Ani DiFranco in Broadway’s Hadestown.Photo:Matthew Murphy
Matthew Murphy
Grammy Award-winningmusician Ani DiFranco is making her mark on Broadway.
DiFranco, 53, has been playing the Greek goddess Persephone in the Tony-winning musicalHadestownsince she andThe Summer I Turned PrettystarLola Tungmade their debut performances with the show on Feb. 9.
DiFranco callsHadestown"a startlingly wonderful work of writing and theater" while discussing her debut on the Great White Way at New York City’s Walter Kerr Theatre.
“If I was going to sing the same songs over and over every night, this would be them,” she says. “And I have also just started working on a theater piece of my own and I don’t know anything about musical theater, so I thought, geez, this would be a really good education.”
DiFranco says “just trying something totally new” also influenced her decision to make the leap to Broadway.
Ani DiFranco (center) in Broadway’s Hadestown.Matthew Murphy
“My mom was like, ‘Oh, you’re a performer, you’ll be fine,’ " she says. “But it doesn’t really work that way. I do something totally different and this has been an incredible challenge. Just everything that I’d hoped for in terms of challenge and inspiration.”
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Ani DiFranco (right) in Broadway’s Hadestown.Matthew Murphy
Tung, 21, is only performing withHadestownthrough March 17, but DiFranco tells PEOPLE she will stay on with the production into June. After that, the Buffalo, New York native will spend some time in Canada with her family as she gears up to release a children’s book, titledShow Up and Vote, in August.
“I haven’t been seeing much of my 10-year-old who is back in New Orleans. My teenage daughter is with me here in New York, so that’s pretty great,” DiFranco tells PEOPLE. “But I miss my little guy a lot and my big guy and the dogs and the garden and the life. Six months is a long time to not be home, but it’s been cool being in New York again.”
source: people.com
