The Ensemblist

Afra Hines joined the company of Hadestown fresh off of her performance in the ensemble of Summer: The Donna Summer Musical where she also received the Legacy Robe. She was previously in the original companies Soul Doctor, Motown, Ghost and In the Heights. Afra has toured the country in one of the nation’s companies of Hamilton and was also featured as the show artwork for Shuffle Along: or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed...

Timothy Hughes made his Broadway debut in the 2012 production of Chaplin. However, he is probably best known for his role of Strong Man in the film The Greatest Showman and creating the role of Pabbie in the Broadway musical Frozen. In Hadestown, he plays Worker #5 and covers the role of Hades.

Ahmad Simmons has performed in three original Broadway companies in the last four years: Cats, Carousel and now Hadestown. In addition to performing choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler and Justin Peck, he was also featured this spring playing Ben Vereen on the F/X miniseries Fosse/Verdon. In Hadestown, he plays Worker #4 as well as understudying the roles of Hermes and Orpheus.

John Krause made his Broadway debut as a replacement in the company of Fun Home. He’s toured in American Idiot and Wicked, as well as playing Drew in the Las Vegas sit-down production of Rock of Ages. John plays Worker #3 in Hadestown as well as understudying the role of Orephus.

Kimberly Marable recently completed a five-year residency in the ensemble of The Lion King on Broadway. Beforehand, she had made her Broadway debut as a replacement in Sister Act. In addition to her work onstage, she’s one of the co-founders of Broadway Serves, an organization for community members looking to be the change they want to see in the world. In Hadestown, Kimberly plays Worker #1 and covers the roles of Persephone and the Fates.

In honor of Black History Month, we're revisiting our July 2019 interviews with the original ensemble of the Tony Award-winning musical, Hadestown. Host Justin Mock looks back at The Ensemblist's interviews with three of the original company members: Afra Hines, Kimberly Marable and Ahmad Simmons.

Replacing an original company member in a Broadway show is a feat for any performer. But being the first person to replace in a show comes a set of joys and challenges all their own - ones that only get magnified when the show is a huge success like last season’s Tony Award-winning musical, Hadestown. Anthony Chatmon II was deemed that honor when he joined the company earlier this fall, replacing actor Ahmad Simmons as a member of the show’s ensemble...

“Hell on Earth” premiered on April 2, 2012 (Happy...April Fools?). It was written by Scott Burkhardt and directed by Paul McGuigan. The episode was viewed by 6.03 million viewers, which is again down, this time by .11 million. Oof...

“The Coup” premiered on March 26, 2012. It was directed by Paris Barclay, and written by show creator Theresa Rebeck. This is the first episode Ms. Rebeck has been credited with writing since episode 3. Upon premiere, the episode was viewed by 6.14 million, which is down .42 million from the week before. It just keeps going down… This is the first episode where there is zero music by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, which makes sense since the workshop’s over...

“The Workshop” premiered on March 19, 2012. It was written by Jason Grote, and directed by Mimi Leder. The episode premiered to 6.56 million viewers, down about half a mil from the previous week. Being the workshop presentation, we basically saw excerpts of all the original music from Bombshell by Shaiman and Whitman that we have seen thus far, but we also saw a new original song called “On Lexington and 52nd Street” in its entirety which closed out the presentation...