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May 18, 2026 By Mark Redfern Photography by Wendy Lynch Redfern

“You’re in for a night of jokes and songs. I can’t guarantee any of them will be funny. The songs may be funnier than the jokes,” said Maya Hawke near the start of her recent show at The Atlantis in Washington, D.C.

Stranger Things fans know her as Robin Buckley. Some know she is the daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. Those who follow Under the Radar will know that we had her on the cover of our print magazine in 2024. But not everyone knows that as well as being an accomplished actress, Maya Hawke is a fantastic singer/songwriter. Earlier this month she released her fourth album, Maitreya Corso, and the Atlantis performance was two days before the release date.

Joining Hawke on stage were her husband and creative partner, singer/songwriter/producer Christian Lee Hutson (on guitar), and violinist Odessa Jorgensen (who also releases her own music simply as Odessa). Fears that this stripped down configuration, minus percussion, might be too sleepy were quickly allayed. With her fanbase, Hawke could’ve likely sold out a much larger venue. The capacity at The Atlantis is only 450. Last year she was originally booked to perform at the 6,000 capacity The Anthem across town, before she canceled her tour due to a conflict with another creative project (likely an acting role). It seems probable that this time around she purposefully booked smaller venues for more intimate shows. While theoretically she could’ve held her own on a bigger stage, the acoustic setup was better suited to a smaller crowd and Hawke also thrived on interacting with her fans. This made it much more than a concert and lived up to the tour’s “An Evening with Maya Hawke” name.

Hawke and her cohorts played almost all of Maitreya Corso and not much else from her catalogue. Luckily we knew this going in, preempting any disappointment I might’ve felt from not hearing her play “Missing Out” from 2024’s Chaos Angel or “Sweet Tooth” from 2022’s MOSS. Joining me at The Atlantis were my wife/photographer Wendy Lynch Redfern and our 13-year-old daughter Rose, who’s a fan of both Hawke’s acting (Robin is her favorite Stranger Things character) and music. Rose and I sat in the balcony directly overlooking the stage, while Wendy took photos.

The set started with “Devil You Know,” one of the singles from Maitreya Corso, but not the album opener. So although all but two songs from the album were performed, it wasn’t in the order of the tracklist. She then performed the album opener “Love of My Life.” Of the song, she told the audience that she woke up one day and felt like she was in a cycle of bad choices and needed therapy to help her break the cycle.

In between each song she took questions and comments from the audience and the discussion turned to what books everyone was reading. Hawke said that she felt like her life was a reverse-Harry Potter experience. Whereas the young wizard went from the muggle real world to a magical boarding school, where he realized his true destiny, Hawke fully admitted that she grew up privileged in New York City, the daughter of movie stars, and now she’s out in the real world and learning what that’s like.

Then they performed one of the highlights of Maitreya Corso, “Great Minds.” If autobiographical, then the song seems centered in her childhood and maybe directed at her younger brother or her mother.

Before the next song, “Terms of Estrangement,” an audience member simply asked how Hawke was doing. “I’m really nervous,” she replied. “There’s a story that I know about Vanessa Redgrave,” she continued, referring to the acclaimed 89-year-old British actress of stage and screen, “and she was working with a younger actress and the younger actress was like, ‘It’s so weird that you get nervous, I never get nervous before shows, I don’t know why you would get nervous.’ And [Redgrave] goes, ‘Darling, some day you will be nervous and that will mean you know what you’re doing.’ And I think about that because I get more and more nervous for shows and more and more nervous to put work out the older I get and the more I do it. And I never thought it would go that way, I thought it would go the other way. But if I could bottle a second of the confidence I had as a 19-year-old I would become addicted to it like a drug I would never stop taking. I’m nervous. I’m excited. And I’m tired. And I’m happy. Is that a good answer?”

Hawke also warned the audience that we weren’t catching them at their best. “We’re falling apart over here. We’re two days from the end of our tour. No clean clothes. We’re sick.” But no such warning was needed—the harmonies were gorgeous, the trio sounded tight, and the stage banter was winning.

Although, they did mess up the beginning of “Dream House” and had to start over. “It was important to plan this show with some built in mistakes,” Hawke joked, before adding that she likes it when you go to a show and it doesn’t sound like the album.

