This fall, Pittsburg Theatre chose to remake the production of Hadestown, Teen Edition. Hadestown is a Greek love story that follows Orpheus and Eurydice as they navigate love and sacrifice.  

The idea of this show first started in a small town in Vermont in 2006. Anaïs Mitchell came up with the concept originally, she then had help with music production form director Rachel Chavkin. It wasn’t until 2016 when Hadestown had its first off Broadway debut. In 2019, Hadestown appeared on Broadway for the first time. The story and the music immediately blew up, people everywhere loved the beautiful Greek love story of Eurdyce and Orpheus.

Senior Norlan Aguilar plays Orpheus, the naive boy who gambles on everything. 

“I was very excited when I found out I got the role of Orpheus. It’s definitely been one of my dream roles, especially ever since I saw it at KTF last year when we performed Les Mis at state. It was very exciting and I was really thrilled to have gotten the role.”

Last year, Norlan won the Jester Award after making it to state with Les Misérables, last year’s fall show.

 “Les Mis was sad, and it was a powerful show. But Hadestown is just more soul crushing,” Sophomore Adeline Sullivan explains. Adeline is playing the role of Eurdyce, the girl who sells her soul to Hades for a chance at a new beginning. 

“People should come to see Hadestown,” Adeline says. “I think that every show we put on just shows how much talent highschoolers do truly have. We have put so much work into this show.”  

 Something extremely unique about this production is there are two separate casts. For the first time ever, trope 3149 put on two uniquely different shows. They have an understudy cast and a main cast, which means our community gets two different opportunities to see this show play out. 

 “Every actor brings something different to the table,” Aguilar states. The rehearsal process has been a little different than usual. These actors have to learn different roles for the same show. Junior Townes Sullivan, who has the role of Hades in the main production, also has the role of ensemble in the understudy show.

“It’s a little bit more complicated. It certainly makes people that have two tracks- like Hades and then my understudy is a worker,” Townes says. “I’m just an ensemble. It makes it a lot harder because Hades doesn’t do a lot of dancing. So I essentially had to learn one half of the show, then the other half of the show through ensemble and then Hades. Which is difficult, but at the same time it’s preparing you for what would happen in a real life Broadway situation.”

They are also adding additional tech elements that they aren’t used to. This year, they added a turntable for them to walk and dance on as they performed. Initially, the turntable was difficult to figure out, but the tech crew overcame these obstacles, making this production extremely memorable. As well as the technological improvements, this year, head producer Breanna Clark reminisces on the beautiful musical talents the play has in store. 

“There’s just a variety of songs in the show that every time I hear just make me kind of tear up, because they’re special, and they’re sung really well by the students.” Clark said. 

The talent, technology, and technique put into this play, made it the school entertainment of the fall season. From the ensemble members to the lead characters, the play was the drama we needed.