labor Hall in Barre. An inventive and at times abstract retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the musical was conceived, written and produced in a matter of weeks in collaboration with artist Ben T. Matchstick and composer Michael Chorney. Its original cast and crew included Mitchell herself in the role of Persephone alongside a ragtag cadre of friends.
The show was weird and wonderful, with a steampunk aesthetic and indie-folk musical sensibilities. And the story of what’s happened to it since is the stuff of legend — or maybe mythology.
Over many years and revisions, the production evolved in scope and style. In 2007, a more developed version of Hadestown toured Vermont, with a stop in Somerville, Mass. A concept album released on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe records followed in 2010.
Six years later, a revamped Hadestown debuted off-Broadway to rave reviews in the New York Times and the Village Voice. It was mounted in Canada and England before landing on Broadway in 2019. That year, it won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score. Following a pandemic hiatus, the play returned to Broadway in 2021 and is still running there, as well as at the Lyric Theatre in London’s West End.
At heart, Hadestown is a love story. Its central hero is a musician, Orpheus, who travels to the underworld to bring his beloved Eurydice back from the dead. But it’s also a parable whose themes have deepened against the backdrop of a fraught political landscape. That’s particularly thanks to the musical’s central villain, Hades, a billionaire tyrant obsessed with building a wall to keep people out.
A touring production of Hadestown is currently making its way around the U.S., including a sold-out four-show run this Tuesday to Thursday, October 15 to 17, at the Flynn Main Stage in Burlington.
Mitchell will be in the audience for one of those shows with cast members, musicians and crew from the original Vermont productions. She answered questions by email about the nearly two-decade-long journey of Hadestown and what it means for the show to come home.
Let’s say you struck a deal with Chronos to send you back in time to opening night at the Old Labor Hall. What would you tell 2006 Anaïs about the Hadestown journey to come? Any advice you’d give her?
Oh, wow. I’d have a lot of advice for her, but she wouldn’t take it. She was 25 and not taking a lot of advice back then. I definitely wouldn’t tell her she was gonna work on that thing for more than a decade. All the twists and turns of the development of that piece are so intimately connected with real-life things — moving from Vermont to New York City and back, twice; becoming a mom; hard, beautiful lessons in creativity and collaboration. I’m grateful for it all and the time it took. There are no shortcuts.
If 2006 you could be at the Flynn watching Hadestown with the original Vermont cast next week, what do you think she’d make of the show?
We’re gonna find out! Because I will be there with a bunch of folks from the Vermont show, including the original director, Ben Matchstick; arranger-orchestrator Michael Chorney; [and] members of the OG cast, band and design team. I imagine there’ll be a lot of feelings, not easily described.
It’s been nearly two decades since the first songs that would become Hadestown came to you. How has your relationship to the show evolved through all of its various incarnations? Do you see or feel aspects of it differently than you did five, 10, 15 years ago?
Yeah, it’s always a surprise, seeing it brought to life by new folks in a different time and place, what jumps out or recedes. Certainly it resonates in different ways politically now than it did in 2006. I’d say the main evolution in my own heart has been that I started writing it at 25, and I’m now 43, so I’ve gone from deep identification with the young lovers (Orpheus, Eurydice) to a sort of bittersweet and tender identification with the older couple (Hades, Persephone).
What does it mean to you for Hadestown to come full circle, from Barre to Broadway and now back to Vermont?
Generally, when I see the show now, I feel like the parent of an adult child, where I’m like, Wait, you have your own job and apartment? You don’t need me to cut your grapes in half anymore? Who even are you? And this particular full-circle moment is like, Here’s this child who was born in Vermont, moved to New York City, backpacked all over the world, lived a while in London and is now back in Vermont. The same child but entirely different.
It’s a miracle, honestly. I think, as a songwriter, I’m always hoping to write a song that “gets covered,” you know, becomes part of the canon, travels the world on its own legs. I think of songs and theater work as building a house for others to inhabit — you don’t have to inhabit it yourself. So it’s deeply moving and satisfying that others are still living in the house. I think it’s a testament to everyone who ever worked on it — and there are a lot of us! — that we built a thing sturdy enough to survive on its own, sturdy enough to return, as an adult, to the place it was born.
You’re launching a climate change initiative as part of the touring production. What can you tell me about that?
During the first Hadestown tour, our drummer, Eladio Rojas, had this beautiful idea of connecting our tour itinerary with organizations doing climate disaster response and resilience work. It didn’t work out for that tour, but with the show kicking off a second tour of smaller cities, I reached out to him and we’re making it happen. I’m donating a portion of royalties to these orgs, ideally raising awareness, and the production intends to get involved, as well.
In Vermont, we’re supporting the Vermont Community Foundation’s Flood Response & Recovery Fund. But in Colorado and California, for example, we’re supporting wildfire response, and in the Carolinas, we’ll support Hurricane Helene relief. We’re also supporting some food shelves and refugee resettlement orgs. The common denominator, obviously, is our changing climate.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity and length.
