HAMILTON: Hip Hop or not 5 Reasons Hamilton is a Must See Experience

Hamilton is the toast of New York. $28 million advanced sale makes it one of the most anticipated shows to hit Broadway. Not bad for a guy who the Treasury Department recently decided to remove from from the $10 bill, in spite of being the person responsible for our country's financial system. Here's what I can say for sure they were right. The revolution will not be televised. Because it's playing 8 shows a week on Broadway.

For folks like me, residents of Twitterico and a deep admirer of Lin-Manuel Miranda's work, Hamilton was an exercise of patience. Imagined as a concept album (Hamilton's Mixed Tape) and given a tease of what would become the opening number during a 2009 performance at the White House I have followed the journey along with thousands of Miranda's twitter followers as Hamilton grew into a fully realized musical that embraces the meaning and significance of words while conveying the visual melting pot we were taught to believe our nation was and continues to be. 

Hamilton will open later this week with the wind at its back. Success at the Public Theater and word of mouth have made this show the hottest ticket in town. Just ask the several hundred people lined up daily for a chance to win $10 tickets during the #Ham4Ham lottery. I've had the good fortune to see both the original staging downtown and the tweaked version that now resides at the Richard Rogers Theatre. 

One thing's certain, Hamilton steps into the limelight with a lot of hype. I thought I'd offer five reasons why this show exceeds expectation.

1) Is it a Hip Hop Musical or is it a musical with Hip Hop?

Hamilton's secret beauty is that it breaks down assumptions within the story and more importantly those we enter into the theater with as an audience. I've heard and read a lot about how this show changes the game, but to assume that it's because of the show's grounding in Hip Hop would be a mistake. Doing so would minimize the lyrical dexterity and historical accuracy that this show deploys from its opening snap. It changes our theater vernacular in a way the expands the audience's vantage point rather than carving out an entirely new road. That's its secret weapon. Manuel's music evolves with these characters. We are given a musical journey that possesses raw staccato passages to convey the urgency and hunger of the show's namesake. Alexander Hamilton arrived in the country a man of no importance. His drive, his words and his relentlessness drove him to center of the creation of a country ("I'm just like my country, I'm young scrappy and hungry"). A parallel rises from the writing of Federalist Papers and the platform Hip Hop gave a generation of voices that hadn't been heard. A tight, caustic and inciting rap battle is the pinnacle of choices to represent the wizardry and wordsmiths our founding fathers were. Hip Hop serves as the perfect vehicle for the story of our countries founding. It's a musical movement born out of the desire for freedom of expression. Yes, Hamilton is a musical that opens it's doors to a world that Broadway often doesn't speak about, but the brilliance is that Lin-Manuel Miranda has done so while holding on to his reverence for all that musical theater has created before. 

2) A World Where Women have Voice

The women. The Schuyler sisters to be specific didn't have to play a prominent role for this show to be successful. In fact they could have simply been pivot points that offered context for Hamilton's social climb and downfall. Instead, their stories, their point of view is vividly given life both in stellar performances from Renée Elise Goldsberry and Phillipa Soo and through music that envisions smart women who understood while they may have been powerless in the framing of government, they still possessed power that had purpose in driving the actions of our Founding Fathers. It matters for the story to give the audience a full picture of who Hamilton was and it matters for how we tell our history. For someone like me, who is raising a daughter, seeing and understanding the significance of the roles women have in our country since its inception is important. Who tells your story is present in every facet of this work. It is particularly stunning that a story about the actions of men is closed by a woman. The idea that as women, the Schuler sisters found a way to use (and deny) their voice is magnificently powerful. Their opening number invokes the feeling of a Destiny's Child anthem. But as the show and women evolve their complexity and search for a place in the world mirrors that of Hamilton's journey. Time and care are given to this story thread and what we get in return is a depth of understanding for the people behind our history and their humanity.

3) A. Ham v. A. Burr: When do we charge forward, when do we hold back and wait?

The show does a terrific job of navigating the complex lifelong intertwined relationship between Aaron Burr and Hamilton. How these gentleman from similar beginnings end up on opposite sides of a gun barrel is much richer than a rivalry gone too far. This show mines that gold to provide opposite sides of a coin. They embody two different tactics and paths for survival and success. Hamilton's brash, impatient action driven nature could easily be interpreted as impetuous even though he was intentional. His hunger drove him. Burr, as our narrator provides the exact opposite. He's a man lying in wait. As you watch the show, Burr often lurks in the shadows of a scene. He's observing, commenting, but never fully engaged, never committed. Miranda chooses a interesting moment to show how similar these men are in their core only to watch how their choices and methods set them on very different trajectories. Leslie Odom Jr. as Burr gives us a performance journey that possesses remorse and envy in places where he could have merely been foil for the stubbornness of Hamilton. By doing so, his pivotal number "The Room Where it Happens" becomes a showstopping moment. Not merely for the insanely large performance he gives, but for the significance of how much it reveals that Burr and Hamilton are not that much different in their desires. While the songs "My Shot" and "Wait for it" establish Hamiton and Burr's differing approaches, this final number by Burr stirs that desire and power are an elixir no man is immune to, even one as calculated as Burr. 

