OUR LADY OF THE UNDERGROUND

Anaïs Mitchell wants to change the world with a song

Anaïs Mitchell, the creative force behind

Hadestown. Photograph by Jay Sansone.

A lot has changed for Anaïs Mitchell the past few

years. The singer/songwriter moved from Vermont to

Brooklyn, for one thing. And, she became a mother

to Ramona, who’s now three. But, the biggest

change of all has been collaborating with Tony award

-nominated director Rachel Chavkin on the musical

Hadestown. What started as a small theatre project

and popular concept album has catapulted Mitchell

into the bright lights of New York theatre in a weird,

cosmic, pinch-me-I’m-dreaming journey of a life-

time. But, ultimately, she’s still a singer-songwriter

with a guitar and a desire to write a song that could

change the world.

The first thing that strikes me about Anaïs Mitchell is that she appears a little bit softer in

person. Her rock-and-roll, slightly shaggy haircut is the same, and her style — a ripped pink tank

top layered under a pale blush crop top, black skinny jeans and scuffed lace-up boots — still

exudes a little bit of punk vibe. But her face itself appears softer, more youthful than it does in

photos. She’s come to Edmonton for auditions for her hit Off-Broadway musical, Hadestown,

which will have its Canadian Premiere at the Citadel Theatre in the fall of 2017.

Before she became a part of the theatre world, she had already firmly established herself in the

musical one. Mitchell recorded several albums on Ani Difranco’s label, Righteous Babe Records,

before switching to her own Wilderland Records, in 2012, and releasing three albums. Her most

recent work is 2014’s xoa. Since then, she has temporarily put aside her songwriting for a Very

Important Project: Hadestown.

What is Hadestown, you may ask? What isn’t Hadestown is more like it. It’s existed in almost

every art form possible. First, it was a Do-It-Yourself theatre project, started in 2006 by

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“Spoiler alert — it’s a

tragic ending.” - Anaïs Mitchell

Mitchell and her collaborators:

Bread & Puppet veteran Ben t.

Matchstick and primary

orchestrator-arranger Michael

Chorney. Featuring friends from

Vermont bands in the various

roles, it was simple, but it was

sufficiently special to spark

something in Mitchell’s being —

she loved it enough to want to

keep working on it. From there, it

evolved into a folk opera album,

produced by Todd Sickafoose and

sung by such collaborators as

Difranco, folk legend Greg

Brown, and Justin Vernon (the

front man for Bon Iver). The album caught the attention of the international press,

receiving sensational reviews and finding its way onto many ‘Best of’ lists the year it was

released. Mitchell took it on tour, featuring local artists in each city to sing the parts in

the Greek myth: Hades, Hermes, Persephone, Orpheus, Eurydice, and the Fates.

Yes, the Greek myth. The idea for Hadestown sprang from Mitchell’s brain (much like the

goddess Athena sprang from Zeus’ head) based on her love of the Orpheus and Eurydice

myth, which she first read in an illustrated book as a child.

Anaïs Mitchell: The original myth is that Orpheus, the great musician, is in love with

Eurydice, who is a wood nymph, and they fall in love. On the day of their wedding, she is

bitten by a snake, and she dies and goes to the Underworld. Orpheus is so distraught, so

he does what no mortal has done — he goes down to the Underworld to try to get her

back from Hades. He sings his sad songs and he moves the heart of Persephone, the wife

of Hades. Persephone appeals to Hades on Orpheus’ behalf and Hades says he can have

Eurydice back if he can walk out of the Underworld without turning around to make sure

she’s behind him. So she walks behind him and, at the very last minute, he loses faith

and he turns around to make sure she is there and then he loses her forever. Spoiler alert

— it’s a tragic ending.

Hadestown is a retelling of that story. All the characters have the same names. But in

this version of the story, it takes place in a kind of dream-like Depression Era-esque

landscape, where the above ground world is sort of post-Apocalyptic, and the below

ground world is this sort-of nation state, a place of relative security. Hades, who is the

boss or the king of that land, is building a wall all around his nation state to keep out the

unpredictable forces of nature and poverty. Eurydice, in this version of the story,

actually chooses to go to Hadestown because there is security there, there’s safety. Her

life with her lover above ground is very unpredictable. It’s a political dreamscape version

of the original Greek myth.

Photograph by Joan Marcus. ©2016. Shaina Taub, Amber Gray, Damon

Daunno, and Lulu Fall from the New York Theatre Workshop production

of the musical Hadestown.

