Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

Diversity and the Dynamic Women Behind 'Hadestown'

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 04 May 2022 17:00:00 -0700

Rachel Chavkin, Developed with and Director of 'HADESTOWN'

One recipe for a great musical is the union of an innovative writer and an insightful director, unafraid of expanding that writer’s vision beyond the page. Anaïs Mitchell, writer of Hadestown’s book, music, and lyrics, and director Rachel Chavkin, the women behind the show’s greatness, accentuate and deepen each other’s strengths. Between them, they found compatibility, commitment to the project, and the meaning of excellence. It was a mutual respect for each other’s art that sparked their union. “You know, I had no idea Rachel was a woman when I fell in love with her work,” says Mitchell. “We sought out the folks whose work we responded to most, and many of them were women.” Much of Hadestown’s production and technical team include women at the forefront. Such a dynamic is a rarity on Broadway, but paid great dividends for Hadestown. “I will say it was an extraordinarily empowering experience working with so many women. I felt my instincts were really trusted,” says Mitchell. Hadestown’s great success shows that diversity is not simply about gender or racial differences; it is also about differences in background and mindset.

Mitchell was introduced to Chavkin’s work in 2012 when she saw the Ars Nova production of Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812. “I was completely awestruck, and I thought, ‘Who’s that director?’ It turned out to be Rachel,” Mitchell says. The production later moved to Broadway and earned Chavkin her first TONY nomination. Mitchell’s discovery of Chavkin’s work came at a valuable time in Hadestown’s development. Initially a DIY community theater project in Vermont, Mitchell would develop the show into a studio album and then a touring concert. But Hadestown would prove to need the influence of Chavkin before it could reach its fullest potential as the folk opera that thrilled Broadway audiences. Mitchell decided to seek out Chavkin’s talents while trying to develop Hadestown into a full-length professional musical. “Great Comet, like many of Rachel’s shows, had this combination of highly accessible Broadway-style entertainment and also real unapologetic downtown weirdness,” remembers Mitchell, admiringly. “Rachel has a great feel for music and musicals and how to bring the best aspects of concert culture into the theater.” Hadestown became a product of each artist’s greatest strengths, blending Mitchell’s eloquent songbook with Chavkin’s innovative directorial style.

Chavkin says that she was drawn to Hadestown because of its poetic nature, admiring its balance of innovation and tradition: “I've never encountered a score that feels so singular in its style while still taking up some of the storytelling rules that musical theater goes by.” Although Chavkin says Hadestown is the hardest show she’s ever directed, Mitchell liked the way Chavkin challenged her and the show. “Rachel’s a gifted dramaturg and she’s not afraid to really roll up her sleeves in the development process of a show. We worked together for three years before we got an off-Broadway production, and three more before we landed on Broadway,” says Mitchell, adding: “Rachel [gave me] ‘tough love’ and she pushed me—a songwriter with almost no dramatic writing experience—to write and rewrite until the drama was satisfying.”

Chavkin’s contributions helped escort Hadestown to Broadway’s pinnacle, where she was also recognized for excellence. She was the only woman nominated for a 2019 TONY in the Best Direction of a Musical category, which she won. “Women are very well represented on Broadway as performers and as writers, but when you look at the small number of women directing on Broadway it is shocking and more than a little depressing,” wrote Wicked producer David Stone in 2005. Little changed in the 15 years between Stone’s article and Chavkin’s win, and so Chavkin used the platform of her acceptance speech to advocate for the hiring of women and people of color in theatre: “There are so many women who are ready to go. There are so many artists of color who are ready to go. And we need to see that racial diversity and gender diversity reflected in our critical establishment, too. This is not a pipeline issue. It is a failure of imagination by a field whose job is to imagine the way the world could be.”

When assembling teams for her productions, Chavkin draws from the best and selects the most talented artists. By intentionally embracing inclusivity, she builds a diverse company that understands the needs of a global audience. “I think diversity is inextricable from excellence, and I think all too often people, and in particular the dominant culture tends to frame it as a choice that you have to make between diversity and excellence. And I personally think it's the opposite,” Chavkin assures. “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, with Hadestown specifically, we have reaffirmed time and again that racial diversity in particular is core to our vision of excellence.”

Although there are numerous notable women working off-stage and challenge the status quo, Hadestown’s lead producer, Mara Isaacs says there’s still more work to be done. “Hadestown is built on a set of core values – the power of community, equity, diversity, and inclusion," says lead producer Isaacs. "We are proud of the incredible women who helm this production and the talented and diverse company that brings it to life, but we recognize that there is always more work to do. We must continue to strive for equity – gender, racial, and otherwise – throughout our industry, not just on stage. This is a challenge that we must recommit to every single day.”

