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Episode 271: Students Perform Broadway Hit on Stage at Riverton High School

It is a Broadway hit winning eight Tony awards, garnering rave reviews. Now, the critically acclaimed musical Hadestown is about to be performed at Riverton High School.

On this episode of the Supercast, find out how Riverton High was awarded the rights to Hadestown and is one of the first high schools in the country to perform the play, which is still running on Broadway. It is a student performance worthy of a standing ovation.


Audio Transcription

Erin McGuire:
It's unusual for a high school to be able to do a show that is still on Broadway. It is really unusual to get two in the same year.

Anthony Godfrey:
You said that this particular production is stretching you and you're doing things that you had done before.

Erin McGuire:
We have 80 students who are involved in this. There are no scenes that are just dialogue.

Anthony Godfrey:
Have you done shows with a trap door like that before?

Clin Eaton:
No, never.

[music]

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is a Broadway hit winning eight Tony Awards and garnering rave reviews. Now the critically acclaimed musical Hadestown is about to be performed at Riverton High School.

On this episode of the Supercast, find out how Riverton High was awarded the rights to Hadestown and is among the first high schools in the country to perform the play, which is still running on Broadway. It is a student performance worthy of a standing ovation, thanks in part to the two people you're about to meet, musical directors Erin McGuire and Clin Eaton.

[music]

For those who are listening who aren’t familiar with the story, tell us what Hadestown is about.

Erin McGuire:
It is the way the way the writer put it together is an intertwining of the two Greek mythology stories with Persephone and Hades and Orpheus and Eurydice. So Orpheus and Eurydice fall in love. She's actually killed by a snake that may or may not be Hades, has to go down to hell. And then Orpheus, her love, comes and finds her, tries to take her back, and she can walk behind him but not next to him on the way out of hell. If he turns around and looks at her, she goes back down and he can't get her again.

And then with Hades and Persephone, she is the daughter of the goddess of the harvest and she loves being outside and loves nature, but she also fell in love with Hades. So to make a deal to make them both happy, she spends six months with him and Hades and six months up on earth. So it's how those two stories in the author's mind twist them together as these two beginning of love and middle of love love stories. It's gorgeous.

Anthony Godfrey:
Talk about the setting for the story.

Erin McGuire:
We have two basic settings, above ground and below ground. So we have our performers at the beginning of the show, and it's kind of in a pub, a bar, New Orleans, it's kind of a place. And then when we deal with people who are living down in Hades, it goes below ground. And so as you can see on the set here, it doesn't really change a whole lot. We do a lot with lighting, and we have fantastic lighting students who are doing some great things with it. And we dress it that way, but it all just happens right here.

Anthony Godfrey:
I see a rock and roll set up there. Talk to people about how that comes into play.

Erin McGuire:
Yes. Okay, we had the option of either using tracks that are pre-recorded or a live band, and we were lucky enough to be able to get live bands. So we have people from all over, a former student of mine from way long ago, a couple of teachers here in the district.

Clin Eaton:
We have three Jordan School District faculty members.

Erin McGuire:
Yes.

Clin Eaton:
We have Eric Noyes from South Hills Middle. He's on our keys. We have one of the teachers, Karen Smith–

Erin McGuire:
Yes.

Clin Eaton:
Also at South Hills–

Erin McGuire:
Yes.

Clin Eaton:
–who's our cellist, and she is–

Erin McGuire:
Fantastic.

Karen Smith:
–a professional, played with Utah Symphony. And then we have Chris Jesse, who's our percussionist here, a percussion teacher, who's on the drum back there.

Anthony Godfrey:
The live music is going to make a huge difference.

Clin Eaton:
It is. And we have this guitar player out of Utah County that is a studio guitarist. He doesn't do musical theater. So when we offered him the job, he was accustomed to studio work, and so he showed up the first day completely off-look and memorized. He just thought he would just be playing

Anthony Godfrey:
Because he's used to the studio work. So they come in, they nail it, and they walk out.

Clin Eaton:
Yeah, so Eric is on keys, and he's like, You can actually have your music. You're allowed to look at it, because we have to go off of the actors. We don't necessarily get to do what you want to do. So he, all of the musicians, we added him in on Tuesday, and they were so impressed with the students and how prepared they were.

Erin McGuire:
And it sounds so amazing with the live musicians. It's amazing. Oh my gosh.

Anthony Godfrey:
It makes a huge difference. One of the things that I've always impressed about Riverton is that here you --you just described it. You pull in, here's a university, here's a guitarist from Utah County, here's some teachers from throughout the district. You pull these resources together, choreographers with experience on Broadway last time we talked. Just all of these resources brought together to provide a great experience for students and for anyone fortunate enough to be in the audience. Oh, a trap door.

