Ring in the new year with 2 unforgettable Broadway experiences

This paid piece is sponsored by Washington Pavilion Management Inc.

Want two ideal reasons to look forward to January? They’re waiting inside the Washington Pavilion.

The first month of 2025 will bring two incredible Broadway shows to the Mary W. Sommervold Hall. 

COME FROM AWAY returns

It’s rare for a Broadway show to return so quickly to Sioux Falls, but “every so often, a show is so exceptional and enough people ask for it that we want more people to be able to see it or to see it again,” said Bob Wendland, assistant director of performances at the Washington Pavilion.

That’s the case with COME FROM AWAY, which spent a week in Sioux Falls in 2022 and returns for three performances Jan. 7-9 at 7:30 p.m.

“So many people saw COME FROM AWAY and said: ‘Please bring it back. I want to see it again. I want my friends to go to it, and I want to tell my family about it,’” Wendland said. “It is a really unique story, told in a powerful way about the human spirit.”

This New York Times Critics’ Pick takes you into the heart of the remarkable true story of 7,000 stranded passengers after Sept. 11, 2001, and the small town in Newfoundland that welcomed them.

Cultures clashed, and nerves ran high, but uneasiness turned into trust, music soared into the night, and gratitude grew into enduring friendships.

The show is a Best Musical winner all across North America written by Tony nominees Irene Sankoff and David Hein, and directed by Tony-winning Best Director Christopher Ashley with musical staging by Tony-nominee Kelly Devine.

“The wildest thing is everything they’re singing and dancing about on that stage really happened,” Wendland said.

“We think the timing is right at the beginning of a new year with a lot of transitions. It’s a nice reminder that regardless of what’s happening in the world, we as individuals still have a choice to make every day – whether to be good people or not. The story is a small town in Newfoundland where they all decided to be good people, and it really had a lasting impact.”

Great seats are still available. Click here to learn more and reserve your tickets. 

HADESTOWN arrives

Ask Wendland which Broadway show in this season’s Pavilion Performance Series he’s most anticipating and the answer will be HADESTOWN.

“It’s the one I’m most excited about,” Wendland said. “I saw it on Broadway in January 2024, and it is one of the most impressive pieces of musical theater I’ve ever seen. It is unreal what they were able to accomplish on the stage.”

The storytelling “is brilliant,” he continued. “And the music undeniably impressive. It’s just a really, really good show.”

HADESTOWN intertwines two mythic tales — that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife, Persephone — as it invites you on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back.

Celebrated singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell provides beguiling melodies, and innovative director Rachel Chavkin’s poetic imagination pits industry against nature, doubt against faith and fear against love.

“I was never that engaged in mythology, but this takes that story and tells it in a way that makes it feel really universal and understandable and in a lot of ways really modern,” Wendland said. “It feels timeless. The character work is just really impressive, some of the best I’ve seen, and the music is so good.”

The show begins with “sort of a folk, jazz club vibe,” he continued. “It’s laid-back, and then when you least expect it, it progresses into something that’s really big and flashy. The ending will rip your heart out and put it right back in.”

HADESTOWN is the winner of eight 2019 Tony Awards,® including Best Musical and the 2020 Grammy® Award for Best Musical Theater Album.

It will offer five performances at the Washington Pavilion:

• Jan. 17 at 7:30 p.m.
• Jan. 18 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.
• Jan. 19 at 1 and 6:30 p.m.

When people ask which show they need to see this season, “I say HADESTOWN,” Wendland said. “It’s a really impressive piece of art that is so entertaining. It started touring two years ago, so this is a pretty early ‘get’ for us, which is exciting too because it’s brilliant.”

Great seats are still available, especially for Sunday evening’s performance. To learn more and reserve tickets, click here.