4) Team of Rivals, actually a team unrivaled.

Much has been said about Lin-Manuel Miranda and his creation of this show. To stop there would undercut the talent embedded in this production. The creative team led by director Thomas Kail alongside choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, set designer David Korins, costume designer Paul Tazewell, and musical director Alex Lacamoire make up a dream team for musical theater in the modern age. These gentlemen are the reason Hamilton is a Broadway show and not a concept recording called Hamiton's Mixed Tape. Kail's direction weaves together several points of view with seamless transitions providing for the passage of time, location and momentum for the characters. A great deal of this happens on the turntable and structural set Korins has the world inhabit. It's fitting that a story about the founding fathers is a framework and scaffolding. The visual works on multiple levels and keeps the focus centered on the language and verse rapidly coming our way. Blankenbuehler's choreography is storytelling at its finest whether it's animating a bullet travelling or using movement to covey urgency, fear and sadness. There is a breathtaking sequence towards the close of act 1 that if you stripped away the music and lyrics the story would remain perfectly in tact. These components speak to why this show is a masterpiece. Speaking of masterful. The puzzle that Lacamoire has put together as musical director is not to be understated. It would be easy to let the fact that the show is grounded in Hip Hop tell its musical tale. In reality Lacamoire has created a fabric of music that could have felt arbitrary, like selecting songs from a jukebox. Instead he has woven together a pattern that infuses the multiple genres that encompass Hamilton aligning the British Pop sounds to Rap as though they we always made to fade in and out of one another.  

5) This is OUR story. We are all immigrants

At the end of the day this is an immigrant story. A story that brings the internal motivation and optimistic urgency one feels to start a life to the forefront. This is true whether it's the life of a country, an individual or a legacy. Much has been said about the color blind casting of this show. It's significant to me not simply because it reflects our world today, but because it concretely says the stories of our founding father's belong to us all. 

I saw my first Broadway show when I was 9 years old. It was 10 more years before I saw characters who looked like me on a stage and reflected a world I knew. And not until I was 35 and watched Mandy Gonzalez sing about the challenges of living in two worlds did I see someone tell a story that reflected my personal journey. This is what makes Hamiton special. I sat in both the Public and Richard Rogers theaters as they filled with patrons, young, old, black, white, men, women.

All of us were taken into this immigrant story, because all of us can relate to wanting more than the hand life has dealt us. All of us can relate to the disappointment and betrayal that ambition can often cause. All of us can relate to the impulse to barrel ahead and the conflicting instinct that tells us to slow down and pick our moment more carefully. The success and failures that encompass Hamilton's life are the shared experience that this show conveys each of us at every performance. 

Who lives who dies who tells your story? 

At the close of In The Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda's protagonist Usnavi declares: 

"Yeah I'm a streetlight chilling in the heat. 

I illuminate the stories of the people that I meet. 

Some have happy endings, some are bittersweet. 

But I know them all and that's what makes our life complete. 

If it's not me who keeps our memories, 

who's gonna keep the coffee sweet with secret recipes." 

What clearly elevates Hamilton is the truism that who tells the story is often as important as whose story is being told. That's the defining authentic voice Lin-Manuel Miranda gloriously brings to musical theater. He's a storyteller and the prism his light shines through is multifaceted representing the many intersections at which so many of us live our lives. Where Sondheim's music spoke honestly to the raw emotions of a generation, I believe Lin-Manuel Miranda speaks to the voices of the unseen. Those who often go unheard and have been declared 'other' as they travel through different facets of society. His words speak to the declaration of people simply looking for their place in the world. His, is a portrait of how and why life matters. 

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story? As a fan of musical theater all my life Hamilton is a show for the ages and proves Lin-Manuel Miranda is a storyteller for a generation.  #YayHamlet

DEAR EVAN HANSEN: A Musical that like Evan, Needs to Be Seen

High school is a time wrought with change and obstacles. It's a period in life when as much as you are trying to define who you are, there is a part of us that simply wants to belong. To be accepted, to be seen, whether it's in the hallways of school or our own homes. It's a common shared experience often deemed a rite of passage we all endure and now serves as the center premise for the new original musical Dear Evan Hansen playing at Arena Stage for the next three weeks. It's the rare experience these days to go to the theater and see an original script and score that has no source material fully realized. Dear Evan Hansen has created something intimate and moving. It's an experience, in my opinion that is not to be missed

The show's tagline: "A letter, a lie, a life he never dreamed he could have." frames the plot for the journey protagonist Evan Hansen takes in his senior year of high school. Crippled by social anxiety and longing for a place to belong is where we begin. However, it's certainly not where we land by the end of this 2 1/2 hour emotional show. The book by Steven Levenson taps into the awkward honesty and humor that almost always comes from sadness and creates a deeply moving story about the many faces isolation takes. His characters, especially the teenagers speak in ways that ring authentic to experience rather than preaching to an audience. This nuance is critical because it builds a world that moves the audience emotionally as we respond to the dichotomy that in a world that is more interconnected by the digital age, the reality often reveals that in spite of those connections we are more isolated than ever before. Viewed through the prism of a high school tragedy, the ripple effect touches everyone on stage. I was especially impressed by the attention given to the glaring truth of how parents can be just as disconnected from their children in spite of loving them, no matter the circumstance.


