What I learned from Hamilton? I need a history lesson.
Last Wednesday evening, Nick and I finally got to join the Kool Kids Klub by seeing Hamilton: An American Musical on stage at the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison. I lucked out by getting to purchase face value tickets from a drawing at work, so we didn't have to deal with the madness that is securing affordable Hamilton tickets through third-party apps or line camping. This continued level of demand is impressive considering the show is going into it's fifth year and is currently on it's third U.S. tour.
Despite having also seen To Kill a Mockingbird at Shubert Theatre this summer in NYC, and being able to screech every single genius word of Rent, I am not especially educated about the shows of Broadway.
Growing up, my family wasn't really the arts-loving-theater-attending type of people, so I haven't seen Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Wicked, Chicago, The Book of Mormon, The Lion King...so it is no surprise that I had no idea what to expect for Hamilton. Truthfully, I knew it was about Alexander Hamilton (someone I admittedly knew very little about prior to the show), included hip-hop stylings, was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and that Michelle Obama thinks it is the best art she's ever seen.
Although Hamilton has been so incredibly popular, I didn't really hear any details about it from anyone I knew who saw it. Some folks did recommend that I listen to the soundtrack prior to the show so that I could get a feel for the storyline and the musical stylings since it goes pretty fast. Others told me to go into it without having heard or researched a thing so that it would be a uniquely new experience without any internet reviews getting in the way.
I decided to go organic and just show up and see what it was all about that night, which I enjoyed, but dang, it took me a few songs to wrap my brain around everything playing out on the stage before me. For the first five minutes, I didn't know where to look.
Who is singing/rapping now and what are they saying?
What are those dancers doing in the background?
What's happening up there on the stairs?
Why can't I keep up with the lyrics?!
Who is that guy? Who is that woman?
Why did the audience just laugh when she came on stage and introduced herself?
Why don't I know anything about the life of Alexander Hamilton?!
Fortunately, the show does slow down and you start to catch up with the pace of the story, but I was worried that Nick was going to have to escort me out of the mezzanine if I didn't soon get a handle on what shot this guy wasn't going to waste.
The performance we saw in Madison was absolutely stunning. Every actor was phenomenal, and I know I probably shouldn't say this, but after listening to a few of the original NYC Broadway songs online this week, I actually prefer the sound and style of Nick Sanchez, who played Alexander Hamilton at the Overture on the 27th. I was also pretty obsessed with Ta'Rea Campbell, who played Angelica Schuyler. Speaking of the Schuyler sisters, I had heard of them zero times prior to Hamilton. In fact, I had to give myself a speedy little history lesson during the intermission so that me and the 3rd graders in the room would have the same academic foundation. Thanks, Wikipedia!
10 things I learned from Hamilton:
1. I need to read Ron Chernow's 2004 biography, Alexander Hamilton.
2. Alexander Hamilton was an orphan from the Caribbean.
3. A.H. was shot and killed in a duel with Aaron Burr. He was never tried and all charges were dropped.
4. A.H. had an affair with 23-year old, Maria Reynolds, and was blackmailed into keeping it quiet until the release of the Reynolds Pamphlet = America's first political sex scandal?!
5. A.H. lost his oldest son, 19 year-old Phillip, to a duel.
6. A.H. was the first Secretary of the Treasury and founder of the nation's financial system, the Federalist Party, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the New York Post newspaper.
7. A.H. wrote 51 of the 85 installments of The Federalist Papers.
8. Thomas Jefferson wasn't Alexander Hamilton's biggest fan.
9. A.H. married Eliza Schuyler, the second daughter of Continental Army General, Philip Schuyler. Her family was one of the richest and most politically influential in New York. Eliza went on to co-found and direct Graham Windham, the first private orphanage in New York City.
10. I must have been catching up on naps and math homework during middle and high school U.S. History.
I know that I never thought the story of the Founding Fathers could be simultaneously so educational and entertaining. If you saw it, what did you think? Worth the 16 Tony nominations? Best art you've ever seen? Do you want whatever Lin-Manuel Miranda's having?