No frills, no script. Leaning toward the camera during a recent video chat, DiFranco summed up his vibe with a quiet confession.
“I'm kind of anti-theatrical when it comes to anime games,” she admitted.
So her latest endeavor, starring as the Greek goddess Persephone in the Broadway musical “Hadestown,” comes to an ironic end. DiFranco is no stranger to this production. Her indie label, Righteous Babe, produced her 2010 “Hadestown” concept album, which ultimately inspired her Tony Award-winning stage show, in which she played the role of Persephone. I sang. As Hadestown creator Anais Mitchell puts it, DiFranco has long been the project's “fairy godmother.”
DiFranco said she danced when she was younger, but when she moved from Buffalo to New York City at the age of 18, poor, she realized she couldn't afford to attend classes. But DiFranco had never acted before he bowed on Broadway last month, and he insists he's never a “theatre geek.” So finding one's place in the machine that is “Hadestown” has become a formidable ordeal for the challenge-seeking performer, who now travels back and forth to his hell eight times a week.
“I just don’t have a theater bone in my body,” DiFranco says. “During the rehearsal process, I had to say, 'Hey, I get it — we've got to find that bone, Annie. We've got to bring it to the surface and use it. Outside. You don't come out and sniff the air or divine spirits. You come out swinging. You come out with what you came to deliver.'
aAfter bypassing the mainstream record industry and founding Righteous Babe Records in 1990 at age 19, DiFranco built a reputation as a feminist trailblazer, queer icon, and mother of the “do-it-yourself” music movement. Ta. Her independence has allowed DiFranco to free herself artistically, blending her autobiographical musings with sociopolitical commentary on albums that span a wide range of sonic ranges from punk rock to spoken word poetry. Now I can express myself.
One of the early DiFranco believers, Mitchell is an indie folk master who wrote the book, music and lyrics for “Hadestown.” “Maybe the reason I picked up the guitar was because I wanted to play like her,” Mitchell, 42, recalls, adding that DiFranco's “Both Hands” was first heard in her teens. He added that it was one of the songs he learned from his girlfriend. “She really was a guiding light for me.”
Mitchell was just beginning to make a name for himself when he booked a gig at the Buffalo bar Nietzsche's in mid-August and found DiFranco home after the first set. “It was like a mythical figure came into my world,” Mitchell says. DiFranco recalls: “I was immediately struck by her. My first instinct was, 'Let's help this girl.' Please let me go behind this child. ”
Righteous Babe then signed Mitchell to release their next three projects, including the Hadestown concept album. Mr. DiFranco said he learned about the initiative when Mr. Mitchell mailed him a cassette tape containing songs from early iterations of the show. The song was adapted from Greek folklore by the composer as part of a community theater project in Vermont. (“Cassette tapes, check. Snail mail, check,” DiFranco quips. “Those were the days.”) The musical, which blends blues and jazz with dreamy folk soundscapes, is still unfinished. , it was something that fascinated people.
Although DiFranco was unable to personally produce the record, she recommended her band's longtime bassist, Todd Sickafoose, for the role, and he agreed to provide the voice of Persephone. Hades' estranged wife, described by Mitchell as a “benevolent party girl,” divides her time between the cold, industrialized underworld and the desolate land above ground in “Hadestown,” and upon her arrival is accompanied by prosperity, warmth, and an abundance of wine. All the while, she takes care of the bard Orpheus and his lover Eurydice, but poverty and Hades' duplicity separate them.
“There was something about Annie playing Persephone that felt really fitting,” Mitchell says. “She has a New Orleans inflection and a real swagger that she's always had, but it's also who she is in the culture. She's a revolutionary figure, and she also shines a light on She also served as a kind of nurturer and mother figure to the artists who contributed to this work.”