Evan's initial solo Waving Through a Window is an anthem for so many of us connected through technology in the hopes of being seen but crippled by the fear of rejection. In the hands of Ben Platt (Pitch Perfect) Evan's uncertainty from the opening moment of the show is palpable. His awkward endearing nature fills the stage with a sincerity as we believe he is paralyzed by fear. I believed him from the moment he sits down on that bed, physically turning his body inward on himself. Equally matched is his counterpart Zoe, the object of his affection and sister of the boy who will come to define his existence. Laura Dreyfuss carries off a tricky role with a stunning display of weighted sadness and anger she wears like a coat. Zoe straddles a world of being seen for all the wrong reasons while she navigates her own invisibility at home. Dreyfuss' voice is strong, luminous and filled with the conflicting indigence that comes from being a teenager. In Only Us the love ballad that bonds Evan and Zoe, Dreyfuss soars. This is not your typical love blossoming. Rather it is a realization by two young people that they are longing to be out of the shadows and not be defined by someone else's story. They crave the ability to carve out who they are for themselves. Once again, to simply be seen.

The show crescendos into what I would deem the most vulnerable moment of the evening when the lies Evan has told others and himself ultimately unravel and he is forced to look at what remains. Words Fail requires Platt to take his character one step off the cliff's edge he's emotionally brought the audience to so we understand the need to step out on faith and to find the self belief that one will survive. It's a gut-wrenching moment that doesn't become melodramatic because Platt has skillfully unfolded this young man, his anxiety and fears so honestly over the course of the entire show. Platt must make the audience believe in Evan as he makes a series of compounding poor decisions. We can never think that Evan is deliberate in his actions so that he maintains our sympathy. Platt excels at earning the trust of the audience with a raw inwardly directed self loathing that is never fully declared, but always on display. It's taps into anyone who's had those moments of inadequacy and feeling of being on the outside looking in to a world you can't quite reach.

Platt is surrounded by a stellar cast each of whom deliver moments of much needed comic relief to the weight of this show. And frankly, Alexis Molnar and Will Roland (Alana and Jared) do so much more than that. They represent that moment we all feel when tragedy or something profound occurs. How we actively seek to find a connection to an event in order to be a part of it in some way. It speaks to the melodramatic nature of being a teenager and seeing the world only through yourself but also to the more subtle ways we do it as adults. Connor is the catalyst for the events that unfold, the voice in Evan's head and frankly all our heads telling us we are not enough and that we don't matter in the grand scheme. Connor physically appears when you're not always expecting him to and navigates from a manifestation to nagging reminder of how voices of doubt that can drown out reason. Mike Faist has the difficult task of creating a character who must morph into that manifestation while still being the shadow that hangs over everyone in the show. He does so with well placed charm and a chameleon like approach to his scenes.

The one place I wanted more was from the parents who are impacted by Evan's actions, but perhaps that's merely because I related to their pain and sense of failure. We are given a heartbreaking performance from Michael Park as Connor's father Larry, particularly in his solo The Right Way, a song that examines the remorse he feels thinking about the parent he envisioned he'd be. Larry clearly sees Evan as a second chance, the do over that we never get as parents. Evan's mother is delivered quietly by Rachel Bae Jones, in a performance that sneaks up on you. She's the parent filled with a need to will her son to be fine, when she knows in her heart he isn't, but she doesn't have the ability to change it. Her final moment comes on the heals of Platt's Words Fail. As an audience, we are barely given a moment to take a breath when we are seized by the remorse and broken heart of a parent who fully recognizes the way she's failed her child, but utterly refuses to allow that sense of personal failure to excuse her need to be present for her child. She's vulnerable and transparent to his hurt. It's a lifeline that requires so much from Jones as she taps into how much we as parents want for our children in ways that redeem our own personal failings. It is an overwhelming moment in a thread of the story that I hope will be more interwoven into Act 1 as this production evolves and finds an eventual, deserved home in New York and hopefully Broadway.

Dear Evan Hansen's music is penned by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, the duo who gave us Dogfight another show that introspectively looks at how we value our own self worth. Their songs reveal the truths we sometimes deny in order to survive and pose the questions we ask ourselves only in the quiet of our own thoughts. In the capable hands of Michael Greif who guided us so deftly through Twentysomething life in RENT and mental illness in Next to Normal is on point again with a show that often filters words and dialogue through third party mediums like the internet and a misinterpreted letter marvelously visualized with David Korin's set filled with moving screens that tells a story all its own.

Dear Evan Hansen is the type of work that leaves you reflective. It's a story that allows each of us to be seen through its characters and music. While the show questions the authenticity of how we connect the digital age. It clearly answers that our human need to feel, understand and connect remains constant. That feels especially true in the darkness of the theater as we applaud.