The Grammy Award-winning feminist and DIY singer/songwriter icon Ani DiFranco is set to make her first appearance on Broadway next year. She will be playing the role of Persephone in Anaïs Mitchell’s Grammy and Tony Award-winning production Hadestown, beginning on February 9, 2024. “I could not be more thrilled to be joining the cast of Hadestown,” DiFranco said in a statement. “It’s like I get to rewind to my New York youth and follow the road not taken.”
Though she has amassed a long and storied career as a pioneer of modern DIY music culture, writing and recording music in genres spanning punk, funk, hip hop, jazz, soul and electronica, DiFranco’s involvement with the beloved, brooding musical goes back far before her upcoming appearance. In 2010, she lent her voice to the role of Persephone in Mitchell’s original recording of the Hadestown album, which was released on DiFranco’s label Righteous Babe Records. Now, she is going to be bringing the Queen of the Underworld to life in Mitchell’s hilariously subversive and utterly unique story, which will be showing at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
Regarding DiFranco, Mitchell said she “can’t really overstate the influence of Ani’s music and example on me as a young songwriter. Poetic, bold, radically emotive and FUN, she simply has been a mythic figure in my life, and I can’t think of anything more beautifully full circle than Ani playing the role of ‘Persephone’ on Broadway. Grateful and awestruck.”