When Mitchell became a songwriter after college, she found herself relating more and more to

Orpheus, the mythological hero of song writers. “In Hadestown, he’s a character who believes

that if he could just write something good enough, he could change the world, he could

change the way things are,” says Mitchell. “I think I’ve had that feeling and many of us have.

To tell that story in a new way felt exciting.” But as time has gone on —10 years of careful

reshaping, reworking, rewriting — Mitchell finds herself understanding other characters, like

Eurydice and Hermes, more than Orpheus the dreamer. Hermes is, after all, a story-teller, just

like Mitchell.

In 2013, Mitchell moved from Vermont, where her parents still live, to Brooklyn. She saw a

variety of shows, as one does when living in New York, and came across an early, Off-Broadway

version of Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, directed by Rachel

Chavkin. Mitchell was blown away. “I just fell in love with that piece and her direction of it,”

she says. “I sort of sensed in her a collaborator that could take the thing further without

breaking what was working about it as more of a Fringe piece.”

With Chavkin by her side, Mitchell started workshopping the piece at New York Theatre

Workshop. Dale Franzen and Mara Isaacs came on board as lead producers. Fast-forward to

May 2016, and a musical version of Hadestown plays to sold-out audiences at New York Theatre

Workshop. In June, a live studio recording with the cast follows. The show was a success and

Broadway now seems like a very real possibility for Hadestown, especially with Chavkin’s

Broadway production of

Natasha, Pierre & The

Great Comet of 1812

receiving rave reviews. To

date, it is leading the pack

of Tony nominations with

12 nods (including one for

Chavkin, for Best Direction

of a Musical). But it’s New

York, and there are steps

to be taken to get to the

bright lights of Broadway.

“It feels really great for us to be able to take this show somewhere far from New

York and work on it in a way that feels sort of protected from that very critical

world of theatre and be able to take some changes and explore up here.”

- Anaïs Mitchell

Photograph by Joan Marcus. ©2016.

Nabiyah Be and Damon Daunno from

the New York Theatre Workshop

production of the musical

Hadestown.

Hadestown runs November 11 to December 3, 2017, at Citadel Theatre. For more

information or to purchase tickets, call 780.425.1820 or visit www.citadeltheatre.com.

That’s where the Citadel Theatre comes in. In February 2017, Daryl Cloran, Artistic Director of

the Citadel, announced that the next production of Hadestown — the step just before Broadway

— would take place not in Chicago or in London, England’s West End, but in Canada. And, not in

Toronto, but in Edmonton, Alberta, at Canada’s third-largest regional theatre. Cloran, who

started as the Artistic Director of the Citadel in September 2016, convinced the producers that

the theatre — and Edmonton — would be the ideal place to shape Hadestown from a theatre-in-

the-round piece to something that would work on the proscenium stages found in 99 per cent of

theatres on Broadway. “I called the producers and told them about the Citadel and everything

that was possible here,” says Cloran. “And, at first, I think they weren’t sure. But the more that

we talked about the great production resources that we have here at the Citadel and the kinds

of productions that we’ve done here in the past, the more excited the producers got about the

potential of coming here to work with us.”

In May 2017, Mitchell, Chavkin and several others from the creative team travelled to Canada

for auditions in Edmonton and Toronto to find some Canadian actors for the cast — something

Cloran insisted be a part of the deal. “It’s an amazing opportunity, not only for Edmonton

audiences to see this production before it goes to Broadway but for Canadian artists to have the

chance to work on this production here and to have the chance to work with a fantastic director

like Rachel Chavkin,” explains Cloran. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we’re able to

provide.”

Mitchell, for her part, is happy to leave behind the scrutiny of the Big Apple and the Broadway

world to work on Hadestown in peace. “It feels really great for us to be able to take this show

somewhere far from New York and work on it in a way that feels sort of protected from that

very critical world of theatre and be able to take some changes and explore up here,” she says.

“That feels like a new period for us.”

“… It takes place in a kind of

dream-like Depression Era-esque

landscape, where the above

ground world is sort of post-

Apocalyptic, and the below

ground world is this sort-of

nation state, a place of relative

security.” - Anaïs Mitchell

Photograph by Joan Marcus. ©2016. Shaina

Taub, Lulu Fall, Damon Daunno, Nabiyah Be,

Amber Gray, Chris Sullivan, and Jessie Shelton

from the New York Theatre Workshop

production of the musical Hadestown.