Writer's Note: Now this is an article that I have wanted to write about for a long time, and I know that I'm coming really late on writing this, but I struggled to put my feelings into words. Now, I'm confident that this best represents how much I love this musical and how important it really is, especially during this time in the United States. I hope you enjoy reading this article as much as I have writing it.
Last year in 2015, history was made in Manhattan. A new musical took to the stage and enthralled its audience. Since then, it has earned a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, earned a record-breaking sixteen Tony nominations, and won eleven, including Best Musical. Its name? Hamilton: An American Musical. While it tells the original immigrant story in the United States’ first treasury secretary, Hamilton also unravels the birth of America and its Founding Fathers. The musical explores Alexander Hamilton’s early life before coming to the New York, being an aide to George Washington during the American Revolution, his involvement in the country’s first sex scandal, his contributions to establishing the U.S., but most importantly, his relationship and contrast with 3rd Vice President Aaron Burr, the man who would fatally shoot Hamilton in their famous duel. With its historical accuracy, diverse cast, and the use of rap and hip hop when telling the story of early America, Hamilton has become, by far, the most groundbreaking work of art of our time.
Before Hamilton was brought to the public eye, its creator, Lin Manuel Miranda had already risen to fame in the musical theater world. In 2008 he had just released and starred in In the Heights, a musical that took place in the Washington Heights and featured a mix of salsa, rap, merengue, and hip hop music. It was an enormous success and won four Tony awards that year, including Best Musical and Original Score. Little did everyone know that Miranda’s next show was on the horizon. That previous summer, he and his then girlfriend, now wife, Vanessa Nadal, were on vacation in Mexico, and at the airport, Miranda grabbed a book to read while on his trip. The book was biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. Miranda was immediately gripped with this Founding Father’s story.
He learned that Hamilton was born an illegitimate child in the Caribbean, whose father abandoned his family, only to see his mother succumb to a fever three years later. Afterwards, he starts working at a trading charter and gets first-hand experience with economics, and starts to teach himself about other different subject matters by reading and writing constantly. At seventeen, Hamilton witnesses a hurricane that destroys his town of St. Croix and he writes a letter about the destruction. When describing the events, he wrote, “…the ear-piercing shrieks of the distressed, were sufficient to strike astonishment into Angels.” When his letter gets published, people come together and raise money to send him to New York to get a college education. “And that’s how he gets off the island. He literally writes himself out of his circumstances.” Miranda later said about Hamilton in a documentary about the musical. He then continued to say that Hamilton was a great example of the quintessential immigrant story, where someone could come to the United States and better themselves and their new country.
Miranda immediately compared him to rapper Tupac Shakur who not only was also fatally shot, but a very intricate writer and was well known to call out fellow rappers that he strongly disliked, just like how Hamilton shoots down enemies such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the show and in his life. Miranda also identified with Hamilton’s story because his parents are immigrants from Puerto Rico. His father left his home country to study at New York University and becomes an adviser on Hispanic affairs to Mayor Ed Koch and co-founded the MirRam Group, a political consulting company. Miranda saw Hamilton’s story like his father’s life. From there, Miranda knew that this was going to be his new project.
He first started working on one song, under the project name The Hamilton Mixtape. A year later, the White House invited Miranda to perform some songs from In the Heights for the White House Poetry Jam. He asked if he could do a new rap he was working on and they said yes. On the night of the Poetry Jam, he introduced his song, saying it was about someone that embodies hip-hop: the first Treasury secretary,to laughter from the audience. However, Miranda enthralled everyone at the Poetry Jam and thus began the production of the musical. That song that he performed that night would become the opening number in Hamilton.
