San Mateo High School presents Hadestown Teen Edition

Access to live theater is a great value of Artistic Director Stephanie Wozniak, who wanted to take this opportunity in telling a newer story to expand the department’s reach to include the deaf community, middle schoolers and seniors in the county.

The musical, originally by Anaïs Mitchell and premiering on Broadway in 2019, intertwines the mythical Greek tales of Orpheus and Eurydice, and King Hades and Queen Persephone, taking the audience through a tale of fear and love, a story of industry fighting against nature.

Another musical was considered when initially planning for this year’s show, but when the rights were made available to perform Hadestown last spring, Wozniak jumped at the opportunity.

“We did a complete 180 and I just said we had to figure out how to make this work,” Wozniak said.

The Hadestown story, while not a particularly happy one, felt apt in leaning into the schools’ focus on accessibility to the arts, Wozniak said. With the feeling that the arts are “always on the chopping block when it comes to funding,” giving the audience and school the opportunity to understand the complexity of live performance is worthwhile, she said.

“It’s a sad story, but there’s hope in telling it again, and there’s something to learn every time you tell it,” she said. “We want to use this particular story as an opening of doors to our community.”

While the public can attend the weekend shows, on Tuesday, April 15, more than 300 of San Mateo County’s middle school students will take a field trip to the campus’ Performing Arts Center to see a matinee performance, experience live theater and have the opportunity to ask cast members questions after the show.

Middle schoolers study Greek mythology and pop culture has kept these stories alive, through media like the Percy Jackson story, making the show particularly inviting to the youth, Wozniak said.

“Having an access point for students who maybe are not experienced in theater is important that they have connection to the story,” Wozniak said. “This is a great opportunity to get everybody, not just the theater kids, who are already so excited.”

The only way to see Hadestown was to see it on Broadway in New York, or while it was on a national tour, so the high school’s performance will likely be the first time many in the audience see the show. Wozniak reminds the students before each rehearsal of this significance.

“I’m very anti-gatekeeping of the arts through financial barriers, so I’m so stoked there are so many people that get to experience this story for the first time,” Wozniak said. “I tell them that it’s so powerful to be the first time an audience experiences a story, they’re going to remember you as Persephone.”

While the effort to put the show together has gone above and beyond other performances — parents went to Los Angeles to pick up a generator, students stayed behind on their spring break — Wozniak makes sure students aren’t feeling unnecessary pressure.

“They are really good, and really dedicated, but they are 15, they had a geometry test this morning,” Wozniak said this week. “I can see their perfectionism triggered a little bit, but I just have to reassure them that we are only expected to do our best, and I’m already over-the-moon proud of everything we’ve accomplished.”

At the opening day performance, an American Sign Language interpreter was on stage for the entirety of the performance, another effort to ensure inclusivity and access to audience members, Wozniak said. Various sign languages are also used by student performers as a motif for communication in the show.

“I love how expressive it is, it’s all about communicating the tone and the feeling with your body and your face, which is essentially what I’m training my students to do all the time,” Wozniak said.

San Mateo High School’s performing arts center is the largest between San Francisco and San Jose, and much of the regular audience include community members who want to see quality live performances locally. However, growing that audience is an ongoing goal. Efforts to increase access to the program’s performances will continue, Wozniak said, such as having an ASL interpreter at future shows and getting middle schoolers more involved.

“My hope is that once we exercise these muscles, it will be easier to use them in the future,” Wozniak said. “The outreach we’re doing now, now we are more comfortable moving forward to make this a regular thing.”

Hadestown will be performed at 7:30 p.m. April 11, 12, 17 and 18, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 13, and Saturday, April 19. Visit www.dramasmhs.ludus.com for tickets.