Marathon Native Xavier McKnight Joins Hadestown National Broadway Tour

In 2014, Xavier McKnight stood onstage at Marathon Community Theatre as the centerpiece of a benefit concert, the crowd helping raise money to cover his tuition at the American Musical & Dramatic Academy in New York City. The Marathon High School graduate needed the community's backing to get there. Twelve years later, Keys Weekly reached him for an interview at 7 a.m. aboard a moving tour bus somewhere in Utah, a few hours before his next performance in the national touring company of "Hadestown."

McKnight has joined the production as a swing and understudy for the roles of Hermes and Hades, a position that requires him to be ready to cover as many as seven different characters on any given night. "Hadestown," with music, lyrics and book by Anaïs Mitchell and original direction by Rachel Chavkin, won eight Tony Awards in 2019 including Best Musical, along with the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.

This is his second national tour. His first put him onstage as Young Max in "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical." Before that, he built his touring footing with the Cat's Pajamas Vocal Band, an a cappella group that competed on the television series "The Sing Off" on the same season as Pentatonix. "When I booked Cat's Pajamas Vocal Band, I was like, 'Okay, I'm doing good,'" McKnight told Keys Weekly.

The line from that 2014 benefit concert to a Utah tour bus runs directly through the institutions that gave McKnight his early stage hours: Marathon Community Theatre, his high school productions, and then the conservatory training at AMDA that positioned him for regional theater work and eventually the national circuit. Keys Weekly's profile named his family, teachers and local directors as the foundation beneath each successive step.

Keys residents can find current tour dates and purchase tickets at hadestowntour.com, with Naples and Orlando serving as the closest Florida stops for audiences making the drive north. McKnight can be followed at @xaviermcknight on Instagram.

The benefit concert that sent him to New York and the Utah tour bus he answered a phone from before dawn occupy opposite ends of a twelve-year arc, but they share the same origin: a kid from Marathon who needed a stage and people who made sure he got one.