Let's be honest.
You have probably heard about this musical dozens of times by now. But let me explain to you how amazing this performance was from a different perspective.
I had no clue what the musical was before going into the theater.
Hamilton's touring cast is going around to 21+ cities in America and the only city that the play is shown at a college is at Arizona State University. Because of this, ASU was allowed to give away a few dozen balcony seats and there was a contest that was going on for students in Herberger Institute for Design & the Arts.
I didn't want to "throw away my shot" so I entered the #WhatHamiltonMeansToMe competition. Between seventy other students and I, we got to attend one of the most talked about theatrical performances of 2018, Hamilton, for free.
Hamilton is a hip-hop musical about the life of one of America's founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton.
You might ask yourself, "Why a play about Hamilton of all people?"
I asked myself the same thing, and it was answered when I heard the final song of the musical. The character Angelica Schuyler sings, "Every other founding father's story gets told. Every other founding father gets to grow old."
Hamilton established our financial system and he is the reason we have credit. The first four lines of the musical explain perfectly how the rest of the play will go, "How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman... grow up to be a hero and a scholar?"
I am not going to sit here and try to tell you that Hamilton was a perfect man because he was far from it, but the things he did for this country are incredible and he deserves to have his story told just as much every other founding father.
When the night of Thursday, February 15th came around I knew I had to dress up for the occasion. I strapped on my heels and headed across the street to scan my ticket. I went straight to the top floor of ASU Gammage, I found my seat and before I knew it the lights dimmed and right before my eyes I saw my history books come to life.
The play is divided into two acts and comprises 46 songs. At the beginning of the play, I was feeling overwhelmed. there was so much happening on stage between the singing, dancing, moving of props, lighting, introducing each character and so much more.
But it was when the third song came on that Hamilton had won my heart.
The song was "My Shot," where we figure out that Hamilton was only a 19 year old with a dream of equality for people of all skin colors and that he is someone who is always going to take the opportunities that comes his way. The performance of this song was what got to me, the dancing was perfectly in sync and was incredibly choreographed. You could hear the passion behind every single singer and the way they moved the props around had to be rehearsed nearly a thousand times to get every single move so perfect.
The reason that this musical is so "need to see" is because it is history meets the 21st century.
The lighting showed you when people were in separate rooms or together, the small usage of props told you if the scene was inside or outside, and the characters did so well at using dialogue that would be from 200 years ago but speaking as if they were talking to you today.
In the end, (yes, spoiler alert if you didn't know it already) Hamilton dies.
(I mean, I hope you did because it is written in all of our texts books, but it is OK if you didn't.)
Hamilton didn't get to live as long as any of our other founding fathers but the impact this man made was incredible. This play opened my eyes to America's history and inspired me to realize that anyone from any background can be a hero to millions to come if they truly want it bad enough.
Well done Hamilton. You have just earned yourself another die-hard fan.