Miranda then dived into piles of research, consulting with Ron Chernow in order to make Hamilton’s story as accurate as possible, as well as gaining advice from the legendary Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman. Even the cast members visited historical landmarks in order to gain a visual perspective of different settings that were going to be featured for the show. Some of their destinations were Mount Vernon in Virgina, George Washington’s home, Hamilton Grange in New York, where Hamilton lived, the Schuyler-Hamilton House in New Jersey, where Hamilton met his wife Eliza Schuyler, and the Morris-Jumel Mansion, Aaron Burr’s home. At some points in time, Miranda himself wrote some of the shows songs in Burr’s bedroom. One of the songs he wrote was the second number in Hamilton, My Shot.
While writing this song, Miranda had to condense the historical accuracy in order to stay in the time restraint that stage productions have, as well as keep the story going. In My Shot, itillustrates when Hamilton meets Marquis de Lafayette, Hercules Mulligan, and John Laurens for the first time while attending King’s College. In Hamilton’s real life, he didn’t meet his friends all in the same place, it’s a Broadway show; the facts have to be slimmed down so that the audience can keep up and still be learning about these characters.
The process of writing the songs was slow; very slow. The first song that Miranda wrote and performed at the White House took a year to write. So did My Shot. The reason is because of getting the rhymes and lyrics right. Because hip-hop and rap are not usually found in musical theatre, Miranda had to make sure that it was incorporated and natural like any other musical. While writing the songs, Miranda had to actually be all of these characters that are featured in Hamilton. For example, while writing My Shot, for Lafayette’s lyrics, Miranda considered how this Frenchman just arrived in New York City still trying to figure things out. This leads to these lyrics in the song:
“I dream of life without a monarchy
The unrest in France will lead to ‘onarchy?
‘Onarchy? How you say, how you say, ‘anarchy?’
When I fight, I make the other side panicky
With my shot!”
As well as featuring rap and hip hop, Miranda also features different music genres as well, and for a great purpose. In What’d I Miss in the beginning of Act Two, Thomas Jefferson, who had just arrived back home from France, sings in the music style of jazz, compared to everyone else in the U.S. that was rapping, beatboxing, and singing hip-hop. This translates to how Jefferson is behind in knowing the events that are happening in his home country, due to being away. When Washington sings, it’s on beat because that is who he is. The singing style that the characters have also show their personalities and intellect; that is brilliant! No musical that exists at this point in history has been known to do that, and Hamilton brought that technique to the spotlight.
Now the big elephant that is in the room is that the cast is multi-cultural and there are very few white actors. This is intentional and in the best way possible. The reason why is to show what America looks like now, with African-Americans, Latinos, European, and Asian citizens. “It’s a way of pulling you into the story and allowing you to leave whatever cultural baggage you have about the founding fathers at the door,” Lin Manuel-Miranda said in an interview. While giving a lot of focus to the Founding Fathers, Miranda gave the women in Hamilton’s life a voice too. The Schuyler sisters are a huge example of this, particularly Angelica. She is smart, witty, and always stands by her family. In The Schuyler Sisters she says:
“I’ve been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine
So men say that I’m intense or I’m insane
You want a revolution? I want a revelation
So listen to my declaration:
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident
That all men are created equal’
And when I meet Thomas Jefferson
I’m ‘a compel him to include women in the sequel!
Work!”
As well as having a multi-cultural cast, there is even double casting in the show. While Daveed Diggs and Okieriete Onaodowan play Hamilton’s friends Lafayette and Mulligan in the first act, they portray his enemies Jefferson and James Madison in Act Two. Anthony Ramos, who plays John Laurens in Act One, is Hamilton’s son Philip. Lastly, Jasmine Cephas Jones plays Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds, the woman that Hamilton has an affair with. With all of these facts pointed out though, the cast and creators still acknowledge how flawed these characters are. Christopher Jackson, the actor playing George Washington, has said that he will never be able to make peace with the fact that Washington owned people, slaves. And what is so moving is that the actors, the entire show, recognize that the Founding Fathers had good intentions, but were not good people themselves. And this leads to the main conflict in the story: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
The biggest part of history that Miranda aspired to get right was the friendship and rivalry between the two. It turns out that Burr was just as talented and brilliant as Hamilton was. However, he had different experiences. While Hamilton lived his early life in poverty, Burr was from a very well to do family, but his parents died when he was young, was raised by his grandfather who also died, even lost a sister. Compared to Hamilton who reacts to loss with action, Burr always bides his time, making sure that it’s going to be the right move before taking it. Like Lin Manuel-Miranda says, Burr has everything to lose while Hamilton has nothing to lose, as said in Wait for It, Burr’s solo song.
