She’s Lighting Up the Underworld on Broadway

Date: April 15, 2019

Broadway On Stage Performers Songwriters TDF Stages

Great Comet star Amber Gray on her three-year journey with Hadestown

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“She’s a great shepherd of new material; she has a great dramaturgical brain,” Gray says of Chavkin. “I always know that I’m going to be in for a really collaborative process. The creative team’s going to need a lot of input from the actors to find that connective tissue where the holes are.”

While Gray is grateful for her journey with Hadestown, she admits it’s a bit unexpected. “If you’d told me I would be a musical theatre gal, I would’ve thought you were insane,” she says. “I had singing teachers and I grew up singing, but I never thought I would do mostly musicals. I trained, undergrad and grad, for straight acting.” Initially, she started off in plays. But The Great Comet (which she performed on and off for four years) and Hadestown (on and off for three) have dominated her recent life, along with becoming a mom — twice.

Gray was aware that having kids could have a chilling effect on her career, and, as a woman of color, she was already wary of being pigeonholed. But like Persephone escaping the Underworld, she’s transcended those limiting stereotypes. “I have played lots of roles where my background never comes up, which I appreciate — I’m just an actor doing my work,” she says. “I feel very grateful, because lots of my friends can’t say that. I love that about Rachel specifically: She makes a huge effort for inclusivity in her casts, and it’s never commented on, which is beautiful.”

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Regina Robbins is a writer, director, native New Yorker and Jeopardy! champion. She has worked with several NYC-based theatre companies and is currently a Core Company Member with Everyday Inferno Theatre.

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