Anais Mitchell, performing here Saturday, is Broadway bound

Anais Mitchell comes to Pittsburgh this weekend, having just received some exciting news.

The 37-year-old folk singer-songwriter from Vermont learned that her musical “Hadestown,” based on the mythical Greek love story of Orpheus and Eurydice, will open on Broadway in the spring.

Ms. Mitchell, who performs Saturday at the Carnegie Lecture Hall in Oakland as part of the Calliope series, wrote “Hadestown” in 2006 as a community theater piece, which she toured in a school bus and then recorded it as a “folk opera” for her fourth album in 2010 on Righteous Babe Records.

Label founder and star in her own right Ani DiFranco appeared on the album along with Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver), Greg Brown, and the Haden Triplets (Tanya, Petra and Rachel Haden).

Variety said of the music, “There are dustbowl ballads and blue-collar rock, honky Southern soul and New Orleans jazz, a trombone underlining this deep guttural sound; the scuzzy, sexy side of the States.

At the urging of a producer, Ms. Mitchell began the process of turning it into a full-fledged musical and approached avant-garde director Rachel Chavkin, after seeing her Tony-nominated musical “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.”

“Hadestown” premiered at New York Theatre Workshop off-Broadway in 2016 and has been produced by Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre and London’s National Theatre.

It will begin previews at the Walter Kerr Theatre March 22 and open April 17.

In concert, Ms. Mitchell performs a few songs from “Hadestown,” including the leadoff track “The Wedding Song” and “Why We Build the Wall,” which now doubles as a President Trump protest song.