“Theater depicts and celebrates humanity, and humanity is diverse,” asserts Mitchell. And so, thanks to the shared commitments of its creators, Hadestown strives for connection to every human experience, showing diversity to be colorful, productive, and exciting.

'Hadestown’s' Hope and Healing Powers

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 04 May 2022 17:00:00 -0700

The fact that Hadestown feels so relevant may seem surprising, considering that its composition started more than a decade ago. Mitchell conceived “Wait for Me,” a fiery declaration song at the center of the score, several years before Hadestown saw a Broadway stage, early in her singer-songwriter career. “I was driving from one tip gig to another when the melody of ‘Wait for Me’ dropped out of the sky,” says Mitchell, who wrote Hadestown’s book, music, and lyrics. “It came with some long-lost lyrics that seemed to describe the Orpheus & Eurydice myth, which had been a favorite of mine as a kid.” Like his Classical predecessor, Mitchell’s Orpheus can change the world through music. Viral videos of hopeful Italians singing from their balconies during COVID-19 quarantine show that Orpheus’s ethos thrives throughout the globe. “I think what inspired me most about retelling that story was the idea of pitting young, creative, optimistic Orpheus against an underworld where ‘the rules are the rules,’” Mitchell says. “At first it was the idea of Orpheus, who believes if he could just write something beautiful enough, he could move the heart of stone. He could change the way the world is.”

Embracing music’s ability to trigger a spectrum of emotions, Mitchell wrote Hadestown to encompass healing powers, inviting audiences on a sacred pilgrimage to Hell and back. The musical’s more distinct lines, like “To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now,” and “If no one takes too much, there will always be enough,” offer hope to many in the present moment. “To me, those first lines are a reminder that even in hard times, there's beauty and bravery and cause for celebration. There’s beauty in the struggle for a better world even if we can’t yet see the result,” Mitchell explains. “Orpheus is a hero not because he succeeds—but because he tries!”

Orpheus offers a glimpse at humanity’s fullest power by following through on his conviction for goodness and beauty. “Orpheus was by far the hardest character for me to write, in part because he’s more ‘pure’ than any other character,” Mitchell explains. “Hades, Persephone, and even Hermes and Eurydice have a sort of jaded quality, a world-weariness that is much easier to grasp and to write for. Orpheus is a dreamer, a genuine optimist, and that has been a challenge to discover and to express in writing. It’s hard to take an optimist seriously! For a long time, his optimism came across as overconfidence, which wasn’t in keeping with his sensitive soul.” Orpheus is the blueprint for optimism accelerating healing. His character urges audiences to look a little deeper for the good in the world, even if that search appears foolhardy.

As its characters quite literally travel the road to Hell, Hadestown encourages audiences to experience that which feels harsh and might seem inevitable, but cautions against letting such a harrowing journey breed fear or despair. “Why We Build the Wall,” the show’s bombastic Act 1 finale sung by a domineering Hades, for example, highlights the exclusionary powers of borders. “I wrote that song in 2006, and it’s one of the few songs that I wrote very quickly, all in one sitting, almost before I understood what it meant,” says Mitchell. “I was imagining a climate in crisis, a world in which many places had become uninhabitable and there were large populations of migrants knocking at the gates of the places of relative wealth and security. And the thought that popped into my head was, ‘When that happens, who among us is not going to want to be behind some kind of wall?’ Leaders (like Hades in Hadestown) have found it effective to use the language of the wall because it speaks loudly to a scared citizenry. The next thought that crossed my mind was the way walling others out has the equal and unintended effect of walling ourselves in.”

Mitchell’s concern has proven prescient. Since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, leaders around the globe have ordered citizens to remain locked within the walls of their homes while also shutting down borders to immigration and travel. During mandated stay-at-home orders, the world watched in horror for 8 minutes and 46 seconds the murder of George Floyd, another un-armed Black killed at the hands of police. Floyd’s unjustified death by those paid to protect and serve, sparked a universal outcry of “Black Lives Matter,” and “Enough is Enough.” Hadestown offers dogged hope in the face of seemingly endless gloom. As the pandemic rages and citizens of the world remain “walled in,” we have the same opportunity as Orpheus to focus on making the world a better place. He reminds us not to use material goods as the only source of satisfaction and happiness, but to look deeper for the music striking cords of love, humanity, equality, peace, and spirituality.