She then told a story about how she once had an English teacher who came to class and announced that he’d been up all night listening to Sufjan Stevens’ then-new album, the devastating Carrie & Lowell, and they’d have to discuss that instead of whatever book they had been reading. Hutson added that he went to Catholic School, implying that that kind of thing didn’t happen there.

Prompted by an audience question, Hawke said that Avatar: The Last Airbender was her favorite TV show and some fans in the audience encouraged her to also watch Yellowjackets and also said they’d already streamed a leaked copy of the new Avatar: The Last Airbender movie. Hutson has also worked with Phoebe Bridgers and one fan asked him what his favorite song by her was—“Moon Song” from Punisher was the answer.

Some of Hawke’s songs are quite dense, with a lot of lyrics that she often powers through rapidly—case in point “Last Thoughts on Morning Star”—and one can’t help but be impressed that she’s able to remember all those lyrics (no doubt her acting experience helps).

Before “Last Living Lost Cause,” she gave some insight into the genesis of the song. “No matter what kind of work you do, there’s someone in every line of work where it’s like, ‘Yeah, well, that guy’s a jerk but he’s really good and maybe he’s really good because he’s a jerk? He’s always yelling at everyone, but at least he gets the job done.’ And I have this theory that nobody is good because they are a jerk, that they are good despite of the fact that they are a jerk, sometimes,” Hawke explained. “Because I’ve watched so many people trying to ruin their lives and relationships by trying to impersonate people who are jerks and were successful. And I think we should cut that shit. So, anyway, this song’s about that.” Working in both the film and music industries, she’s no doubt encountered her share of jerks, but it was a relief to see that she certainly wasn’t even close to being one of them.

Hawke was less sure of what “Heavy Rain” was about. “It’s sort of a mystery to me and every time I sing it it means something different,” she said, before adding that it was her favorite song on Maitreya Corso.

Over the next few songs, Hawke took more questions from the audience. She said she was satisfied with the series finale of Stranger Things (“I’m happy with how the show ended”) and would totally do Inside Out 3 if asked (she voiced the emotion Anxiety in Inside Out 2). She got off social media because she was becoming addicted to it. She discussed whether Shakespeare really wrote his plays and declared Taylor Swift a modern Shakespeare. She praised Emma Stone and in particular her films Poor Things and Easy A. The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Clueless were also brought up as films she loves. Astrology was discussed, which Hawke said she loved and equated it to therapy. “What if therapy was actually comforting?” She said Judee Sill was a big influence on the new album.

Towards the end of the set Hawke asked, “Do you mind if we do a cover song?”

“It’s a cover of a country song from 20 years ago,” she added before the trio launched into a cover of Brad Paisley’s 2007 song “Online.” It was not a song I was familiar with, due to my avoidance of most mainstream country music of the last 30 years, but Hawke was right that the song’s lyrics about a boy pretending to be more than he was online were still relevant in light of the manosphere and TV shows such as Adolescene. After the show I listened to the original song and much preferred Hawke’s version.

For the encore Hawke played the lone two songs from her older albums: “Luna Moth” and “Thérèse,” both from 2022’s MOSS. Why nothing from 2024’s Chaos Angel, such as the previously mentioned “Missing Out” or any other song from that album? No matter, Maitreya Corso is Hawke’s most complete and accomplished album yet and the whole show was an absolute delight—part concert, part fan Q&A. “I really like how people asked questions,” said my daughter Rose after the concert. “I got so much more than I thought I’d get from that show.”

At the end of the show, Hawke was impressed that everyone stood up for two hours and in her disarming style she encouraged those under 27 (which is her age) to exercise their backs, as she’s already starting to feel her age. As much as her screen performances are welcome (she has three upcoming films confirmed for the next year: One Night Only, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, and Wishful Thinking), let’s hope that as her acting career continues to grow she doesn’t sideline her musical ambitions. With four albums and an EP released in just the last six years (Phoebe Bridges has released one album in that time, for comparison), that seems unlikely.

At the end of her utterly charming concert, Hawke simply said: “Thank-you, thank-you so much. What a beautiful, beautiful night.” And we couldn’t agree more.

www.mayahawkemusic.com

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