Actor Jose Contreras steps into lead role in 'Hadestown' musical and makes history
When "Hamilton" first hit the stage, a giddy Jose Contreras rushed to a vintage store reeking of tobacco to buy something resembling Founding Father garb.
Contreras, then a teenager, also became obsessed with the musical's soundtrack.
"I would play the album start to [finish] and rap through the whole thing by myself in my room," he recalled.
Contreras, now 26 and calls New York City home, isn't just a fan. He, like "Hamilton" creator Lin Manuel Miranda, is from Puerto Rico. And recently, Contreras has been experiencing what he calls a "full-circle" moment: He plays Orpheus in the national tour of "Hadestown," playing at the CIBC Theatre May 6-18.
Contreras is the first-ever Puerto Rican Orpheus. The importance of this moment is not lost on him.
After a recent show in El Paso, Texas, a Latina mother and her 10-year-old son came to the stage door.
“She was in tears. In Spanish she said, 'I’m so proud of you. I don’t even know you, but it just feels like you made it — and we all made it.' She gave me this big hug," Contreras said, chatting with the Sun-Times earlier this week while on a tour stop in Auburn, Ala. "A moment like that is not something that I ever thought I would get to be a part of, let alone an inspiration for.
“... I’ve always been a big advocate for inclusivity in the arts because, growing up, there weren’t a lot of people who looked like me doing what I wanted to do," he said. "So that’s always been this big driving mission behind why I do theater and why I love theater.”
Blending folk, blues and New Orleans jazz, "Hadestown" is a retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus' descent into the underworld on a hero's quest to rescue his lover, Eurydice. The show, which debuted on Broadway in 2019, won eight Tony Awards, including best new musical.
Contreras wouldn't call himself an expert on Greek mythology, although his older sister loved author Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson" novels as a kid.
"I've been in proximity to a lot of these Greek myths just by the nature of being her brother," he said.
Contreras has been with the show — his first Broadway national tour — for a little more than a month.
The lead-up to the audition went something like this: "I leave the show I'm doing, get on a midnight train, make it to Manhattan for my ("Hadestown") audition in the morning. I get on a train right after my audition back to do the show that I have to do that night."
About two weeks after he got the phone call saying he'd landed the part, he made his stage debut as Orpheus.
He says he's delighted to be coming to Chicago — his first big-city stop on the tour. He's never been here, although his parents have: they came from Puerto Rico a few years back to see "Hamilton" — to the same theater where Contreras will take the stage this week.
“I remember being so jealous when they told me because I was still in school and I couldn’t go see ['Hamilton'] with them," Contreras said.
Two dozen or so others from his family are joining his parents to see "Hadestown" here, he said.
Contreras has previously met Miranda, outside a theater stage door. The experience was very remimiscent of the Latino woman who approached him in much the same way years ago.
"I was too starstruck to say anything," Contreras said.
And Contreras wants Miranda to know that he'd love to work with him.
"Anything he does, I’d love to do — a black-box community theater production," Contreras said.