Clin Eaton:
Yes! We’d like to take you down on it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Only because I trust you, Clin. Only because I trust you.

Clin Eaton:
No, no, you’re totally good. It was just safety checked off by the head engineer at Hillsborough Theatre.

Erin McGuire:
Right?

Anthony Godfrey:
I feel super cool right now.

Clin Eaton:
And then help him unload and help him get out the steps.

Anthony Godfrey:
You just lowered me into hell on the trap door.

Erin McGuire:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
I've only been to Riverton for a few minutes, and I've already taken a trip to Hadestown.

Erin McGuire:
Well, we tried to give you the full experience when you're here.

Anthony Godfrey:
That was awesome. Tell me how exactly that works. That was very smooth.

Clin Eaton:
We actually found a YouTube video. It's like really old-fashioned, like back to the 1700s,--

Anthony Godfrey:
Really?

Clin Eaton:
--on how like they would use it to basically in magic acts. And basically you construct a big box with a series of locks and levers that unlock, and then it's a repelling rope that goes through a pulley system, and you, we have different settings based on how fast or slow we want it to lower. And the students down there just set the pins, they unlock it, actors safe to load, and then it just goes down by the rope. It's strong enough that students could dance on it and do everything they need to and be just fine, because the whole point is we don't want to know it's there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. It felt very stable. Have you done shows with a trap door like that before?

Clin Eaton:
No, never.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hadestown is stretching what you’ve done in the past.

Erin McGuire:
Yes.

Clin Eaton:
And we, since we're also doing Harry Potter later in February, we're building stuff that can be used for both pieces. So this will also be used for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. And in a moment, we have some stuff. We have the head of Weber State Technical Theater out here with six hours yesterday with tech students rigging up things on our catwalks so they can lower lights. And we'll show you that in a moment. But for Harry Potter, we're going to drop the Dementors down on that system.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, really?

Clin Eaton:
Yeah. So we have, so what we were building for Hadestown, we're thinking of like both shows in conjunction.

[music]

Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back a sneak peek at their incredible performance.

[music]

Never miss an episode of the Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

[music]

Break:
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[music]

Clin Eaton:
Paul, go ahead and lower those down and then Dylan, turn them on when they're ready. And if you want to turn off house lights, Dylan, you can. So they have pulleys. Go ahead and turn off house if you want so we can see what it'll look like going down over the audience.

Erin McGuire:
And they have that cool Edison light.

Clin Eaton:
Yeah, so there's five students each on a pulley lowering them down and there's certain moments in the show where they get lowered down and they have this effect. But the idea is we want it to be kind of magical in this show that the audience all of a sudden realizes there's something over them and Harry Potter we want it to be terrifying because Dementors will be on the end of these instead.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, my goodness.

Clin Eaton:
Good job! That was really, really nice, guys.

Anthony Godfrey:
That looks really good.

Clin Eaton:
Go ahead. Yeah, give them a round of applause. They worked on that all day yesterday. It's really cool.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's a big impact.

Clin Eaton:
Dylan, that's beautiful. I like that effect.

Anthony Godfrey:
You said that this particular production is stretching you and you're doing things that you had done before. Tell me some of the things that are required in a Hadestown performance that really are moving you beyond where the program's been.

Erin McGuire:
Well, we have had other productions that have had large casts, but we have 80 students who are involved in this. And I always--for our big musicals, we try to cast all the students that are auditioning for it because being in a musical is one of those awesome experiences that are just unique to the situation of being in high school. We've seen kids make new friends. We've seen the new friend groups grow, and that's just really special for them. But to try to fit 80 students in the space, that's a challenge. For our choreographer to try to find a way to fit them on stage and in the front and they're in the aisles and have those dance pieces all work together, that's a challenge.

For a show that I've seen once on Broadway, and I know it, but I didn't know know it until I started working on it, for me, it's a huge stretch for me to be able to do this piece of art justice. For the students who some have never seen it, they are not as familiar with it. They work a little bit with the music to teach them about them, what the story is and the gravity and what their contribution to it really means. That's been a challenge. For them to learn the music has been a challenge. It's a sung-through show. There are no scenes that are just dialogue. Everything is sung, sung through, like Les Mis. That's been a challenge.

Anthony Godfrey:
And they, unlike Les Mis, is there isn't this long precedent of this is what the performance looks like.

Erin McGuire:
Correct.

Anthony Godfrey:
So that's a bigger burden, a lot of more creativity, but also it's exciting to be able to put your own stamp on it.

Erin McGuire:
So exciting. Absolutely.

Clin Eaton:
You may have already said this, but there's not much downtime.

Erin McGuire:
No, there really isn't.

