HADESTOWN

More than a decade ago, folk singer/songwriter Anaïs

Mitchell wrote the concept album Hadestown based on

the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. After various

reincarnations, Mitchell teamed up with Tony award-

nominated director Rachel Chavkin to develop a

Hadestown musical for the stage. After a very successful

workshop production at New York Theatre Workshop in

2016, Mitchell, Chavkin, and a team of producers are

bringing the musical to the Citadel Theatre to revamp it

for a larger stage and a possible Broadway run. Chavkin,

fresh off her Tony nomination for directing Natasha, Pierre

& The Great Comet of 1812 on Broadway, spoke to us from

New York’s Imperial Theatre about her collaboration with

Mitchell and what Citadel audiences can expect from the

Canadian premiere of Hadestown.

Citadel Theatre: When Anaïs Mitchell approached you about developing Hadestown into a

musical, what was your initial reaction?

Rachel Chavkin: I fell madly in love with the album. Anaïs and I met after she saw my production

of Great Comet at Ars Nova, and a mutual friend introduced us. We slowly started talking from

there. It was a slow courtship, but by spring of 2013 we were diving into story structure, what

narrative was already in place, where there were holes, etc. But yes – mostly my initial reaction

was ‘this music is glorious.’

CT: What is your working relationship with Anaïs like? What’s your collaboration process been like

so far?

RC: Anaïs and I have a very close collaborative process. Because she doesn’t come from a theatre

background, I’m able to bring a background in story structure, along with our dramaturg Ken

Cerniglia. And then Anaïs brings this extraordinary intuition about what’s emotional and what

rhymes feel good – all of this stuff. It’s very symbiotic, I would say. We come at things from very

diametrically opposed angles. I’m sort of all structure and bone and architecture, and she’s so

heart and intuitive, and obviously we meet on many, many grounds.

CT: You convinced the New York Theatre Workshop to tear up their stage and auditorium to

create a kind of theater in the round, with beat-up old chairs for Hadestown. What was the

inspiration for that specific setting?

Rachel Chavkin, director of Hadestown.

Photo by Chad Batka.

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.

RC: Hadestown is a Greek myth at its

core. And in thinking about the

production, there were two initial

images: swinging lights that would move

with the choruses of Wait For Me, and

the other was wanting it to feel like we

had all gathered around a tree to hear an

ancient story. And then our set designer,

Rachel Hauk, had this other impulse,

which was a Greek amphitheater. And so

we arrived at this old-style, but Vermont

barn – let’s all gather around a campfire

and hear a story feeling to it. And New

York Theatre Workshop has a long, long

history of radically transforming their

space from show to show so this was

totally in the pocket for them.

CT: Will the tempo or mood of the show change when it shifts to a larger proscenium theatre

here at the Citadel?

RC: I think the production at the Citadel is going to feel both quite different and also

hopefully have that same liveness and intimacy in storytelling that we created at New York

Theatre Workshop. But yes, figuring out how it feels in proscenium is our biggest question

going into this run.

CT: You’ve been working on Hadestown for years now, along with several other shows,

including the Tony award-winning Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. Do you find

working on each of your shows is a very different experience or are there similar elements to

every show you work on?

RT: My professional life’s defining characteristic is its eclecticism. I really love being

challenged in different ways from show to show I don’t take a project unless I feel it very

deeply in some part of my bones – that could be the politics, or the philosophy, or the

emotional journey of a character. And I think I start the directing process for every show from

thinking about, ‘OK, how do I help the audience feel that as vividly as I do?’ The path to that

answer is different depending on whatever the show is because every show should feel

different inherently. I’m not sure I’m the person to best identify what unites all my work but I

can say that I am seeking this sort of visceral experience for the audience in everything I do.

“It’s two incredible, interweaving

love stories and the music is just

lavishly beautiful.” - Rachel Chavkin

CT: Where do you find your inspiration and motivation to work on multiple shows at the same

time?

RC: I’m a very good multi-tasker. I have to be quite regimented about where my brain is at in

any given hour of the day. My favourite thing to do is go to the picture collection at the NY

Public Library, and do visual research for hours, if I can, just to think laterally. The picture

collection is a massive room full of pictures. You go up to the nice librarian and you’re like, ‘I

want a picture of Moscow in the 1830s, and also pictures of comets, and also can you show

me pictures of trees and root structures?’ and maybe while you’re there, you’re like, ‘Can

you also show me pictures of dirt and barns and whatever?’. So you don’t know where the

inspiration is going to come from, and that’s what the picture collection is best for, in a way

that I find Google – because it’s so good at what it does in terms of just feeding you what you

put into it – is a much more limiting way of thinking while doing visual research for me

because the algorithms are actually too good.

CT: If this production of Hadestown

reaches Broadway, do you think people

will have the urge to compare it to The

Great Comet?

RT: Of course, but comparisons are

violence, says my friend Taylor Mac.

Hadestown is its own beautiful beast.

CT: You’ve been quoted as saying you

“love chaos.” What role does chaos play in

your creative process?

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.

RC: Chaos plays no role in my process.

Well, that’s actually a lie. I think, during

my process, particularly in the rehearsal

room, I tend to say a lot of stuff to my

actors at the outset but then I’ll let us live

in exploration pretty much up until tech –

and then I make sure everything is nailed

down. I think that’s the only way to really

get that kind of vivid life going. So there’s

room for uncertainty and mess, but also

it’s within a rigorous frame.

“I think the production at the Citadel

is going to feel both quite different

and also hopefully have that same

liveness and intimacy in storytelling

that we created at New York Theatre

Workshop.” - Rachel Chavkin

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.

Photograph by Joan Marcus. ©2016. Nabiyah Be and Damon Daunno from the New York Theatre Workshop

production of the musical Hadestown.

CT: Hadestown has been in the works for more than a decade, but its relevance today is

stronger than ever, especially with the political climate in the U.S. What do you hope the

Canadian audience will take away from seeing the show?

RC: I hope the audience will … you know, I can’t say that I know Canada or Canadians well

enough to know how they’ll be different from U.S. audiences, but I can say that I hope that any

audience is moved by the story. It’s two incredible, interweaving love stories and the music is

just lavishly beautiful. So that, first and foremost. I think the play raises all these questions

about stability and control versus chance and unpredictability in life, and authenticity that

comes with unpredictability. We’ve worked very hard to make sure that no one is bad versus

good in the story, because that would not be very interesting storytelling. For me, Hades is a

victim of his own desire to control everything, and I think that’s quite sad. I hope the audience

takes values about control versus vulnerability from seeing the show.

CT: Do you have a favourite song from the show?

RC: I love so much of the music but Wait For Me was the first song I ever fell in love with.