Interview: Maria-Christina Oliveras of HADESTOWN at The Orpheum Theatre & San Jose Center For The Performing Arts Is Thrilled to Return to the Bay Area

Maria-Christina Oliveras is excited to be coming back to the Bay Area, which the New York-based actor-singer considers a second artistic home, having previously appeared here many times in recent years, including in the musicals Amélie and John Leguizamo’s Kiss My Aztec at Berkeley Rep and Soft Power at the Curran Theatre. Oliveras will be performing the role of Persephone in the national touring company of the 8-time Tony Award winning musical Hadestown September 12 to 17 at the Orpheum Theatre in San Franciso and then September 26 to October 1 at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. Hadestown intertwines two mythic love stories, that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone. Set to the beguiling melodies and rollicking rhythms of Anaïs Mitchell, it's a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back, as well as a deeply romantic and defiantly hopeful theatrical experience.

Oliveras is in the midst of quite a thriving career onstage and onscreen, with a raft of impressive credits at top theaters across the country. Her Broadway shows include Between Riverside and Crazy and Amélie, and she has made numerous guest appearances on popular TV series like Mozart in the Jungle and Madam Secretary. Known for her robust alto, she was featured vocalist in Taylor Mac’s masterwork A 24 Decade History of Popular Music at both St. Anne’s Warehouse in Brooklyn and the Curran Theatre in San Francisco. She has also appeared in cabaret at 54 Below and Joe’s Pub in Manhattan.

I caught up with Oliveras by phone earlier this week from her home in New York where she was enjoying a rare week off between Hadestown engagements. A Bronx native of Filipino and Puerto Rican descent, she is one of those naturally ebullient people who manages to combine a larger-than-life personality with an inviting, down-to-earth warmth. We talked about why she finds Hadestown so moving, a couple of the musicals she’s been involved with from the ground up, how she knew she was never going to be an ingenue and her admiration for Patti LuPone. The following conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.    

How long have you been touring with Hadestown at this point?

I started about almost a year ago in Houston and then unfortunately had to leave briefly because I injured myself.  But there was a silver lining in the interim. I actually got to do a show on Broadway [Between Riverside and Crazy] because I was medically cleared to do that – but not to come back and do the turntable and what you’ll see in Hadestown. Then I was able to return in April in Cincinnati.

Do you enjoy being on the road with a show?

I do! You know, this is my first time. It’s definitely a learning curve, but I love getting to know the different cities, the different audiences. My big thing any time I hit up a new city is getting a vibe for the local coffee community and culture. It’s been great because I hadn’t really traveled very much, especially domestically. But tour life is definitely a different life. Sometimes we have 5-show weekends – Friday, Saturday, Saturday, Sunday, Sunday, travel Monday, open Tuesday, sound check – go!

When you’re in the touring production of a current Broadway hit like Hadestown, how much leeway do they give you to make the character your own?

Oh, I think this show is contingent upon that. Rachel Chavkin, the director, is so fully supportive that this piece is about the individuals who are embodying it. So [we’re encouraged to present] our versions of Hades and Persephone and Eurydice and Orpheus. Obviously, we work with a template - the map, the choreography - and then we collaborate and work to bring our own [selves to it]. And then as with any show, it deepens and progresses as we get to know each other, just based on the humans embodying it.

Persephone has such a complicated relationship with Hades. How do you see that relationship?

She deeply loves her husband, and she deeply believes in a balanced universe. Unfortunately, you know after millennia of marriage, Hades has become absent and they don’t know how to communicate with each other. I think it’s the classic thing that happens with relationships. There’s a degree of boredom and a lack of connection. To kind of get through, I start to self-medicate with whatever I can find - alcohol, morphine. They lose sight of each other, and he starts thinking that to win me back he’s got to build things to give me sunshine so I don’t want to go aboveground back to my family. Whereas I think this is the greatest arrangement. I get to do six months below with the love of my life and six months up above with my family. Long distance sometimes helps the heart grow fonder.

