STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Yanna Lantz calls it the greatest love story of all time.
It is a love story that dates back to the times of the Greeks when it was the most frequently retold of all Greek myths.
And The Spot Young Company is presenting a contemporary look at the story of the young man who tries to woo his true love back from the underground with a staging of the hit musical “Hadestown.” The musical runs tonight—Wednesday, Dec. 11, through Sunday, Dec. 15, at The Spot in Ketchum.
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Eva Hatzenbuehler plays Persephone, a goddess who rides a train out of Hadestown each year, staying above ground for six months at a time. |
The teens in the tuition-free project led by professional mentors have done a masterful job of recreating the musical with its complex movements and intricate harmonies in a sort-of grey-brown steam punk look in which the only real color is owned by the gods and goddesses.
“We are incredibly proud of these young adults for the monumental work they have put into this production,” said Director Yanna Lantz. “This is arguably the most challenging Young Company show we have produced to date–with endless harmonies, an extremely physical ensemble that relies on precision and an epic story to be told. These students and artists have risen to the occasion with grace and heart.”
The musical by singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell follows two intertwining love stories—that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice and that of the immortal King Hades and Lady Persephone. The story is told with catchy folk-like music served well by repetition and New Orleans jazz with occasional lines interspersed throughout.
It follows Eurydice, a young girl played by Phoebe Everett Williams, who goes to work in an industrial version of the underworld to put food in her stomach. Orpheus, played by Rick Vigueria, tries to convince her to marry him. But, alas, he is gifted with song and not money or food.
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Eurydice, played by Phoebe Everett Williams, is a tough, jaded runaway who becomes desperate after Orpheus fails to finish writing a song that might ensure their survival. |
When Eurydice is instead lured by the promises of a good life that Hades offers her, Orpheus follows, bent on rescuing her even as she realizes her mistake.
Eva Hatzenbuehler plays Persephone, the free-wheeling wife of Hades who is driven to drown her sorrows in dandelion wine by her husband’s controlling behavior. Awakened by Orpheus’ love for Eurydice, she is inspired to rekindle her love with Hades and pleads with Hades to let Eurydice go.
But as the couple leaves, Orpheus turns around to doublecheck that Eurydice is following, in that act condemning her to return to Hadestown.
“This is my favorite myth from the Greeks and the second time this love story has been told at The Spot—the first being “Eurydice” by Sarah Ruhl in 2018,” said Lantz. “Exploring this journey through a musical adds so much theatricality and helps me understand these iconic characters and their motives even better.
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Hoken Johnston plays Hades, who runs the factory Hadestown where workers lose their soul. |
“The writer of Hadestown wants to send a message to her audience that, even when something is impossible, you still try,” said Marina Monschke. “But, now, she is not just sending a message to her audience—she is sending that message to every young adult who is at The Spot this year. Throughout this whole experience, every time our mentors would ask something of us, we would think it was impossible. But they pushed us, anyway. Sometimes we could not achieve what they were asking; sometimes we could. But no matter what, we gained something from just trying.”
The play debuted in 2006 before going Off-Broadway in 2016 with 15 additional songs and more dialogue. It opened on Broadway in 2019 to critical acclaim and, after a pause due to the COVID pandemic, resumed to become the longest running show at the Walter Kerr Theatre with 900-plus performances.
It won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Performance by an Actor in a Musical. And it won three Drama Desk Awards, as well.
“It has been fun to reimagine a show that has only had one major production and create a Hadestown no one has seen before,” said Lantz. “It has felt freeing to honor the source material and add our own concepts and aesthetics to it.”
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The Fates, played by Charlie Blake, Lizzie Loving and Gertie Pitts, tell Eurydice that “Flood will get you if the fire don’t….And there ain’t a thing that you can do when the weather takes a turn on you…” |
Rick Vigueria plays Orpheus while Phoebe Everett Williams plays his love Eurydice. Eva Hatzenbuehler plays the role of Persephone; Hoken Johnston, Hades, and Ida Belle Gorby, Hermes.
The Fates are played by Charlie Blake, Lizzie Loving and Gertie Pitts. Sadie Driscoll, Marina Monschke and Ingrid Pratt play Cerberus, and Elyse Duffield, Charon. The workers are played by Clive Bates, Nico de la Torre, Lidia Kaminer, and Bellazlin Paucar.
R.L. Rowsey is the music director; Megan Mahoney, the choreographer; Kevin Wade, the movement director; Sara Gorby, the costume designer, and Mattigan Monschke, the vocal coach.
“My favorite part of working on ‘Hadestown’ was the friends I made,” said Ingrid Pratt. “I connected with many unlikely people, which is one of the greatest things I could have gotten from this process.”
