dsmWeekly - April 9, 2025

By Michael Morain

Every night for months now, Molly Goodwin has gone to hell and back. She’s the production stage manager for the North American tour of “Hadestown,” the musical that returns to town for five shows this weekend at the Des Moines Civic Center.

The show retells two tales from Greek mythology — that of the young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and King Hades and his wife, Persephone — and sets it in America during the Great Depression, with plenty of blues and jazz from Harlem and New Orleans.

With a pile of 2019 and 2020 Tony and Grammy awards, it’s a far cry from Goodwin’s theatrical debut, as a nun, back in a high school show in Davenport. She studied theater production at Luther College and has since enjoyed a successful career as a stage manager for national and international tours of “Pretty Woman,” “Tootsie,” “West Side Story” and many other shows on Broadway, on Holland America cruises and in Las Vegas (where her favorite was Celine Dion’s “New Day”).

When we recently called her about “Hadestown,” she was with the tour in Pensacola, Florida. The following answers have been lightly condensed.

What’s it like to stage-manage this particular show?
Since this tour has a lot of one-nighters, we’re moving at a faster rate. We can get in, set up and take down in 18 hours. We don’t have any automation, and no scenic elements are computer-driven, so there are a lot of manual elements and hand props. The bulk of my cuing is lighting. There are almost 500 light cues, which are fun for me. We really have to focus during two particular sequences, when we go down to the underworld and when we come back up.

One of the things I love about stage management is calling a show. We tend to be backstage in a dark corner, out of the way. Calling the show is a very performative act, as well. Being in sync, being able to jump ahead or catch somebody if they do something different, that’s something I’ve really come to enjoy.

These myths are thousands of years old. Why do they still resonate in 2025?
At their base, these are stories about love, about some people who choose each other and others who kind of get thrown together — and the fates are part of the equation. With the two main couples, it’s touching to see a very young representation of love (Orpheus and Eurydice) and a very old, wizened version (Hades and Persephone). You get a great dichotomy. Their sturggles are similar to what a lot of people go through. You’re navigating the world, you meet someone who becomes important to you, and then you try to navigate with that other human.

What do you hope audiences take away from the show?
There’s no place to hide in “Hadestown,” because it pulls on your heart so much. If you’re feeling something, you’re going to feel it. I've cried through the calls because something hit me in a way it hadn’t before. There’s this lovely forced catharsis where maybe you’re not ready to actually identify what you're going through or what’s causing you hurt or frustration, but something in the show allows you to have an emotional release. When you go through that together, it’s so different than going through it alone. There’s a whole audience of people who are in the same boat with you.

Iowa Demon Hawk Raphael Nascimento played pro ball in Brazil before studying at Marshalltown Community College and Grand View University. (Photo: Duane Tinkey)

BEST BET

The Demon Hawks enter the playoffs

Why not support the speedy Iowa Demon Hawks soccer club in the playoffs this weekend? At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, they'll take on the United Elite Krajisnik FC from Utica, New York, at Buccaneers Arena in Urbandale.

The Demon Hawks are part of the Major Arena Soccer League 2 and lead the North division with 10 wins and only one loss this season. The team plays arena soccer, which is played in a tight indoor space that enables fast action and double-digit scores. Last season, the Demon Hawks had a 15-0 record and won a championship. Their journey to win back-to-back titles begins this weekend.

Read more about the team in the current issue of dsm. Tickets and details for this weekend are online.

The Week Ahead

Kathranne Knight, 5-8 p.m. Friday, Moberg Gallery. In a solo show called “Recurrence,” the Iowa Arts Council fellow’s minimalist, meditative drawings and paintings “pulse with a backbeat rhythm, a staccato of line and color that works on the body and eye.” It coincides with a related show she curated called “Oh, Repetition!” which features a dozen local and area artists. Both shows open with a reception Friday and remain through May 3.