DiFranco sang the role of Persephone in subsequent concert performances of Hadestown, then passed on the role of Mitchell, and director Rachel Chavkin embarked on three tryout productions before the show finally opened on Broadway in April 2019. . Hadestown went on to win eight Tony Awards. has survived the pandemic pause to become the longest-running show at the nearly century-old Walter Kerr Theatre. Mitchell pushed to bring DiFranco back to the team as the last original star left this fall and the cast was being replaced.
The singer said he was initially asked to join “Hadestown” this summer due to conflicting touring schedules and other obligations. But when producers offered her the opportunity to take on the role in February, she only had one thing in mind. “This is so strange and intriguing that I would be horrified to turn it down.”
“Even when I was very young, independent with my guitar and traveling, I had no address, no postal code, just a license plate if I was lucky, and I started sharing my songs with people. “I had a mission to share it with people, and I was always pushing to venture into the unknown,'' DiFranco explains. “I think it's the same thing as far as saying, 'Yeah, I'm going to star in a Broadway production when I'm 53. You know, I did a little bit of dancing when I was a teenager, so I guess I'll be fine.'”
DiFranco, a longtime New Orleans resident, exudes an easygoing affability when she calls recently from her Hell's Kitchen apartment, where she's staying while working on “Hadestown.” Still, she doesn't shy away from the reality that her path to hell comes at a price. She points out that Persephone's high heels are devilish shoes. (“They’re killing me,” she says. “They’re killing me.”) Adapting to the character’s loose-limbed physicality also requires lifestyle changes. was.
“Obviously, even though I knew months in advance that I was going to be in this show, it just didn’t work out,” DiFranco says with a laugh. “I've never even done yoga before. I didn't prepare myself. I just stupidly showed up and was like, 'Okay, here we go.' So I try to keep up with physical challenges. ”
Although DiFranco is only 5 feet 2 inches tall, she made an outsized impression as Persephone, and was instrumental in many of the character's performances, including the Act I dance, “Livin' It Up on Top,” and the Act II opener, “Our Lady of the Subterranean.” Infused with musical highlights. There's a sly playfulness, exciting restlessness, and sultry bravado in it that you don't usually find in DiFranco concerts.
It was natural for her to revisit songs she performed a decade and a half ago. But working on the subsequently written songs, which were first recorded by original Broadway cast member Amber Gray, became an exercise in self-restraint after her first instinct was to find them “a little too anime-y.” Ta.
“She's been Ani DiFranco on stage for 30 years, and she's given it her all,” says her Orpheus co-star Jordan Fisher. “But the way Persephone carries herself, the way she speaks, the way she sings, the way she loops her voice, all of this is not Ani. It's very, very scary to be able to explore that for the first time in the Mecca of Broadway. I came in and grabbed the bull by the horns.”
DiFranco's musical accomplishments have not diminished even after moving onto Broadway. She released her politically charged single “Baby Roe” last month, and is set to release her 23rd album, a production-heavy collaboration with producer BJ Burton, in the spring. “Sonically, it’s a bit of a departure,” DiFranco teases. “I wanted to take a more modern approach.'' The mother of two has also written a children's book, “Show Up and Vote,'' centered around civic duty, which will be released in August. It is scheduled to be done.
“Her artistic metabolism is extremely high,” says Sicafoose, DiFranco's bandmate. He won a Tony Award for co-orchestrating the Broadway production after producing the concept album Hadestown. “When she comes up with an idea, she seems to try to make it happen and bring it into the real world as quickly as possible. One of her favorite times to write is on the road after a show. I think she likes the quiet after all the noise. When we travel, we always play what she just wrote the night before or the night before.”
DiFranco said she has agreed to stay in “Hadestown” for six months, after which she will trade in Persephone's flamboyant dress for her foot-aching heels and reprise her role as Ani on stage. . Given DiFranco's “anti-theatrical” instincts, it's hard to imagine another Broadway role like Persephone tempting DiFranco. But for performers who like to stagger through the dark, nothing is more intriguing than anxiety.
“I'm as interested as ever in the unknown,” says DiFranco. “So I'm open to anything.”