Clin Eaton:
They're on stage. The ensemble has so much to do in this show. Even Les Mis, yeah, ensemble is busy because they're changing characters. But this, they’re on.

Erin McGuire:
They're a huge part of telling the story.

Anthony Godfrey:
So the 80 that are involved are pretty much involved all the time.

Erin McGuire:
Yes. We have done a little bit of separation. So we have our above-ground workers and our below-ground workers, or what they're called in the script, they're called those workers. And so there are some moments when the entire cast is on stage several times throughout the whole show. But then there are some moments where we have 50 or 60 on and then those switch with the other. So it’s a back and forth, coordinating kind of a situation.

Anthony Godfrey:
It has a different feel to it. It's very engaging because it's so different.

Erin McGuire:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
How have the kids felt and developed through this production?

Erin McGuire:
They love it. Let's ask them, "Hey, students! Have you enjoyed being involved in this production of Hadestown?"

Students:
[Cheering]

Anthony Godfrey:
A survey says yes, they've enjoyed it.

[Laughter]

Ethan Hall:
Oh, yeah.

Erin McGuire:
This is Ethan Hall, he’s our Hades.

Ethan Hall:
Hello.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hi. How are you?

Ethan Hall:
I'm great. How are you?

Anthony Godfrey:
Nice to see you.

Ethan Hall:
Good to see you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about your role.

Ethan Hall:
So I play the lead villain in the show. I get to be the king of the underworld. Like, he's an industrialist. And, you know, at his core he's not truly evil, but all of his actions are misplaced.

Anthony Godfrey:
You playing a bad guy, is this typecasting?

Ethan Hall:
I sure hope it's not.

Anthony Godfrey:
I like the way you describe that. What he's trying to do, his actions are misplaced. He's not at his core a bad guy.

Ethan Hall:
Yeah, yeah. In the end he is like, he's redeemed. He's like, a lot of it is like he's trying to make his wife happy by like just always making his empire bigger and bigger, which that's not what she wants. And it takes the course of the show for him to realize that.

Anthony Godfrey:
How has this role stretched you?

Ethan Hall:
It's been a lot. I don't play villains very often. And I just get to like, it's really interesting like, you know, having that chemistry between characters. It's also a very low role vocally. And I don't get to use that range a whole lot in different productions. So it's been really, really fun to be able to sing low and like have that different character work between people.

Anthony Godfrey:
What's your method for memorizing? When you're driving in the car, are you always singing these songs? Do you dream them? How do you keep everything stored inside your head, ready to go on a moment's notice?

Ethan Hall:
Yeah. With this show specifically, I've been obsessed with it for like a few years. So I basically had most of the characters lines memorized, but I do listen to it in the car whenever I can. A method I got taught is whenever I'm brushing my teeth at night, I just listen to any of the songs I'm having trouble with. Then I go to bed and it sticks better.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, yeah. Good idea. Good idea. For those listening, listen to your vocabulary words for the test the next day before you go to bed. So what would you say to people who are considering whether to come? Why should they come see Hadestown?

Ethan Hall:
I would have to say it's just a beautiful show. The music is incredible. Our technical elements are some of my favorite I've ever seen. And just the message of the show is really beautiful. There's multiple stories to follow throughout it. And so it's just a wonderful, in my opinion, it's a wonderful way to spend your evening is just to come see it. It's going to be an amazing time.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's an ambitious show to take on and I can't wait to see it. I'm seeing it on a closing night.

Ethan Hall:
Oh, lovely. We can’t wait see you here.

Anthony Godfrey:
So it will be really fun to be here.

Ethan Hall:
Awesome. I really hope you enjoy it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thank you very much. Congratulations.

Student performing:

[ORPHEUS, spoken] Eurydice?

[HERMES, spoken] Hey, the big artiste! Ain't you working on your masterpiece?

[ORPHEUS, spoken] Where is she?

[HERMES, spoken] Brother, what do you care? You'll find another muse somewhere.

[ORPHEUS, spoken] Where is she?

[HERMES, spoken] Why do you wanna know?

[ORPHEUS] Wherever she is, is where I'll go

[HERMES, spoken] What if I said she's down below?

[ORPHEUS, spoken] Down below?

[HERMES, spoken] Down below. Six-feet-under-the-ground below. She called your name before she went, but I guess you weren't listening

[ORPHEUS, spoken] No...

[HEREMES, spoken] So...Just how far would you go for her?

[ORPHEUS] To the end of time, to the end of the earth.

[HERMES, spoken] You got a ticket?

[ORPHEUS, spoken] No...?

[HERMES, spoken] Yeah, I didn't think so

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me your name.

Tyler:
I'm Tyler.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about the technical aspects of this show that are different from maybe other things you've worked on. I've already heard one of the actors raving about the stage tech aspect of this. And I experienced it myself, being lowered down into Hadestown. Tell me about the sound aspect of this production.

