The musical that tells the myth of the Greek characters Orpheus and Eurydice’s tragic love story, “Hadestown,” has been around for six years but has gained an extraordinary amount of recognition with the current tour that started in January of 2025 and is ongoing through North America until its last stop in Texas at the Bass Performance Hall from June 5 to June 7.
The tour stopped in Los Angeles for a run at the Pantages Theatre. It caught the attention of attendee Madeline Ng, a junior at Oak Park High School, who wrote a review of the play for the Los Angeles Times High School Insider.
“Seeing ‘Hadestown’ for the first time at the Pantages Theatre was a one ‘hell’ of an experience, making its way up to one of my favorite musicals,” wrote Ng.
The production has had many casts that exclusively performed at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York City. These unique showings brought the musical’s fans back time and again, eager to see new actors bring fresh takes on the old tale to life in their performances. With its current cast in New York, the musical gives everyone exactly what they envisioned for the retelling of these now-famous characters.
The cast is led by Megan Colton and Jose Contreras, who are the female and male leads of the production cast as lovers Eurydice and Orpheus. The Greek god of the Underworld, Hades, is played by Nickolaus Colón. The Greek goddess of spring and harvest is portrayed by Namisa Mdlalose Bizana. The Greek messenger god and narrator of the production is cast as Rudy Foster. The three Greek goddesses of destiny are cast as Miriam Navarette, Alli Sutton, and Jayna Wescoatt. The underground workers of “Hadestown” are cast as Jonice Bernard, Ryaan Farhadi, Erin McMillen, Miracle Myles, and Joe Rumi. The swings of the production are Ricky Cardenas, Michelle E. Carter, Julia Schick, and Wendell Scott Jr.
Rancho Cucamonga High School drama director Mr. James Loudermilk has seen the musical multiple times, seeing it in New York, Los Angeles, and London. He shared his thoughts on the current tour and the past showings of the musical he has seen.
“I think if you’ve seen the musical, you know what happens at the end. Every single time they do the ending a little bit differently, and so it’ll be interesting to see how the tour does it,” said Loudermilk. “It’s a really good artistic choice to see how different directors interpret it, and the musical brings so much joy with the dancing and singing. The audience feels a really strong connection to it, so it’s exciting to see new people take on the roles.”
Behind the scenes, the creators of the play and all of the songs tell a detailed and vivid story about the two love interests, Eurydice and Orpheus. The creators, Anaïs Mitchell and Rachel Chavkin, shared how they created the musical with the Hanover Theatre and Conservatory. They said they were focused on creating a show that is diverse in both vocal and physical aspects. They were looking for those who can make their own stylistic choices to add to the characters and the overall story of the myth and love story of Eurydice and Orpheus, in addition to the feelings of hope, determination, and love that can be seen in the ongoing tour performances. It gave the production a new look with each cast into their take on the world of “Hadestown” and how it came to be. Mitchell shared how she was looking for different qualities for each of the roles and shared that she believes diverse casts bring something new to the table.
“I think a [diverse] room is far more interesting, just purely on a dramatic level. It’s so much better stylistically, emotionally to have varied voices. And so yes, with “Hadestown” specifically, we have reaffirmed time and again that racial diversity in particular is core to our vision of excellence,” Mitchell said to Hanover Theatre and Conservatory.
This diversity has drawn many people into the production and keeps fans on the edge of their seats when a new cast is announced. Nobody truly knows who is going to turn the page on the story of “Hadestown” and who they will be doing it with. This even keeps past audience members coming back to witness different casts and how they perform the well-known songs that the production has gone viral for, such as “Wait for Me (reprise)” and “Epic III.”
The musical has a detailed plot with thought-out events in how everything should run, and this can even be seen in the ending of the musical with the ending song “We Raise Our Cups” that concludes the performance deliberately with an idea that the cast keeps performing in hopes that the story, that ends with Eurydice having to go back to “Hadestown” after a long journey trying to get back to the land of the living with her lover Orpheus, will have a happier ending someday.
Junior Alyanna Bangayan saw the tour performance at the Pantages for herself and shared her thoughts on what she believes is the main point of the story from what she had witnessed.
“I think a message in the musical was if you really love somebody and if you really like somebody, you would do anything to get them back, and make sure they are okay, to the point of going to the underworld for them,” Bangayan said.
As far as the “Hadestown” North American Tour goes, it seems to have gained a lot of attention from the public, with positive reviews from varying stops, and many people who are planning on seeing the production in further stops as their tour goes on are eager to see what they have in store.
