Picture: Johan Persson
With performances at the Lyric Theatre due to begin on 10 February 2023, the West End premiere run of record-breaking and multi-award-winning Hadestown has already been extended up to 22 December.
An extra 150,000 tickets have gone on sale for the hit production which will return to London five years after playing a sold-out National Theatre season in 2018.
Hadestown is developed by director Rachel Chavin and American folk singer Anaïs Mitchell, whose original concept album, inspired by the Greek myth of Orpheus’ journey into the Underworld to rescue his love Eurydice, provides the basis for the genre-defying musical.
The West End cast includes Dónal Finn (Amazon Prime’s The Wheel of Time) as Orpheus alongside Grace Hodgett Young (Sunset Boulevard, Savoy Theatre) as Eurydice, with Grammy Award-winner Zachary James (The Addams Family, Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on Broadway, The Perfect American, Teatro Real in Madrid) as Hades, actress and singer Melanie La Barrie (Mary Poppins, Prince Edward Theatre, & Juliet, Shaftesbury Theatre) as Hermes. After playing one of the Fates during the National Theatre run, Gloria Onitiri (Cinderella, Gillian Lynne Theatre, Upstart Crow, Apollo Theatre) will take on the role of Persephone at the Lyric.
The West End cast will also include Bella Brown, Madeline Charlemagne, and Allie Daniel as the Fates and Lauren Azania, with Tiago Dhondt Bamberger, Beth Hinton-Lever, Waylon Jacobs and Christopher Short as the Workers and Lucinda Buckley, Ryesha Higgs, Miriam Nyarko, and Simon Oskarsson as Swings.
The creative team also includes David Neumann (choreography), Rachel Hauck (scenic design), Michael Krass (costume design), Bradley King (lighting design), Nevin Steinberg and Jessica Paz (sound design), Liam Robinson (music supervision and vocal arrangements), Michael Chorney and Todd Sickafoose (arrangements and orchestrations), Tarek Merchant ( musical director) and Ken Cerniglia (dramaturgy). Casting for the London production is by Jacob Sparrow.
A version of the show was first performed on stage in Mitchell’s home state of Vermont ahead of the concept album release. Mitchell added 15 new songs and dialogue before joining forces with the show’s director Rachel Chavkin to shape the project into a full stage show.
After a successful debut run at the New York Theatre Workshop in 2016, followed by an equally successful run in Edmonton, Canada, the musical played a sold out run at the National Theatre in 2018.
After further development, Hadestown premiered at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre, winning eight Tony Awards including Best Musical. It now holds the record for the highest-grossing musical and longest-running show in the theatre’s 100-year history. The North American tour is celebrating its second year of sold-out performances.
Mixing modern American folk music with vintage New Orleans jazz, the genre-defying musical features set design by Rachel Hauck, costume design by Michael Krass, lighting design by Bradley King, sound design by Nevin Steinberg and Jessica Paz, choreography by David Neumann, musical direction by Liam Robinson, and arrangements and orchestrations by Michael Chorney and Todd Sickafoose, with Ken Cerniglia as dramaturg.
Commenting on the Tony and Grammy Award-winning show’s London encore, Mitchell said: “We’re all thrilled to be bringing Hadestown back to London! We truly loved our time at the National Theatre in 2018 and felt so welcomed by your city that it feels like a homecoming to be returning (to the West End)!
“I’m excited to work in and with the fantastic theatre community of London, and to share the newest version of our show, as there was a great deal of development pre-Broadway based on things we learned at the National! And it’s always a curious gift to witness how this epic myth vibrates differently in different places and times. That is, West End Hadestown will be its own world – born of London and the now- and we can’t wait to discover it.”
Angela Thomas
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