Rachel Chavkin & Anais Mitchell's HADESTOWN to Record Live Cast Album This Week

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW), Dale Franzen and Mara Isaacs announced today that HADESTOWN, a new folk opera written by celebrated singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and developed with and directed by the three-time OBIE award-winning director Rachel Chavkin (The Royale; Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), will record a live cast album at the evening performances on Tuesday, June 28 and Wednesday, June 29.

The album will be released on a label within Warner Music Group, and will be produced by David Lai and Todd Sickafoose. Executive producers are Mara Isaacs and Dale Franzen. Album release timing will be announced at a later date.

"Ultimately people go to concerts and theater because they are looking for a real experience, where there is chemistry between the audience and the performers and they are all, in a sense, going through a ritual together" said writer Anaïs Mitchell. "The cast, band, and crew at New York Theatre Workshop are a truly outrageous collection of humans and artists under one roof, so to capture the magic they're making in real time feels raw and exciting."

Previews began Friday, May 6, 2016, and HADESTOWN officially opened on Monday, May 23, 2016 at New York Theatre Workshop (79 E. 4th Street New York, NY 10003). The run was extended twice due to popular demand and will now conclude Sunday, July 31, 2016.

The cast of HADESTOWN features Nabiyah Be (Queen of the Night) as Eurydice, Damon Daunno (Brief Encounter) as Orpheus, Lulu Fall (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) as a Fate, Amber Gray (An Octoroon) as Persephone, Patrick Page (Spring Awakening) as Hades, Jessie Shelton (Futurity) as a Fate, Chris Sullivan ("The Knick") as Hermes, and Shaina Taub (Old Hats) as a Fate.

HADESTOWN follows Orpheus' mythical quest to overcome Hades and regain the favor of his one true love, Eurydice. Together we travel from wide open plains where love and music are not enough nourishment to survive the winter, down to HADESTOWN, an industrialized world of mindless labor and full stomachs. Inspired by traditions of classic American folk music and vintage New Orleans jazz, Mitchell's beguiling melodies and poetic imagination pit nature against industry, faith against doubt, and love against death.

The production features scenery by Rachel Hauck; costumes by Michael Krass; lighting by Bradley King; sound by Rob Kaplowitz; properties by Noah Mease; choreography by David Neumann; dramaturgy by Ken Cerniglia; music direction by Liam Robinson; arrangements & orchestrations by Michael Chorney; and co-arrangements & orchestrations and music supervision by Todd Sickafoose. HADESTOWN is co-conceived by Ben t. Matchstick.

HADESTOWN was originally developed with funding from the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage at the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center under the supervision of Dale Franzen and Mara Isaacs/Octopus Theatricals. The project was further developed in collaboration with The Broad Stage through NYTW's Artist Workshop programming, including the annual Usual Suspects Summer Residency at Dartmouth College and the Larson Lab Studio. HADESTOWN is a winner of a Richard Rodgers Production Award, administered by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

New York Theatre Workshop, now in its fourth decade of incubating important new works of theatre, continues to honor its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape all our lives. Each season, from its home in New York's East Village, NYTW presents four new productions, over 80 readings and numerous workshop productions for over 45,000 Audience members. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs, including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies and artist fellowships. Since its founding, NYTW has produced over 100 new, fully staged works, including Jonathan Larson's Rent; Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul; Doug Wright's Quills; Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde; Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla; Martha Clarke's Vienna: Lusthaus; Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away, A Number and Love and Information; Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's Aftermath; Rick Elice's Peter and the Starcatcher; Enda Walsh's Once; and seven acclaimed productions directed by Ivo van Hove. NYTW's productions have received a Pulitzer Prize, seventeen Tony Awards and assorted Obie, Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Awards.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus