Review of Hadestown on Broadway with Jack Wolfe, Kurt Elling, and Morgan Dudly

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I used to live in New York City when I went to college, as I attended the Fashion Institute of Technology for my undergraduate degrees, but when I left the city because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never really returned, I knew that I was regretting my time in college not taking advantage of student deals for Broadway and Off-Broadway productions.

Granted, I had never been exposed to that kind of environment, or theatre at all, so when I started working in New York theatre and spent some time in that world, I jumped back into it. This blog has been a way to document my journey as a theatre lover and watcher, especially considering I don’t like to do short-form video. Written criticism has always been my thing more.

I was planning on coming up to New York in December 2025 all the way back in September of this year, and booked an Amtrak ticket then because I was able to get a good deal ($50 roundtrip? That’s such a steal!). This trip really didn’t end up the way I planned, as I unknowingly contracted the flu and was feeling ill for most of it, but the two tickets I had bought for the Saturday, which I had felt fine for, were Ragtime and Hadestown.

I bought both on TodayTix. For this show I managed to snag a rear orchestra seat, in Row P by the left aisle, for $132. It was a fantastic unobstructed view, but something I would note is trying to get center mezzanine or center orchestra seats if it’s your first time and budget isn’t a concern.

This was my third time seeing Hadestown. I saw it the first time in the standing room section with the original cast, then in the first row of the balcony with the original cast. I personally prefer the orchestra for this show because certain scenes, like “Wait For Me,” are magical to be consumed by the light with.

Anyways, that said, Row P for $132 was such a good steal in my mind because the view was so good. It is a bit off to the side though and I missed some minor things, such as the trombone player getting up or characters sitting/standing on the left (from my perspective) side of the stage.

Let’s get into the review!

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice told through a musical and jazz-inspired lens.

The story of Hadestown is a simple one, especially if you’re familiar with the Greek myths. Orpheus and Eurydice is a more minor myth though, so I can see how a lot of people don’t know it. In this show, the god Hermes serves as a narrator and sets up the framework of a show within a show—a sad song, a tragedy, that people tell again and again because it is so beautiful.

Orpheus, the son of a muse, meets Eurydice at the beginning of the musical. She’s an ambitious young girl who’s jaded by the world around her, and is willing to do whatever it takes in order to keep surviving another day. Orpheus isn’t like her though, as he’s someone who’s very much with the rosy colored lenses on. He sees how the world could be, and when he finishes the song he’s working on, he’s going to make spring come again.

I previously saw Reeve Carney in the role, but here Jack Wolfe (who legitimately has the voice of an angel) plays Orpheus as someone who falls hard and deep, and you can kind of get further in the show that he’s haunted by what’s happening in Act II. There is a reason why he’s become the talk of the town, and I went to see this solely because of him (and the fact I adored his performance in Next to Normal).

Dudley’s Eurydice is fine to me, but I think I was unfairly comparing her to Eva, who I saw in the role previously, and she lacks the power and action that really made Eva shine in that role. What I’m trying to say is that Dudley’s Eurydice was softer and lacked an edge, which isn’t what I preferred.

The other standouts in this new cast for me were Kurt Elling and Rebecca Naomi Jones, who departed the show the next day after I saw it. I was pleasantly surprised by Elling as Hermes, as I was afraid he wouldn’t live up to Andre de Shield (who I love dearly as a fellow Baltimore native), but I thought he did a fantastic job keeping the narrative glue of the show together while injecting some tender moments.

The premise of the show revolves around the underground, or how Hades, the God of Death, has people coming to him and willing to sign their souls away to work for him. They’re willing to erase everything they once were in order for food and shelter, which is what draws Eurydice in when Persephone is brought from the real world back to the underworld early.

Lots to unpack there though about class. This musical was made before Donald Trump took over in 2016, but it shows how some symbolic moments, like “Why We Build the Wall” (Hades has all of his workers building a massive wall in order to keep “the enemy,” which is “poverty,” out of his domain and away from them) resonates even today in 2025. A lot of this rhetoric has been around for hundreds of years.

The set design and music are big reasons to also see this show. Light is played around with in this show in a way that works so well for a Broadway stage, and I’ve yet to see a show impact me like this one did in terms of something so seemingly simple. They incorporate it well. And the songs themselves are always bangers, especially when performed live.

Overall Thoughts

Something to note before I begin my final closing thoughts is this: I usually have a hard rule when it comes to Broadway shows. Unless it’s a fantastic show that struck something very deep in me, then I usually will never see something twice. There are only four shows I’ve seen multiple times, and Hadestown is the only one that I’ve seen more than twice.

This is such a special show, and back in 2022, when I saw it for the first time, it re-reminded me why I loved theater. I hadn’t seen a show in two years at that point and when I saw Hadestown again I knew I wanted to bring this back into my life as an art form. Since then, I’ve gone on to see more than fifty shows here and there whenever I’m in the city.

All of this is to say: this is a wonderful cast (this production does an excellent job with casting in general), and I highly recommend checking it out regardless of whether Wolfe, Dudley, Szot, or Elling are in the cast or not. I still kick myself for missing Maia Reficco and Jordan Fisher over a year ago as Eurydice and Orpheus, and there’s a reason why I want to sing these songs again and again.

Give this one a chance if you’re in town and can afford it! I think a tour might be great, but certain aspects of the Broadway stage make it ideal to see in New York.

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