“Hamilton doesn’t hesitate
He exhibits no restraint
He takes and he takes and he takes
And he keeps winning anyway
He changes the game
He plays and he raises the stakes
And if there’s a reason
He seems to thrive when so few survive, then…
I’m willing to wait for it
I’m willing to wait for it…”
This causes Burr to not voice his political opinions while Hamilton establishing early on in his life in the U.S. that he firmly stands by what he believes in. It’s because of this big contrast between the two that leads to their famous duel.
In the election of 1800, Jefferson and Burr are running for President. There is a tie and Hamilton breaks it by voting for, believe it or not, Jefferson. He acknowledges that they have very opposing viewpoints, but states, in the show, that “Jefferson has beliefs. Burr has none.” This angers Burr tremendously and him and Hamilton start a long correspondence with Burr demanding that Hamilton apologize, and Hamilton, being the very stubborn person that he was, refuses and even dares to say that Burr was going to have to be more specific due to the many disagreements they have had over the years. They arrange a duel at Weehawken, New Jersey at dawn. During the last moments of his life, nobody knows what was going on in Hamilton’s head, but the Miranda made a very compelling guess. In fact, this was the scene that he was very hung up on. It was close to the previews and he didn’t have the final scene. Luckily, the answer came to him.
It was the early morning of New Year’s Day; Miranda’s infant son was sleeping on his chest with his wife sleeping next to him in bed. He then noticed that this was probably the quietest moment that he has had in a long time. Then he decided that Hamilton’s last moments should be quiet. And that is exactly what happens in the show. After Burr and Hamilton fire their guns at each other, the stage goes black, except for a shining light on Hamilton. He reflects on all that he has done for his country, then sees the people that he is going to see in the afterlife: Laurens, his son, his mother, Washington. Then he finally sees his wife in front of him. He sees all that he’s leaving behind with her and says his tearful goodbyes. He aims his pistol at the sky and is shot by Burr. It is in that moment where he looks back on the events that followed till Hamilton finally dies. He then sings to the audience:
Now I’m the villain in your history
I was too young and blind to see…
I should’ve known
I should’ve known
The world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me…”
One of Miranda’s ambitions in making Hamilton was to not portray Burr as the villain like American history always does. Throughout the show, the audience gets to see his perspective while he narrates his rival’s story. The world got to hear from Burr instead of a history book. But still, if Hamilton’s story ended right there with his death and Burr’s remorse, nobody would still not know about him despite all that he has done for the U.S. However, history has one person to thank for salvaging Hamilton’s story: his wife Eliza. Throughout the rest of her life, she strove to make sure her husband’s story was told. She saw the importance of securing his legacy, and if she had never done that, Ron Chernow would never have written Hamilton’s biography, Lin Manuel-Miranda would never have found it, and Hamilton would never have existed. Which means that the true hero of this story is Eliza. At first we just assume that the musical is all about Alexander Hamilton, but who is the other primary character in the story that also shares the same last name? Eliza Schuyler. Throughout most of the musical, it shows Hamilton fighting his way to better himself, securing his legacy, and helping establish policies in the U.S., but in the final number, Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Story, when Hamilton isn’t there to finish telling his story, or Burr even, Eliza is there in their place.
These qualities and facts about this musical is the reason that it has become a cultural phenomenon, has brought so many people to the theatre, and showed the true vision of America, a country of visionaries that are young, scrappy, and hungry, and are not going to throw away their shot.
