Hadestown: The Musical

A stage musical, filmed. The story comes out of two myths. The first is Orpheus and Eurydice. A young musician and the woman he loves. The second is Hades and Persephone. The owner of the underworld and the wife who spends half the year there. The world is poor. The wind is hard, there is no work, and winter does not end. Eurydice is hungry. Orpheus is writing a song and believes it will put the world right. Hades brings an offer. There is work below, there is food, and there is a wall. Eurydice signs. Orpheus goes after her. From there the narrative moves toward the known outcome. A permit to leave, a walk, and the condition not to look back. Hermes narrates. He knows the story from the start and says how it ends; he tells it again anyway. What the narrative is interested in is not myth but repetition: the musical's idea is that telling a story whose ending we know is itself an act. The song about the wall is its most discussed section and its lyrics are read as directly political. The music mixes jazz, folk and a New Orleans marching band; the orchestra is visible on stage. This recording is not a film adaptation but a theatre capture. The original Broadway cast played a limited run at the Lyric Theatre in London in 2025 and three performances were filmed. The five principals are the same: Reeve Carney as Orpheus, Eva Noblezada as Eurydice, Amber Gray as Persephone, Patrick Page as Hades and André De Shields as Hermes. The production won eight Tony Awards on stage in 2019. The film screened at the Tribeca Festival on 8 June 2026 and opened in cinemas on 24 July 2026. Brett Sullivan directed; he had filmed a Broadway musical before. Who it is for: anyone who likes musical theatre and could not see it staged. Who it is not for: anyone expecting film language; this is a stage capture and the camera does not intervene in the telling.