Tyler:
Well, unlike a lot of other shows, we have a live band. So, there's a lot more going into it. We have, instead of just clicking play on a computer to play all of our music, we have a bunch of different musicians. And then, because of that, we have to mix them to all sound right for the songs. And there's just a lot more things that can go wrong and can go right than just clicking a play button. So, it's a lot different in that aspect.

Anthony Godfrey:
Clicking a play button is stressful enough.

Tyler:
It is, yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Making sure that you play the right thing at the right time. But the live music controlling the sound of the drums and mixing that. I play in a very amateur band from time to time and balancing that sound makes all the difference.

Tyler:
It does.

Anthony Godfrey:
Whether the music can have that impact, especially when you're balancing it out with other things happening on the stage. Well, congratulations and I can't wait to see them. I’m coming closing night.

Tyler:
Oh, you'll love it. You'll enjoy it.

Clin Eaton:
He’s done his job well, if you don't notice anything. If you can hear everyone, they’ve done their job.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, that's really it. If you don't notice–

Clin Eaton:
He has a crew of three. There's three people that are running sound.

Anthony Godfrey:
Very cool. So, are you up there?

Tyler:
Yes, I'm up there on the mixer.

Anthony Godfrey:
The mixer. Awesome.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me your name.

Taya:
My name's Taya.

Anthony Godfrey:
And you're the dance captain.

Taya:
Yeah, so I'm the dance captain and I'm in both ensembles.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about being dance captain.

Taya:
So, basically my job is to make sure everyone knows what they're doing in the show, really, in general. Because this is a very dance-heavy show. Like, a lot of people wouldn't think that about Hadestown, but we have so many dance numbers. So, I make sure our timing is correct and that everyone looks good and is having fun with what they're doing.

Anthony Godfrey:
Looks good and is having fun.

Taya:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
So, I shouldn't be going … one, two, three, four. You shouldn’t be counting.

Taya:
Yeah, you should not be doing that.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, alright. How many people might be dancing at one time?

Taya:
I would say, yeah, about 80-ish.

Clin Easton:
Between 40 and 80.

Taya:
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.

Taya:
So, it's crazy.

Anthony Godfrey:
Down into the aisles, out in front of the stage, and on the stage.

Taya:
Yes, we have people in the front dancing, like, on the floor, and then we have people on stage and people in these two aisles dancing.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's a ton to coordinate.

Taya:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
How did you end up as dance captain? What is your dance background?

Taya:
So, I've danced, basically, my entire life. I did competitive dancing for a while, and then I got into theater, and I was like, "Oh, this is so fun." And then you can combine the two aspects, so it's really fun.

Erin McGuire:
I, as the director, chose her because I knew that she was a very excellent dancer and very organized on top of things, learning stuff really fast, and that she would be good with teaching and re-teaching and training all the other students. And so, I chose her to be that kind of leader for the show.

Anthony Godfrey:
So, you're not only a great dancer, you're also a great leader that's able to get the best out of those around you.

Taya:
I'd like to think so. Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Talking with you now, I have great confidence that it's going to turn out fantastic.

Taya:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
I asked Ethan this, for those listening, why would they come to Hadestown?

Erin McGuire:
There's a reason that classic stories are classics. They attract and hold our attention for centuries. So, there's something to those stories, to those characters, that human beings connect to on both a basic and an emotional and intellectual level. So, we're telling that kind of story. You're going to enjoy that because humans have for thousands of years.

Also, the way that the author and the composer has put it together, it also has a modern sensibility to it. It's like a folk song kind of musical. The music is beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. It's used in very different ways. I mean, we've got both strings and a trombone. So, that tells you just the variety of things that we have with it.

Anthony Godfrey:
And it's fresh for high schools to be able to do this.

Erin McGuire:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's newly available.

Erin McGuire:
Exactly.

Anthony Godfrey:
And it's a timeless story, lots of dancing, singing from start to finish, any unique production different from what you've seen before. What could be better? Don't miss it.

Students singing:

[EURYDICE, COMPANY ] Wait for me (I'm comin'), I'm comin' (I'm comin')
Wait, I'm comin' with you (I'm comin')
Wait for me (Wait, I'm comin'), I'm comin' too
I'm comin' too
I'm coming, wait for me (Wait)
I hear the walls repeating (Wait)
The falling of my feet and
It sounds like drumming (Wait)
And I am not alone (Wait)
I hear the rocks and stones (Wait)
Echoing my song
I'm coming (Coming, coming, coming)

Anthony Godfrey:
If you'd like to watch one of the performances, "Hadestown" runs Thursday, November 14th through Monday, November 18th.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.

[applause]