Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Told The Story

Hamilton, the musical about the life and legacy of the first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, has been taking America by storm for its innovation. The musical first debuted in February of 2015 and has been growing its fan base and popularity ever since. The musical has drawn a lot of attention because it has cast people of color to portray the white Founders of America. The author of the musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda, didn’t cast these people by mistake, but by intention. It’s important to take a hard look at what Hamilton has done by casting these people as such prominent figures in American history and how that changes the master narrative in history, society, and how it affects minority groups not equally represented in the historical founding of America.

American history has forever been a white person’s narrative and recount. What Hamilton does is it takes the history of America and gives it to underrepresented people. It's a production told by people of todays America. By casting people of color to portray white American founders it gives a certain kind of ownership to Americas history that minorities haven’t previously felt or had before. It pulls and places them into a story that they have typically been dismissed from. It also diminishes the common “echo-chamber” that white people live in. We see and hear our stories all the time, thus only listening to ourselves and fogging our view of how others live and have lived. And why shouldn’t it be told by people who represent America now? Who, mind you were there if you didn’t look in government buildings.

Hamilton creates a space where actors of color can excel and would otherwise not have a place to act. By showcasing that minorities can play well-rounded characters and parts instead of a stereotype begins the deconstruction of said stereotypes. Society can’t flourish without equal representation. Every person has experiences to bring and expand the homogenized narrative that has been perpetuated since the founding of this country. Creating a more inclusive and diverse scene for everyone. It also creates an for those whose history has been told over and over an area to experience life from the point of view of the minorities. That’s what the writers and creators were doing when they cast people of color as white characters, creating a space of inclusivity for everyone to see the fault in our system.

The musical also alludes to the thought that by allowing you, the viewer, to see a person of color playing historical figures, it gives the the viewer the opportunity to see lesser known historical figures as persons of color, like American spy Hercules Mulligan or former treasury secretary George Ecker. There is an expectation that the actors of the musical will be white, but when an actor is presented for the first time there is no pre-existing notion in the musical that compels the viewer to see them as anything but a black or Hispanic person. They’ve created a character that you’re seeing for the first time, to persuade your memory that they were nothing other than a person of color in the first place. Race conscious casting can empower large minority groups and integrate them into their own history.

Who Gets To See The Story

While one should respect the progression and new ideas that Hamilton brings to musicals and history alike, don’t be blindsided by the fact that even though they did cast people of color to play prominent historical figures, the musical itself is still very much a “boys club.” The only women characters in Hamilton are the three Schuyler sisters. Which ultimately leads to one sister, Peggy, dropped from the trio. Historically speaking, she married into a wealthy family and died young. Regardless, there is a whole other half of the population that isn’t equally represented in the play. There is just an essence of a historical women of color; Sally Hemmings. Other than that, women don’t hold very many roles in this historical adaptation. Which, if we’re speaking from care-based ethics, does the same old song and dance about men saving the day really help society and the human spirit flourish?

Hamilton has started a historical revolution surrounding race, but who gets to see this revolution unfold? Those whose story is being told? Those who need to see it most? How accessible will this story be to everyone? Hamilton tickets are difficult to come by without paying an arm and a leg. How can the producers of Hamilton make it affordable for as many people as possible to see the show?

The average cost of a Hamilton ticket is roughly $750 up to $3850 for a performance at the Richard Rogers Theatre in New York, where the show originally debuted. How can any “normal” person afford to drop $800 on a musical ticket?

The demographic who this musical isn’t necessarily for or belongs to, is the group who is seeing these performances the most. About 80% of people who see this musical are caucasian. In a web-post by James McMaster, on the website HowlRound, he said,

“The exorbitantly high ticket prices coupled with the perpetually sold-out status of the production prohibit most working class people of color from attending the show. Given that the production's audience, then, is overwhelmingly white and upper-middle-class, one wonders about the reception of the show's racial performance.”

And so he poses the question, how can people who this story is for, get to see the performance? The prices don't take into account the weak minorities whose story is being told to everyone, but them. A negative to the overpricing of tickets, is that you risk yet another story told about these people being viewed by the socially superior and leading to no conversation with underrepresented peoples after something like this has been created.

There are rumors and talk of a Hamilton movie, but that may be years from now. The producers of Hamilton want to get everything they can out of the Broadway hit, before moving onto the big screen. But by doing this, doesn’t it hinder the number of people this adaptation could reach? It’s contradictory to make a production everyone should see and only make it available to a certain group. If the producers were concerned more with the message over money, perhaps a movie would be within sight, but that doesn’t look like the case here. There is also a factor that if they do wait years from now to release a movie, who’s to say it will be a cinema hit or that people will even think it’s relevant anymore.

Hamilton is our revolutionary movement in a world constantly expanding that calls for action in compassion, understanding, and inclusiveness. The key thought to take away from Hamilton, is to realize that many stories and voices from America’s history have been silenced and not acknowledged for hundreds of years. And it’s important for minorities to take possession of their role in the story of America, because only they can tell and own it. As the last lyrics of the musical asks, “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” Who will tell their story?