Eventually, through the young lovers Orpheus and Eurydice we are reminded of what it was to have that kind of pure love. I sober up and ultimately side with them and poetry and love and art. I attempt to save my marriage through that and awaken him with these lovers as an example. It works momentarily, and then doubt rushes into his mind. He “releases” Orpheus and Eurydice with one condition, and that condition unfortunately prevents them from actually moving forward. I hate to give the plot away (spoiler alert!), but we all know he ultimately sets up the game, and Orpheus fails and looks back and loses Eurydice forever.

What is currently your own favorite moment in the show?

That’s a tough one because it is so contingent upon what’s happening in the world, but two moments always hit me. The whole opening sequence when I plead to Hades “Hades my husband, Hades my love. Hades my light, my darkness.” Hades is the deepest love of my life, so to know that marriage and how much it means to me, the heartbreak, and how our marriage has an adverse effect on the universe, that always breaks me.

And then at the very end, Hermes actually leads this, when we say “We’re gonna sing it again and again.” We know how it’s going to end, life encompasses all the tragedies so unfortunately for better or worse we’re human so we’re all gonna encounter them. But we’re still gonna move forward with hope and love and light every time. I think about this all the time, how people walk through the darkness in order to offer their light to the other person who might have to walk through that same darkness. And that sense that we keep going, we keep believing, one foot in front of the other, we’re gonna sing it again and again and again, cause that’s what life is. Despite the inevitable sadness, there’s always potential for great joy. So, yeah, that breaks me every time because it encompasses the potential and power of art, to sing a song to recalibrate the universe with one moment in live space.

One of the many inspiring things about Hadestown has been its truly inclusive approach to casting. Actors of different races, ethnicities and sometimes even genders have been cast in the same role. So, keeping that in mind, if you were given a chance to play any role in Hadestown other than Persephone, which role would you choose?

I’m too old for her [laughs], but I would want to do Eurydice because I innately understand her need to survive and struggle and I think her choice to go down to Hades and sell her soul even for the love of her life, I get it, and it’s so heart-wrenching to me.

Although … I gotta say cause I just saw Lillias [White] again [on Broadway], I do love me some Hermes. It’s not a huge role, but because they’re the audience leader, they guide them, that would be really fun, too. I would bring a very different approach, just as Lillias does, just as Nathan [Lee Graham in our cast] does, just as André [De Shields] did so gloriously. I love leading and being the ringmaster and also riding the wave with the audience, too. I think it’s important that even though I know where it’s going to end, I’m still invested in a way that is hopeful.

You’ve been involved in the early development of a number of musicals. For instance, you were in the original production of Here Lies Love when it played at The Public Theatre ten years ago, and it just recently opened on Broadway.

Yes! I just saw many of my colleagues in it the other day.

What did you take away from that experience, especially as someone of Filipino heritage?

Oh, that was so special. I’m usually in the early-on development [of a musical]. Hadestown is one of the few pieces I’ve done that I’m stepping into a process that is complete – like it’s already won all the Tony’s! With Here Lies Love, I was literally in a basement at NYU developing it with Ruthie Ann [Miles] and David Byrne, I was inside of it. It was one of the first musicals where my Filipino heritage was actually at the forefront because it was about Imelda Marcos and we were all of Filipino descent. So that was beautiful, and to see it now, how it’s evolved and where they’ve taken it is amazing. Clint Ramos, who I worked with as a costume designer, that’s where I first met him, is now part of the Filipino producing team. I think it’s really a beautiful step forward into diversifying Broadway in a very genuine sense where Filipinos are inhabiting a Filipino story.

Another musical you helped develop was John Lequizamo’s Kiss My Aztec, which premiered at Berkeley Rep a few years ago. Do you know if that show still has its eyes on going to Broadway?

Yes! We did a couple of runs. We started at Berkeley with Tony Taccone, who I love, and then we did it down at La Jolla. After the pandemic it was one of the first things I did at Hartford Stage, and we’re hoping that there’s still energy moving forward. But when - that’s always the question. Amélie, another one I did out there, was a relatively quick turnaround. I think we did that in 2015 and then we landed on Broadway in 2017. Aztec I’ve been a part of since 2011, and Here Lies Love, even getting to the Public I think was at least three or four years.

