My ‘Hamilton’ experience and why I (need to) love Broadway

By Alex P. Vidal

“Performing on Broadway is an honor and a challenge for any artist.” — Luis Fonsi

FROM time to time, I take advantage of a chance to watch Broadway musicals, something I couldn’t—and impossible to—do when I wasn’t yet a New York resident.

There’s something about music that really tugs on the heart strings.

In my personal experience, Broadway musicals let tourists (mostly from Europe, Canada, Australia) and people like me escape the day-to-day norms and be transported to new worlds and enchanting settings.

They let us see things from other perspectives and shine a light on stories we may not have heard before.

While we love everything about movies, a film isn’t a live show. A Broadway show offers us real in-person entertainment. We could be feet or inches away from actors as they take us on a journey full of heart, high-energy, and even suspense.

These shows let us turn off our brain for two hours and let us get swept away by the power of performance. On Broadway World’s message board, one user says a Broadway show is unlike anything else.

“It’s the fact that the actors are right in front of you, performing LIVE,” the user writes. “It tells a story with the actors right in front of you pouring their emotions out.”

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One of the reasons people love watching films in movie theaters is that we can experience art with other people. We will get the same experience in a Broadway theater! The minute we step into one of the many theaters like Broadhurst, Booth, Gershwin, or August Wilson, we will find so many others just like us, taking in a Broadway show.

What better way to stimulate our imagination than going to the theatre for a musical? We will engage with an imaginative story, accompanied by songs and dancing while we will be immersed in the performance.

Watching a play or musical entails paying attention to what is happening on stage and identifying with characters. Our sense of empathy for characters will be enhanced and can carry through to daily life.

I had a chance to watch Hamilton May 2. It’s a stage musical by American composer and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda that premiered Off-Broadway on February 17, 2015, at the Public Theater in New York City before moving to Broadway for a second opening on August 6.

Based on the life of Alexander Hamilton, the explosively popular, critically acclaimed musical married hip-hop and Broadway in previously unimaginable ways and lifted Hamilton higher in the pantheon of the Founding Fathers, while humanizing him in touching and inspiring ways.

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Hailed as the most significant new American musical in a generation, Hamilton swept the major 2016 Tony Awards.

After reading Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography about Hamilton, Miranda, who had fused hip-hop and salsa in the Tony Award-winning In the Heights (2007), began creating a musical about the Founding Father. In the life of Hamilton—who rose from obscure origins on the small Caribbean Island of Nevis to become a leading U.S. statesman and the first U.S. secretary of the treasury—Miranda saw a quintessential American story, one that he perceived as akin to the humble beginnings of rappers.

The resulting musical was energetic and infectious, and it featured a racially diverse cast, with Miranda starring in the title role.

In addition to Miranda, members of the original Broadway cast who would win acclaim for their performances included Daveed Diggs, Leslie Odom, Jr., Renée Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Soo, and Jonathan Groff. Miranda’s behind-the-scenes collaborators included director Thomas Kail, musical director Alex Lacamoire, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, set designer David Korins, and costume designer Paul Tazewell.

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Among the figures from early American history who strut across the stage in Hamilton are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, the marquis de Lafayette, and King George III, not to mention the Schuyler sisters, daughters of Revolutionary War general and political leader Philip John Schuyler, including Eliza, Hamilton’s wife.

At the centre of the musical is the feud between Hamilton and Aaron Burr, and Hamilton climaxes with the famous duel between them that took Hamilton’s life.

In 2016 Hamilton was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and it received an unprecedented 16 Tony nominations—Miranda earning several nods, including best actor in a leading role in a musical. The production eventually won 11 Tonys, falling one short of the record. Hamilton was named best musical, and Miranda won for best book and best original score. In July that year he made his final appearance in the show.

The following year, the musical opened in London’s West End, where it was a critical and commercial success. It won seven Olivier Awards, including best new play. In addition, Miranda garnered the award for outstanding achievement in music.

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Hamilton has since been performed in a number of other cities outside the United States and across the country. A filmed performance of the musical aired on television in 2020.

An unforgettable cinematic stage performance, the filmed version of the original Broadway production of “Hamilton” combines the best elements of live theater, film and streaming to bring the cultural phenomenon to homes around the world for a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime experience. “Hamilton” is the story of America then, told by America now. Featuring a score that blends hip-hop, jazz, R&B and Broadway, “Hamilton” has taken the story of American founding father Alexander Hamilton and created a revolutionary moment in theatre—a musical that has had a profound impact on culture, politics, and education.

Filmed at The Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway in June of 2016, the film transports its audience into the world of the Broadway show in a uniquely intimate way.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo—Ed)