#dónal & grace will be insanely missed !!

[achinghcarts]

when melanie la barrie held dónal's hand and chuckled and squeezed his arm and told him, with a shaky voice, "dónal finn - my boy." it was all over for me.

[constellationclarke]

Hadestown today for Grace and Dónal's final performances was actually insane. The energy was electric, every single performer on stage gave it their fucking all as though it was also their last performance too, right off the bat everyone was already emotional, the crowd was wild and cheering insanely loud at the very beginning, all the emotional moments were 10x more tender. Dónal's last If It's True was actually fucking crazy it was a showstopper to the point that when it ended not only did everyone applaud like usual but everyone stood up for a grand standing ovation. (Also I was sat next to his parents!! When everyone came out on stage at the beginning his mum stood up and waved and clapped for him, I was so emotional!) During Promises when Eurydice says "You finished it" about Orpheus finally completing his song the whole theatre erupted into cheers and applause (that never happens in that moment). When Grace has her big note at the end of Wait for Me (Reprise) the cheering and applause was so loud. The audience was just electric like never before, the cheering and applause for every single song had such a different and more intense feel to it than any other day. When Orpheus turns around and loses Eurydice the whole theatre held its breath and you could hear a pin drop when Hermes starts singing the finale. Melanie started it so so quietly and solemnly and tragically and it was so beautiful. Everyone on stage was crying when they came to take their bows and Madeline got a moment of appreciation since she's taking over as Eurydice. Dónal and Grace had extended applause moments. Everyone was a sobbing mess during We Raise Our Cups, both audience and cast alike AND!! The rest of the cast (swings and understudies) came out during the song to raise their cups as well!! And then Melanie asked everyone to be seated again and called all the tech team out to stage too, taught us a call and response she'd like us to keep in mind from a storytelling tradition back in Trinidad and Tobago (sorry I can't remember it rn I was too much of an emotional wreck!!) And then she gave Grace and Dónal respectively a beautiful heart felt genuine lovely speech and goodbye, there was not a dry eye in the whole place. She asked everyone on stage to create a path and then sent Grace and Dónal off with a rhyme and the call and response she taught us, and they walked off the way Orpheus and Eurydice would have walked out of hell together if he hadn't turned around!!!!!, and they stopped at the top just before the exit to wave bye to everyone and honestly there's probably loads I'm missing out on but I cried too damn much to be able to have the mental capacity to even formulate thoughts so if anyone else was there today and has anything to add please do so!!!! 😭 it was an insane time and I'm so so glad I got to be there and experience it, it was pure magic. I got this vid of the bows and you can see how emotional everyone was but had to cut it off as We Raise Our Cups started because my hands were shaking so much (I have a full vid of the song from months ago tho if anyone wants to see it just search on my blog)