I believe Patti LuPone is your favorite Broadway icon?

Yes - love her!

Do you have any classic Patti songs in your repertoire?

Well, even if they’re not in my repertoire, I know them! I mean, I used to literally play her Reno [Sweeney] left and right, and when I was working on my own cabaret act I went down her extensive repertoire of non-musical theater stuff. Actually, it’s ironic you brought her up just now because I first met her at Here Lies Love. Her energy is just kind of balls to the wall. She’s what I emulate, always, to this day because that’s what I grew up with within my cells, that’s what I associated with Broadway.

I think the two of you actually have a lot in common. You’re both gutsy mezzos who can move up to a high belt, but at the same time you’re also very attentive to the lyrics so it’s never just about wowing the audience with a big finish. I think you both also have a sort of naturally mature stage presence. You excel at playing characters who’ve been around the block and know the score. Where do you think that comes from for you?

Thank you, I appreciate that very much. For me, personally – I’m from the Bronx. I am the child of immigrants and I grew up with a sense of “I’m here so I have to take advantage of it.” Take opportunities to really be fearless as much as you can, wherever you can. That’s not to say I’m 100% fearless, and I’ve had a lot of angels and supporters, but I strive to front with that because I feel like there are so many potential missed opportunities. As a person of color and having seen how hard my parents worked to get here, I think that constitution is innately within me.

As far as having been around the block, it’s funny you say that because I’ve always been very observant and kind of soaked up different things and personalities. Growing up in the Bronx I got to absorb a lot, see a lot of different people who were fighting to make it. In New York, whatever your socioeconomics, you’re fighting for a dream. Like there’s always something in the energy of New Yorkers that I think is innately forward-moving and also a little guarded, because you never know who needs what. So that sense of me having been around the block, I think I just absorbed that. And I never was an ingenue even when I was 21!

I can’t imagine you ever playing that sort of dewy-eyed, naïve girl.

No. One of my dear friends, [director] Alex Timbers who I did Here Lies Love with, when we graduated college he was like “You’re gonna work, but wow when you hit 40 that’s when everything’s gonna explode for you.” And I was like “Ugh, I don’t wanna wait that long!” But I understood what he meant, because at 20 I was offered to understudy Mary Testa in a musical that a friend of mine was doing. I love Mary, but she’s much older than me. I couldn’t do it because of scheduling, but I was honored. I was like “Oh, wow! I’m giving that energy?” And being an understudy’s different, right? It’s not age-appropriate necessarily; sometimes it’s energy-appropriate.

I was always even in my growing up the one who leaned into humor, cracking a joke. People would come to me for advice and I became like a “Yente,” if that’s the right term, in college. I befriended so many people who were like “Have coffee with Maria-Christina. She’ll talk you through coming out to parents.” I literally became like a facilitator, listening and accepting people and pushing them to own their truths. I was the person they went to for a joke and some advice – whether the advice was right or not! [laughs] I’d just pull it out my booty and make it seem right, ya know?

I’ve heard you’re a baseball fan. Since you’re from the Bronx, I just have to ask what’s up with the Yankees this season?

Ai-yi-yi! And you know who’s even more of a Yankees fan? Tony Taccone! During tech I would see him watching the ballgame. [laughs] The only reason I’m a quote-unquote avid baseball fan is because I’m the child of immigrants and baseball is their thing. Any time they got into an argument, I knew they’d made up when I heard “So, Mary, what was the score?” Like that was their icebreaker back in. Baseball was such a unifying force in my household, and also very divisive because it was Mets and Yankees. And my mother is very avid!

Does your mom root for the Mets or Yankees?

This is terrible, but my mom switches allegiance based on how they’re doing. Not gonna lie. She’s always like [goes into what I assume is a spot-on impression of her mother’s dialect] “Turn it off, turn it off, they’re losing!” And I’m like “Mom, what kind of fan are you? It’s only the fourth inning.” Don’t get me started!

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Tickets for the San Francisco engagement of Hadestown are available online at broadwaysf.com. Tickets for the San Jose engagement are available online at broadwaysanjose.com.

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