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Since it opened on Broadway in 2015, Hamilton: An American Musical, the Tony Award-winning show written by MacArthur genius grant recipient LinManuel Miranda (T. Kail, director), has been a phenomenon among students-and their teachers-around the United States. Using Ron Chernow's award-winning biography of US founding father Alexander Hamilton (2005) as his foundational text, Miranda chose to use nontraditional casting for the play. The only visibly White actor with a speaking role in the original Broadway cast was Jonathan Groff, who played a comical yet ominous King George III. The rest of the characters, including Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the Schuyler sisters were all magnificently played by actors of color. While the historical accuracy of the musical has been questioned by some scholars (cf. Monteiro, 2016), the popular allure of the hip-hop-infused score cannot be denied.
My niece, herself a frequent lead in her middle school's musicals, was quite compelled by the music and the message of Hamilton as a seventh and eighth grader. While she loved the fun songs by the Schuyler sisters during the first act of the play, like "Helpless," I found myself most compelled by the songs of the second act, including "One Last Time," "It's Quiet Uptown," and the unforgettable final number, "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?" Founding father George Washington begins this piece:
Let me tell you what I wish I'd known
When I was young and dreamed of glory
You have no control...
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?
(Miranda, 2015, track 23, C. Jackson)
One by one, the characters who revolved around Hamilton's life like satellites sum up the grandeur of the story through song. There is a moment when the spotlight falls upon the stage and a lyric soprano begins to sing as the chorus announces her identity:
(Eliza...)
I put myself back in the narrative
(Eliza.)
I stop wasting time on tears
I live another fifty years
It's not enough...
(Eliza. )
(Miranda, 2015, track 23, P. Soo)
Hamilton's widow narrates her story of life after his death beautifully, becoming the true heroine of the play, moving from victim of her dead husband's philandering to victorious curator of his legacy, benefactor of orphans, and mother of...