Hamilton is an oddball success. Broadway has academic tastes but a hip-hop musical about American constitutional history sounded too esoteric even for New York’s theatreland — until it smashed records and made a hero (and Pulitzer Prize-winner) of writer Lin-Manuel Miranda.
And now it’s coming to London. The first round of priority tickets sold out earlier this month but there’s a general sale on Monday and fanboys and girls are quivering with excitement. This is why you should set your alarm to buy tickets at midday on January 30.
Long story short
Hamilton is a musical about the foundation of America. Granted, it is reasonable to entertain a cosmic Sliding Doors-esque daydream about whether we’d be better off if it had never happened; it also sounds like a history lesson. But by all accounts, Critics have no complaints: the hip-hop musical narrates the fortunes of founding fathers George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the eponymous Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton is the “bastard orphan” who rises to be Washington’s “right-hand man” before a conventionally dramatic fall. It’s two hours and 45 minutes long, with a 15-minute interval, and the first performance is on November 21.
Hamilton: the original Broadway cast
Booking wars
The first round of tickets, available to those who registered for priority access last year, went on sale at midday on January 16 and sold out. Your chance to see it is the general sale, which opens at noon on Monday January 30.
Stage might
The London run is being produced by Cameron Mackintosh and will be performed at the Victoria Palace Theatre, which will re-open for the occasion. It’s likely that Miranda will play Hamilton at some point during the run, as he did on Broadway.
Just the ticket
Tickets for the London dates start at £32.50, though within two hours of the priority sale, secondary ticketing website Viagogo was listing tickets for up to £2,500. But Hamilton’s team is determined to defy the touts and is pioneering paperless tickets: you must bring the card used for payment, your email confirmation and proof of ID.
The history boy
Miranda, 37, wrote Broadway musical In the Heights and had the idea for Hamilton while reading a biography of Alexander Hamilton on holiday. It became a rap about Hamilton, which he performed at the White House in 2009 and became the musical. Few would read the history book’s analysis and think “this would make a good musical” but Miranda was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for drama for the script for Hamilton. Ron Chernow, the biography’s author, reportedly gets one per cent of Hamilton’s profits.
Lin-Manuel Miraculous
Manuel is a Puerto Rican New Yorker and a consultant for the Democrats. He attended Wesleyan College, where he co-founded a hip-hop comedy troupe called Freestyle Love Supreme, and performed and directed modern and classic drama. He married Vanessa Nadal in 2010 and they have a one-year-old son, Sebastian, and a dog, Tobillo.
When he played Hamilton in the Broadway run tickets for his final performances went for $10,000. He’s in London now filming Mary Poppins Returns. He’s also a male ally: he was spotted on the Women’s March in London last week.
The playhouse is political
The script is a dramatisation of the political origins of the US but it has contemporaneous political relevance too. In November, then Vice President-elect Mike Pence was booed by a New York audience at a performance of the play — after curtain call, the cast delivered a speech about the importance of protecting diversity. The next day, then President-elect Trump tweeted his disgust. “Our wonderful future VP Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theatre. This should not happen!” He followed up with: “The theatre must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologise!”
Incidentally, Hamilton is Michelle Obama’s favourite musical. The former First Lady called it “the best art I have ever seen in my life”.
Strike the right note
You can’t see Hamilton until November but the soundtrack playlist has nearly 1.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify and won the Grammy for best Musical Theatre Album last year.
Casting call
The musical has been praised for acknowledging that America was founded by immigrants: many of the Founding Fathers have been played by black and Latino actors, such as Lesley Odom Jr. Last March, an open casting for the show’s national tour was considered discriminatory by some as it called specifically for “NON-WHITE men and women”. The advertisement was later updated to call for “men and women, ages 20s to 30s, for the non-white characters … Performers of all ethnic and racial backgrounds are encouraged to attend.” The casting for the London shows is in progress.
Prize play
The show was nominated for a record 16 Tony Awards, winning 11, as well as the aforementioned Grammy and a Pulitzer Prize for Miranda. In November it grossed $3.3 million in eight performances — the first to surpass $3 million over that number.
The joke’s on
It has inspired its own parody — a meaningful benchmark of success. Jeb! The Musical (An American Disappointment) casts unsuccessful Republican presidential nominee Jeb Bush in the role of Hamilton; Donald Trump appears in a supporting role.
Read up
You could read the book that inspired Miranda but if it is trivia you crave, seek out Hamilton: The Revolution, a behind-the-scenes book with an annotated libretto text.
Music and lyrics
Miranda’s annotated lyrics are available at genius.com. Some of the marks are made by fans but many have been verified by the writer, who unpacks his wordplay and offers extra historical context. Miranda is an extraordinarily deft wordsmith — choice rhymes include rhyming Socrates with mediocrities.
Cheap seats
In the US, the show offered “Ham4Ham” $10 tickets via a lottery.
Going viral
The West End run has more than 17,000 followers on Twitter already, and it has an exuberant Instagram account. The Broadway website has a “Ham4Ham section” on which it screens videos so that those without tickets can still see the musical numbers in performance.
Star appeal
Celebrity fans include Amy Schumer, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, Gloria Steinem, Kerry Washington, Jimmy Fallon, J-Lo, Oprah, Lupita Nyong’o and Lena Dunham. Barack Obama loved the show as much as his wife did, using the POTUS account to rhapsodise that “Hamilton reminds us of the vital, crazy, kinetic energy that’s at the heart of America”. There’s hope yet.
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