Hadestown: Teen Edition

TheatreThe Ruth•2026

The RuthMusicalRunningYouthBuy ticketsView digital playbill

Jul 6, 2026 – Aug 22, 2026

Hadestown: Teen Edition at The Ruth. Run dates: Jul 6, 2026 – Aug 22, 2026. Running. Cast, crew, posters, and production history from this Utah staging.

"To know how it ends, and still choose to sing it again, as if it might turn out this time. I learned that from a friend of mine." It's a rare experience as a director to work with a truly perfect text, but Hadestown comes about as close as any musical I've encountered. There is something magical about the marriage of New Orleans jazz and Greek mythology, all set against the backdrop of a gritty, dystopian future. It is a world where hope has withered, where nothing grows. And yet, in the middle of that barren landscape, a poet chooses to make music. He chooses beauty. He chooses hope. To love is an act of courage. Every time we offer someone our heart, we accept the possibility that it may be broken. The people we love may disappoint us. They may fail to keep their promises. They may leave us long before we are ready. And still, we choose to love. As Hermes and the chorus remind us from the very beginning, this is an old song. We know how it ends. It begins with love and ends with death. But is that not the same as life itself? Our ending is set from the moment we are born, and the clock is already ticking. The question has never been whether the story ends. The question is how we choose to live while it is being told. Orpheus lives in a broken. He knows hunger, uncertainty, and loss, yet he refuses to surrender to despair. Where others see only the world as it is, he imagines what it could become. Through music, he reminds those around him that beauty is still worth creating, that love is still worth pursuing, and that hope itself can be an act of resistance. His song changes the people who hear it, from Eurydice, to Hades, to the workers of Hadestown. In the end, it is not enough to change the outcome, but it changes the journey. And perhaps that is enough. That is the invitation this musical offers us. We cannot change the certainty of our ending, but we can choose what fills the space between now and then. We can choose to create. We can choose to trust. We can choose to love. We can choose, again and again, to sing the song—even knowing how it ends. So raise a glass to spring. To life. To love. And please enjoy Hadestown.