All right, love! Hamilton is ALL over my dash. It started with you, and now it's everyone. Can you tell me, a non-theatre, but still obviously lovely girl (: why it's so great?
First of all it was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, a Tony winner who was nominated for a Pulitzer for his first show, In The Heights. He’s Puerto Rican, and his work has a heavy focus on the contributions of immigrants- something he never lets us forget Hamilton was. It’s an immigrant’s story, about a boy who came from literally nothing (he was born in the Caribbean, his parents weren’t married, his father left when he was young, and his mother died a few years later) to go on to become one of the founding fathers.
And Lin-Manuel deliberately made almost the entire cast PoC. He’s said it’s the story of America then, told by the people of America now, and if anyone in the future ever puts it on with a cast that actually looks historically accurate, they have hugely missed the point. The exception is King George, who was specifically cast as white. Lin-Manuel was not even fucking around- where lots of shows with a huge cast of PoC have the Identifiable White Savior for a white audience to relate to, he cast Jonathon Groff to be the Comic Relief Villain. He turns tropes on their head and it’s wonderful.
Also, the music is predominately hip-hop, rap, and r&b. He put a lot of thought into the musical styles he gave each character- the progressive revolutionaries rap their way through the war, while the ones in favor of the status quo sing in older, jazzier styles. (And then there’s King George, who sounds different than everyone else- he sings in the style of 60′s British Invasion pop. It’s grand.)
And then there’s just how good the writing is. He based the show on a 700 page biography of Alexander Hamilton, and he actually worked pretty closely with the book’s author to make sure he was doing Hamilton’s story justice, even when he took some liberties with the timeline so the show flows well. The author was astonished by Lin-Manuel’s work- he played the opening song for him, and Chernow was like, “Well, goddamn, he just accurately summed up the first forty pages of my book in four minutes.”
It’s also got some great female characters, though Lin-Manuel had less to work with there, since there’s less known about the Schuyler sisters. But he manages to give them agency anyway- he even turns the lack of information on one of them into a deliberate choice on her part.
(Also, if nothing else, it delights me to imagine Thomas Jefferson rolling over in his fucking grave with the knowledge that he’s being played on Broadway by a black man. Fucking DEAL WITH IT, Thomas.)
IF YOU ARE INTRIGUED, here’s a few videos.
This is Lin-Manuel performing an early version of the opening song at the White House back in 2009, before he knew it was going to be a full musical and was writing it as a concept album. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jz1VRfdbmY
And ten minutes of clips from the show, I think from when it was still Off-Broadway, but I’m not positive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfwohSjn6iw
Nearly the entire show is sung-through, as well. So if you listen to the cast album you’ll be able to follow the plot with no trouble, because it’s all there.
THIS GOT REALLY LONG, so I hope you don’t mind me publishing this publicly, I just really love this show and I want everyone else to love it too. It has become my entire life and it’s reminded me why I love theater to begin with.
