Madeline Peters’s Reviews > Working on a Song: the Lyrics of HADESTOWN > Status Update
Madeline Peters
is 70% done
the GOR does more positive for the show than not, but i think removing the following lines from “if it’s true” is unforgivable:
“take this voice, take these hands / i can’t use them anyway / take this music and the memory / of the muse from which it came”
this orpheus would’ve CRAWLED to the river lethe if he could’ve (bon iver’s orpheus or perish!!)
— Aug 18, 2026 11:12AM
“take this voice, take these hands / i can’t use them anyway / take this music and the memory / of the muse from which it came”
this orpheus would’ve CRAWLED to the river lethe if he could’ve (bon iver’s orpheus or perish!!)
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Madeline’s Previous Updates
Madeline Peters
is 80% done
once again, the GOR takes no prisoners with devastating blows such as:
“and suddenly hades was only a man / with the taste of nectar on his lips”
— Aug 19, 2026 05:45PM
“and suddenly hades was only a man / with the taste of nectar on his lips”
Madeline Peters
is 47% done
the “Great Orpheus Rewrite” is both a love letter to and a condemnation of the process of creating art. and it is apt that the show’s biggest overhaul is rewriting the poet who is constantly rewriting…
and in a major mega meta sense, perhaps the GOR is another attempt for the story to “turn out this time,” as if one changed word or line will be the difference to them making it out together
— Aug 17, 2026 01:28PM
and in a major mega meta sense, perhaps the GOR is another attempt for the story to “turn out this time,” as if one changed word or line will be the difference to them making it out together