‘Hadestown’ Comes to Our Town April 28-29

Hadestown, the Tony Award–winning, genre-defying musical that blends modern American folk music with New Orleans–inspired jazz, comes to The Granada Theatre April 28-29. Not only was Hadestown the winner of eight 2019 Tony Awards — including Best Musical and the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album — it’s also the only Tony Award–winning Best Musical in history with an exclusively female writer-director team: music, lyrics, & book by the celebrated American singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and original director Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812).

I spoke with Hawa Kamara, who stars as Eurydice in this musical version of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Asked what it’s like to play such an iconic role, Kamara, who recently made history by being the first Black actor to play Wendy Darling in the Peter Pan national tour, said, “It’s my biggest privilege yet. I have been dreaming about this role ever since I first heard about it, and honestly about this show since I first heard about it. This has been my dream show for a very, very long time.”

The show is an epic love story that intertwines two mythical tales — that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, as well as that of King Hades and his wife Persephone. Kamara, as Eurydice, performs a number of powerful songs, including “Any Way the Wind Blows,” “All I’ve Ever Known,” “Gone, I’m Gone,” and the showstopping “Flowers” in Act II.

“It’s so rare to see a character like that, that really has her own arc and her own story that isn’t necessarily attached to a male character. It feels really freeing to do that, because I feel like in theater today, there really aren’t a lot of roles that show women in ways that aren’t necessarily attached to a man,” said Kamara. “And it’s a beautiful story. She’s a beautiful person. Her story is so complex and nuanced, and getting to sing it and tell it every night, and getting to see the audience reaction. So what the story we all create together as a cast and crew, it makes everything worth it.”

Asked about the audience’s responses to Hadestown on the tour, Kamara said, “There’s usually tears at the end of the night. At the end of the musical, we sing a song called ‘We raise Our Cups’. And in my brain, it’s kind of a song that, you know, lets us all know that we finished this story together. … We get to see some of the audience’s faces. Some are singing along, some are crying. Some are just speechless. And it’s really nice to be able to see what we do every day to people as well as ourselves. I personally cry at almost every performance.”

For many in audiences they travel to, it’s their first experience with musicals. “I promise them they’re not all this sad,” said Kamara. “But it’s also a privilege to be able to introduce people to the world of musical theater and the ways of storytelling in the world of musical theater. There’s so many different avenues and different ways of being able to do this job. And it’s really cool to have Hadestown be people’s first introduction to what this world is.” See Hadestown at the Granada Theatre on April 28-29. More information available at bit.ly/495WMEo.