HADESTOWN Musical at the Fox Theater Review

– By Cate Marquis –

The Tony and Grammy-winning Broadway hit “Hadestown” storms into the Fabulous Fox Theater for a short run, May 29-31. The musical combines two Greek myths, of Orpheus and Eurydice and of Hades and Persephone, with a blues music score for tale of two sets of lovers, human and god, on earth and in the underworld.

Suffused with wonderful blues music, “Hadestown” debuted on Broadway in 2019, telling a tale of two love stories, human and god, set against a backdrop of a class divide between ruling boss gods and poor struggling mortal workers. The musical was created by Anais Mitchell, who wrote the music, lyrics and book, originally in 2006,who released the music as an album in 2010. The musical was re-worked with director Rachel Chavkin in 2012 and made its Broadway debut to critical acclaim and won 8 Tonys. This touring Broadway production runs 2 hours and 30 minutes, with a 15 minute intermission, and is directed by Keenan Tyler Oliphant.

On opening night, with a packed house, this hopeful tale of gods and humans was kicked off by the god Hermes (Rudy Foster), our narrator and master of ceremonies throughout. Fun-loving, energetic Hermes is dressed up in silver formal attire with a sparkly vest, and gets the party started, as well as the story, in a bar in the human world of the mortals.

Hermes introduces us to his half-sister Persephone (Namisa Mdlalose Bizana) and her husband Hades (Nickolaus Colon), the god of the Underworld, up on their New Orleans-style balcony above the human’s barroom, where Hermes mingles with the mortals. He also introduces the Three Fates (Gia Keddy, Miriam Navarrete, Jayna Wescoatt), a trio of immortals who mock and tease the humans as much as they pass along messages from the gods.

Persephone is also the daughter of the unseen goddess of nature, who mourns the absence of her daughter by creating winter. For half of the year, Persephone returns to the earth and her mother, bringing Spring and Summer to the mortals.

Hermes introduces Orpheus, a young musician of whom the god is very fond, an idealistic, innocent young man with a special, magical gift for singing and composing songs, and playing the lute (here played by an electric guitar). When he spots someone new, who Hermes describes as “a hungry girl,” Eurydice (Hawa Kamara), Orpheus immediately falls in love.

The world of mortal humans is represented by the Worker’s Chorus (Jonice Bernard, Bryan Chan, Ryaan Farhadi, Bernell Lassai III, Erin McMillen), and the musical divides the world into a wealthy ruling class of the immortal gods and the mortal human world of the workers.

A band appears on stage, representing the musicians in the lively human world bar. The humans are huddle together against the cold but lifting there spirits with music and the entertaining Hermes. When Persephone arrives, bringing flowers and spring, the party really gets started.

Above them on the balcony is the finely dressed Hades, who rules over the underworld Hadestown, a factory and mine peopled by humans who work for him in the afterlife. Mortals board a train to Hadestown, signing a contract with boss Hades that allows them to escape the hunger, pain and cold of the world but in exchange for endless work in Hadestown mine/factory.

The story of the blues musical is set in a magical, symbolic version of our modern world, with the have-and-have not classes represented by the gods as the wealthy, ruling bosses and ordinary mortals as a struggling working class. That classic class divide is given a little extra resonance to the present day by the Hadestown project building a wall, without any specific references to individuals or current events but by letting the audience make the connections themselves.

The blues music and imaginative staging are magical, a blues-style score more tuneful and moving than scores of other recent musicals, making it’s Grammy-winning status no surprise. The show opens with Hermes’ song, “Road to Hell,” which Rudy Foster belts out with style. The whole company sings “Way Down Hadestown,” a rousing blues number, and the Fates are their mean girl best with “When the Chips Are Down.” Jose Contreras’ Orpheus woos Eurydice with the ballad “Come Home with Me” and Contreras demonstrates his magical singing abilities with “Epic I” and “Epic II” the magical song he is composing but which is “not finished” yet.

The show’s big standout number is near the end of the first act, “Wait for Me,” sung by Orpheus as he follows his love Eurydice into hell, determined to bring her back. Orpheus is accompanied by the Workers Chorus, who also swing lamps suspended above the stage, in a stunning effect.

Jose Contreras’ singing voice is high and lovely, but perhaps the best voice in the show belongs to bass Nickolaus Colon, who plays Hades. Colon’s numbers always were show-stoppers and his singing really comes to the fore in the second act, with “Papers,” “His Kiss, the Riot,” and duet with Namisa Mdlalose Bizana’s Persephone, whose voice is pretty terrific as well.

This is a moving, entertaining, inspiring and bittersweet musical that delivers completely on all levels, music, staging, story and performances.

“Hadestown” is on stage at the Fabulous Fox through May 29-31, 2026.

© Cate Marquis