So just how far would you go for her?

[sovay]

I just heard from my mother that Anaïs Mitchell and Rachel Chavkin's Hadestown has just won Best Musical at the Tony Awards, plus Best Director for Chavkin, Best Original Score for Mitchell, several technical awards, and Best Featured Actor for André de Shields as Hermes.

I have not seen the Broadway production. But I loved the show when I saw it off-Broadway in 2016 and I loved it in 2010 when it was a CD of a folk opera that I did not yet realize was a concept album, although I hoped even then to see it onstage. "In true epic fashion," I wrote, "I'd love to see it reperformed." And it was, and I heard about it, and I got to see one version, and now there's another, and it will keep going, hand to hand, mouth to ear, because that's how the folk tradition—the epic tradition—works.

(I can even feel a little as though I helped, because I know for a fact that some of the friends who wrote about seeing the Broadway version were the friends who learned about the album from me nine years ago. Ultimate credit goes to my mother, who heard Mitchell talking about her Orpheus and Eurydike retelling on one of the folk radio stations and correctly discerned I would love it. Grassroots, people! And the dark earth under all.)

It makes me happy.

Comments

[starlady]

The Broadway version is very good, but I still like the 2016 version best. Patrick Page got robbed at the Tonys imo--Andre De Shields is fine, but some of his performance devolved into shtick and I think he got the award for nostalgia value rather than his actual performance in this version. Hermes and the costuming were definitely better downtown.

All that being said, this version is extremely worth seeing, and these Tonys are definitely less fired than the last time a Rachel Chavkin directed musical was up for a bushel of awards. And I'm particularly glad that Anais Mitchell won a Tony, since so few women write musicals, let alone win Tonys for them.

[sovay]

Patrick Page got robbed at the Tonys imo--Andre De Shields is fine, but some of his performance devolved into shtick and I think he got the award for nostalgia value rather than his actual performance in this version.

I am sorry to hear that. The Hermes I saw at the NYTW was an understudy on the night and I still remember gestures of his: I believed him as a god of in-between ways. Also I coveted his hat.

All that being said, this version is extremely worth seeing, and these Tonys are definitely less fired than the last time a Rachel Chavkin directed musical was up for a bushel of awards.

What happened then?

And I'm particularly glad that Anais Mitchell won a Tony, since so few women write musicals, let alone win Tonys for them.

Yes! May she be a harbinger of more.

[starlady]

"Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812" was nominated for 12 Tonys in 2017 (including many of the same ones that that Hadestown went up for, actually), clearly deserved all of them, and…won two, Best Lighting Design and Best Scenic Design. And the show closed three months later because the producers mismanaged it and got greedy.

[sovay]

"Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812" was nominated for 12 Tonys in 2017 (including many of the same ones that that Hadestown went up for, actually), clearly deserved all of them, and…won two

I wondered if that was it! I heard about that show when it was at the A.R.T. in 2015, but lost track of it—except for the existence of the Broadway run—after that.

And the show closed three months later because the producers mismanaged it and got greedy.

Oh, bleh.