Monster Jam, 1 and 7 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday, Iowa Events Center. Watch gutsy drivers flip 12,000-pound monster in midair, jump over obstacles and perform other stunts.

Old Chapel Concert Series, 7 p.m. Saturday, Immanuel United Methodist Church. Wisconsin-based guitarist and singer Courtney Hartman comes to town to preview her album “With You,” which explores themes of motherhood.

Night Ranger, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Hoyt Sherman Place. Rock out to the band that’s sold more than 17 million albums worldwide.

Des Moines Latino Film Festival, opening Tuesday, Varsity Cinema. Celebrate Latino culture through a wide range of movies, art and live music over four days, April 15-18, at the Varsity.

Iowa Stops Hunger: A new pilot project that Central Iowa Food Security Plan announced on March 27 will create three community navigator positions to link Iowans with food banks and other community services. The pilot program comes from the communitywide food insecurity reduction plan, which was launched in February 2024 by United Way of Central Iowa and the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines. The plan called for a united, collaborative response “to address food insecurity equitably, respectfully and with dignity.” The new community navigator positions will be contracted out by United Way. Read more from the Business Record.

By Dave Elbert

The Iowa caucuses and other cold-weather events brought worldwide attention to Des Moines’ public, climate-controlled skywalks. But it was two generations of office workers who filled them, window to window.

Today, as downtown buildings shift from commercial to residential uses, skywalk traffic is down, and efforts are underway to reimagine the 4-mile network with updated interiors and amenities. This month, artists and volunteers are creating colorful artwork to transform sections into a “Joy Walk.”

That makes this a good time for a look back.

It began 54 years ago, in 1971, with a single bridge from a then-new J.C. Penney store to the city’s first modern parking ramp at Fifth and Walnut. The bridge was inspired by a 1960 Comprehensive Downtown Plan that envisioned elevated open-air walkways between downtown buildings.

Designs for a more expansive, enclosed system emerged a few years later as the 25-story Financial Center and 35-story Ruan Center went up. The growing web of walkways was inspired by the enclosed bridges that appeared in downtown Minneapolis in the mid-1960s. The plan was to copy Minneapolis with skywalks that ran directly through major buildings. But that meant shutting down the system when businesses closed, so local leaders repositioned our skywalks along the outer walls of buildings.

The 1980s saw significant growth when the Marriott Hotel, 801 Grand, the Kaleidoscope mall and Capital Square became key connectors for pedestrian bridges. Nonetheless, before installation techniques were perfected, there were a few problems. Some skywalk windowpanes shattered or fell out.

By 1983, there were enough links for office workers to travel three-quarters of a mile for exercise in the elevated hallways. As new bridges were added, skywalkers no longer had to double back to rack up their steps.

Skywalks are sometimes blamed for killing street-level retail — but the truth is, it was already on life support. The skywalks kept downtown alive with events like the “Skywalk Open” miniature golf tournaments (1986-2011), until the 1990s Vision Plan created new amenities.

In the early 2000s, skywalk links moved west to accommodate new headquarters for Nationwide Insurance and Wells Fargo Financial, and they pushed north to the new Iowa Events Center. Skywalk bridges grew longer, and some hallways became more dramatic — one walkway between two Wells Fargo Financial buildings stretches up seven stories to the ceiling (pictured).

The latest skywalk extension was a diagonal bridge connecting two Nationwide Insurance parking ramps at 12th and Mulberry streets, built around 2011. Not long after, in 2014, a fire wiped out the original downtown Younkers department store.

The fire destroyed key skywalk links that were never entirely replaced, nor were two other sections that had connected the parking ramp that once linked to the Penney’s building and the Kaleidoscope Mall, which served as a backbone for the early skywalk system. Those two links were later demolished.

There are plans to replace those links, once new construction projects are completed. But as of today, there’s no firm timeline for when that will happen.

Read more of Elbert's Backstories at dsmmagazine.com.