Review: HADESTOWN at Providence Performing Art Center
The production runs through November 9.
By: Jay Pateakos Nov. 08, 2025
Hadestown's return engagement to the Providence Performing Arts Center was a high-energy, high octane musical feast with incredible songs and memorable characters that rocked the house for hours on end!
The most celebrated Broadway show of 2019, taking home eight Tony Awards including Best Musical as well as a 2020 Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album, Hadestown follows two paths along the way, with young lovers including the talented musician Orpheus played wonderfully by Jose Contreras and Eurydice, played by the talented voice of Megan Colton, who is lured into the Underworld; The other part centers on King Hades, played by the incredibly deep voice of Nickolaus Colon and the Persephone, played by the astonishing talent of Namisa Mdlalose Bizana, who herself was also abducted by Hades to live there half the year, creating the seasons of fall and winter each year while returning above ground for spring and summer.
This retelling combines the four mythical characters with contemporary themes and social issues like slave labor in the underworld with a rambling jazz club scene. The 28 total songs throughout the night combine folk music, jazz, pop, rock, blues and gospel into memorable songs like the introduction "Road to Hell", "Living it Up On Top", "When the Chips are Down" and "Why we Build the Wall"
One of my favorite character was Hermes, played wonderfully by Rudy Foster, who acted as the show's impromptu narrator and sometimes-conscience and brought down the house in the soulful "Way Down Hadestown" and "Wait for Me" along with the energetically humorous Persephone.
With music, lyrics and book by Anais Mitchell, a celebrated singer/songwriter and Tony Award winner, Hadestown marked the first time in over a decade that a woman was the solo author of a musical in writing the hat trick of music, lyrics and book, and the fourth time ever in Broadway history to have accomplished this creative feat. Hadestown opened at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway on April 17, 2019 and continues to pack the houses there to this day, one of the first musicals to re-open after the Covid shutdown.
Hadestown is musical theater at it's energetic and trailblazing best and if you like a little mythical journey with your wide musical tastes, "Hadestown" is an incredible journey of love and of love lost. You'll be captivated by the ultra-talented cast, touching yet rambunctious songs and a set straight out of hell, so to speak, that has some remnants to Rent and Hamilton. The audience was far younger than is typical with these kind of productions and their energy was contagious throughout the 2 hour-30-minute performance with one intermission. Settle in for a night of wonderful song and dance that will take you to the Underworld and back, but don't worry, unlike these characters, you can escape at any time, if you even want to that is.
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