Hadestown Tony Nominee Amber Gray on What She Wishes Were Normal and Who Knows Her Deep, Dark Secrets

Amber Gray is giving a Tony-nominated performance as Persephone in Hadestown, which earned 14 Tony noms including Best Musical. The Anaïs Mitchell-penned musical has played three countries, including London's West End, and multiple venues since its 2010 inception, and Gray has been part of it for the last five years. "I started my first workshop in 2014," Gray said to Ryan Lee Gilbert in an interview on Broadway.com's #LiveAtFive. "I've done six two-week workshops and this is my fourth production and each one gets cleaner and tighter. I'm really proud of it, and I'm super honored that people are responding to it the way I have. There's a reason I have re-upped so many times. I feel similarly about it in the way that the audiences are reacting to it so it's very special. That doesn't always happen, you can love a show a lot in the audience can be like, 'I don't think so.' It's pretty special when it aligns."

While Gray is an acclaimed performer, she originally didn't plan on doing musical theater. "I have a BFA in acting and then, a few years later, I went and got an MFA in acting," she said. "Those conservatories, when they're not musical-based, are not always the nicest about musical theater kids, which is ridiculous. I grew up singing, and I always loved singing and the event of singing, especially with other people harmonizing. Some of my earliest gigs were musicals, and I just stayed in that world. I had a very limited view of what a musical meant."

Gray continued down that music-filled road, which eventually led her to Hadestown, and her second time working with director Rachel Chavkin on Broadway. "I get nervous when I have to articulate why I love her so much," Gray said of Chavkin. "I am attracted to similar pieces of art as she is, they always have a lot of soul and politics. All of her shows are like athletic events, they're epic and she's actually quite hard on me because we've been friends for so long. She knows what she can get out of me and she sees what I'm capable of before I can. I love that about her, she's deeply challenging to me and makes me go places that I haven't before. She's like my pillow, she knows a lot of deep dark secrets."

Chavkin, who also also directed Gray in her Broadway debut in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, is the only female director of a musical this season. "I wish it was not something to be pointed out and that it's just normal," Gray said. "Our lead producers are women as well. I keep saying it is one of the healthiest rooms I've ever been in. That is not necessarily because it is run by women, but it's not not because of it. It's a true collaboration and everyone is there with the same goal; to make a piece of art. There's no disrespect in that room which is a beautiful thing."

Recently Broadway.com took exclusive backstage photos of what happens during Hadestown and released a picture of Gray using a breast pump during intermission. "I look forward to the day where that is not an exciting photo," Gray said. "It's just normalcy, especially in my world where I am there to provide food to two creatures. That's every few hours for me, and has been for the last three years. It didn't even faze me that he was walking by and taking photos. That's what happens every day during intermission, religiously. [I] fix up [my] makeup and pump for five minutes, it's really magical."