Apr 8, 2023
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Oskar Eustis, Tony Kushner, and Tony Taccone (1992) // Oskar Eustis, Tony Kushner, and Tony Taccone with Rita Moreno (2019)
“The job of the theater is to reflect back to us what our lives look like, what our society looks like, and by doing that, allow us to think about it.” – Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director of The Public Theater
daveeddiggs | You can't see Oskar Eustis's face in this pic. But you can see mine. And in it if you are looking you will see the absolute joy I feel to be able to call this man my friend and comrade, and to be able to call the @publictheaterny, that he helms, the home of @barsworkshopnyc and my NYC home. #blessed
An emotional opening for ‘Hamilton’ in Puerto Rico — not just for Lin-Manuel Miranda but an island still reeling from a storm (Washington Post):
[. . .] Miranda’s mission achieved an emotional crescendo as a new “Hamilton” touring production — the musical’s sixth incarnation — celebrated its official opening to the hurrahs of an exuberant sellout crowd. When the actor made his entrance, during the introductory number, “Alexander Hamilton,” it was the audience that stopped the show, with a prolonged, thunderous ovation. At the curtain call nearly three hours later, Miranda once again brought down the house, with a teary speech that ended with him pulling a large Puerto Rican flag from under his costume and holding it aloft.
“I just love the island so much,” he said during a post-show news conference, “and I just want it to be proud of me.”
The special 23-performance visit of “Hamilton” to Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island of 3.5 million people that’s not a normal stop for Broadway productions, was indeed a labor of love for Miranda and his father, Luis Miranda, a Puerto Rican native who made a name for himself in New York City Democratic politics. They prevailed upon the producers and investors of the show — which brings in as much as $4 million a week on Broadway alone — to donate the entire proceeds of the San Juan engagement, after operating expenses, to a fund for struggling Puerto Rican artists and arts institutions. The fund, administered by the local Flamboyan Foundation, which also has a Washington arm, stands to receive $15 million from the “Hamilton” run, according to Luis Miranda.
“I’m so happy that he brought us this art, which means so much to us as Puerto Ricans, not just as Americans,” said Roberto Ramos Perea, a well-known playwright and director here who heads the theater program at Ateneo Puertorriqueño, the island’s oldest arts institution and a repository for its dramatic literature through the centuries. “This guy,” Perea said of Lin-Manuel Miranda, “has made something difficult to do: to capture the attention of the whole world for us.”
[. . .]
Some residents resent local authorities’ bending over backward for “Hamilton”: When a plan fell through at the last minute to stage the production in a historic theater on the campus of Luis Miranda’s alma mater, the University of Puerto Rico, the government immediately cleared a path to move “Hamilton” to the Centro de Bellas Artes. That left the university in the lurch, as the renovations to its theater — aided by a $1 million donation from the Mirandas — have not been completed.
“We haven’t seen support like that from any administration except now, for ‘Hamilton,’ ” said Aida Belén Rivera-Ruiz, a UPR professor. “I would like to see them flourish with support for local productions.”
Still, the Mirandas’ efforts are being widely hailed in the arduous campaign to get the island back on its feet. Hurricane Maria caused the deaths of nearly 3,000 Puerto Ricans and left widespread damage, both to property and to psyches. Last year, an estimated 100,000 residents left for the U.S. mainland, according to Edwin Meléndez, director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York. And the talent drain is hitting hard in the artistic and professional classes.
The island’s enduring fiscal disaster — a $70 billion debt load that led to the imposition by Congress of a board, known here as “the junta,” to put curbs on government spending — has only exacerbated the sense of ongoing emergency.
“How can you have a recovery when your tax base is eroding by the day?” Meléndez said. “It’s important,” he added of the spotlight “Hamilton” is putting on the island, “because rebuilding Puerto Rico hasn’t started yet. The major reconstruction funding is trickling down very slowly.”
[. . .]
“I just adored his talent — I think he’s one unique dude,” said Roxene Pierce, a retired high school Spanish teacher from Iowa City who had bought a tour package that included stops in Vega Alta and at a Bacardi rum distillery, as well as a ticket to “Hamilton.”
Dave and Kathy Mullen, from Madison, Wis. — he’s a software architect and she advises seniors on how to downsize — drove out to Vega Alta on their own. They said their trip to Puerto Rico was occasioned both by a love of “Hamilton” and a desire to put their tourist dollars to work in a destination that needed help. “It’s very difficult not to respond positively to Lin,” Dave Mullen said.
You sensed time and again in talking to visitors — 90 percent of the tourists are from the mainland — that people have indeed responded to Lin-Manuel Miranda and his family in a deeply personal way.
“I had plans to come to Puerto Rico,” explained Pierce, “because [the Mirandas] asked us to come to Puerto Rico.”
[. . .]
At the packed news conference Friday night, Puerto Rican reporters posed the kind of questions asked of political candidates: What did he think about the debt problem? What about crime? How did he feel about the Trump administration’s threat to take money away from Puerto Rican disaster aid to pay for the wall? Miranda, still reeling from the emotions of performing — during a number called “Hurricane,” he said, he’d had trouble maintaining his composure — seemed a bit overwhelmed by it all.
“Lin has always been extremely cautious about choosing his political causes,” said Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater in New York, where “Hamilton” had its world premiere in February 2015. “He has taken Puerto Rico’s safety, health and social policy as a central political policy of his own.” According to Eustis, Lin-Manuel and his politically astute father “believe it's a cause that has no downside.”
Like other figures central to “Hamilton’s” development — from lead producer Jeffrey Seller, to Ron Chernow, on whose biography of Hamilton Miranda based the musical, to actors Leslie Odom Jr., Anthony Ramos and Jasmine Cephas Jones from the original cast — Eustis came to San Juan to witness this historic musical-theater moment. Questlove and Shonda Rhimes were there, too, on Friday night; Oprah Winfrey will soon be on her way; Jimmy Fallon will broadcast from San Juan next week; and a congressional delegation with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is said to be arriving, too.
The power of Lin-Manuel Miranda and “Hamilton” to arouse curiosity and compel attention, four years after the show came into being, seems a phenomenon unparalleled in the annals of Broadway. [. . .]
Lin and Quiara attend opening night of White Noise
Lin_Manuel: We went to see the new Suzan Lori-Parks play tonight. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO its a doozy and I will be unpacking it for days. Daveed is incandescent, but you already know this.
@Lin_Manuel: Vanessa and I travelled REALLY far this weekend... Once a year, we go down from Washington Heights ALL the way to Brooklyn. Lunch with the Eustises and Pippa Soostises
In the beginning of this mini series, Oskar Eustis shares the beginning experiences of developing new work as a “contribution to the community as a whole,” a...
In the beginning of this mini series, Oskar Eustis shares the beginning experiences of developing new work as a “contribution to the community as a whole,” as opposed to thinking about turning a profit. Exploring a new voice of the theatre is key to the success of creating something special.
Stay tuned for more in this series as we examine how new work in the theatre reaches an audience through empathy and hope and what the work can ultimately do to fix our democracy (just as it has done in the past).
Oskar Eustis is a director, dramaturg, and Artistic Director of The Public Theater (and Advisory Committee member of the American Theatre Wing). Natasha Katz is a 6 time Tony Award winning Lighting Designer and Vice Chair on the Board of Trustees at the American Theatre Wing.