Mason Theater among the first to produce Hadestown musical

Grace Ai | The Chronicle

After the successes of Mamma Mia last spring, Mason High School (MHS) Drama Club is returning to the stage with its production of the Broadway musical Hadestown. MHS will be among the first high schools in the nation to perform the eight-time Tony award-winning musical. Composed and written by Anais Mitchell, the musical Hadestown first debuted in 2009 as a retelling of the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in 1930s New Orleans. Orpheus, the son of a muse, sings to Eurydice, promising to marry her and bring spring and comfort back to their harsh world with a magical song. In need of food and a warm place to stay while her betrothed works on his song, Eurydice joins Hades, the king of the underworld, accepting a damning deal to escape her life in the elements. Determined to free her, Orpheus makes the dangerous journey to the underworld. As the theater teacher and director of Hadestown, Allen Young said that the musical is a beautiful story about love that uses Greek mythology to tie it together, and is excited that this year is the first that it is available for high schools to produce. While a few lines were changed and some songs were modified to easier keys to sing, the teen edition remains largely the same as the original. “Hadestown is probably the best show Broadway has produced in a decade,” Young said. Hadestown has many nuanced themes and undertones of love and perseverance, as it tells the simultaneous love stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, played by sophomores John Schoultz and Lily Droege, and Hades and Persephone, played by senior Connor Lape and junior Mar Snedaker. Young said that this is a big change from what the theater did last year with Mamma Mia. “If you look at Mamma Mia last year, it’s like a really good ice cream sundae,” Young said. “But it’s not nutritional. It’s fun to eat and everybody likes it, but [Hadestown] is like a fancy, chef-prepared meal.” Senior and sound designer Sam Aronoff said this year’s production is more challenging in many ways than the drama club’s previous musicals. Aronoff works with the rest of the sound team to manage the musical’s sound effects, as well as the microphones that actors use when performing, making sure that all the audio runs smoothly. “We often do comedic shows where there’s not really too much emotion behind it, [so] it’s pretty easy to do because when you have written out comedy, it’s up to the actors to create that physicality [of it],” Aronoff said. “But when you have Hadestown as a drama, you can’t really just rely on funny words in the script to make the show good. You have to provide that emotion with how you act, where people are positioned, [and] how their faces look.” Playing the co-lead role of Eurydice, sophomore Lily Droege says that Eurydice is the most compelling character in the musical because of how much she mirrors modern society, especially with the choices she faces. Unlike in the original Greek myth, the Broadway show’s Eurydice chooses to enter the Underworld instead of being kidnapped. “Eurydice having that choice adds more depth to the character, and the audience gets to see her thought process behind her decisions,” Droege said. “She’s not just a victim of a decision being made for her.” Sophomore John Schoultz, playing Orpheus and co-lead to Droege, said his favorite song is “Way Down Hadestown” (one of the bigger musical numbers in Act One). Schoultz said that the music was a big reason for why he wanted to be cast in the production and why he wanted to perform as Orpheus. “The music is a lot [more] different than your standard musicals,” Schoultz said. “It’s a lot more folk and a lot more jazz, which are my favorite kinds of genres.” Schoultz says there are many reasons why people go to see Hadestown. The musical appeals to fans of New Orleans music styles, fans of the foundational myth or fans of the dramatized modern politics playing out on the stage in front of them. “Some people love Greek mythology, and so they’ll come for the story,” Schoultz said. “Some people know about the folk and jazz songs, [so] they’ll come for the music. [Others] go for the emotion and the roller coaster of a show it is.” As one of the first to produce the show at a high school level, there is some pressure to live up to the standards of a popular and high-achieving musical, according to Droege. Since the entire show is performed through musical numbers, the cast members have to memorize up to 40 songs full of lyrics and choreography in the span of two months for the late-April performances. “I already feel the pressure just by being the lead in this production,” Droege said. “But being one of the first high schools to do Hadestown [means] there’s [even] more pressure to do good.” Schoultz says he feels a lot of pressure when it comes to living up to the actors before him, due to their high skill level and the multiple versions of his character in each production. To him, there is also a lot of pressure to keep up with the rest of his castmates, not just the show. Another challenge is the singing itself, as Orpheus sings in a different style compared to the other songs in Hadestown. “A lot of times, you get a lot of these ‘belty’ numbers,” Schoultz said. “Orpheus has this very nice, soft upper register that he sings in frequently, and it’s a really big change of pace. I think that’s going to be tricky to get into, but a lot of fun to get it down.” Another aspect of producing a musical is the set—sophomore and co-assistant technical director David Ranker says there is a lot of work that goes into making the set for Hadestown. The set crew builds everything from what the actors will walk on, the buildings and the scaffolding in the background. Every part of the set is tested for stability to ensure the actors’ safety; a couple of people stand and lightly jump on the platforms to see if the crew needs to fix anything before moving on with construction. “We build all of the stairs [and] platforms, and for this show, we have a walk-out that [will] extend over the orchestra pit,” Ranker said. The band and orchestra for the production will be placed on top of the stage instead of in the orchestra pit. The sound crew will have to put microphones on some of the instruments in order to be heard. Aronoff said that, in order to do a good job, the sound crew has to be able to quickly problem-solve and adapt to situations that arise throughout live performances. “[Sound] is very hard because it’s so subjective,” Aronoff says. “Everybody’s ears are different, which means that everybody perceives the sound differently.” The main goal for the sound team is to make sure that everyone can hear the musical, Aronoff said. It should sound as though the audience is in the same room as the actors, without any extra noises or feedback. “It’s our job to go unnoticed and unseen,” Aronoff said. Young said there are a lot of responsibilities for the director, as he has to oversee every part of the production, which includes the set for the musical. “I lead the cast, the designers, the costumers, the technical folks and all the people that work under them [toward] a unified vision of the show,” Young said. “I have to be the person that says, ‘this is what our show is about’ and make a lot of choices to get [the crew] to all buy into that vision, and I’m ultimately responsible for how it all turns out.” For Young, every musical production poses a different challenge. However, having successfully worked on similar drama-based musicals like Les Miserables in previous years, Young says that he is not too worried about this production. “[With] my experience working all of these years, it makes it easier for me [to have] confidence that we’re going to be fine,” Young said. “For the students, it’s just one day at a time. We break it down into little, digestible pieces, and you make sure that each day, you’re covering what you need to cover, and the big plan comes together at the end.” Droege said that she wants to emulate the spirit of her character as much as possible rather than trying to convey a different interpretation of Eurydice. “If you go back and listen to some of the earlier versions of the musical, you can really [hear] a lot of complexities with Eurydice’s character in terms of her feelings [towards] Orpheus once he brings spring back,” Droege said. “I’m trying to stay as true as I can to [that] original intention.” As a senior, Aronoff says this production is a culmination of his four years in the sound department, where there is not anyone older or more experienced than him. For Schoultz, the show is an opportunity to present Orpheus his own way, and for the entire cast and crew at MHS to present the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice in a new light beyond the stage on Broadway. “My hope is to be able to tell the story [of the musical], because it’s an amazing story, and it takes a lot to tell [it],” Schoultz said.