For example, King George’s thrice reprised melody in “What Comes Next?,” “You’ll Be Back,” and “I Know Him” brings down the house with its lilting, bubble gum pop tune, its series of “da da da da da,” and its irresistibly droll lyrics, like “Cuz when push comes to shove, / I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love” and his wide-eyed surprise that George Washington will not rule the USA forever. Within the hip hop rhythms, Miranda assigns each character a catchy lyric or musical motif so that when each returns, the audience immediately understands who he is and how he fits into the story. as Hamilton’s archenemy and eventual killer, Aaron Burr, Daveed Diggs as a Frenchified Thomas Jefferson, Jonathan Groff as 1970s crooner King George (a role created by and wearing the ghost of Brian d’Arcy James), and Christopher Jackson as a reasonable and strict George Washington. In addition to the eponymous character currently played with infinite charisma by the author (though he’ll soon be replaced by Javier Muñoz , his current understudy who performs each Sunday), Hamilton’s fellow-travelers are precisely drawn and charmingly embodied by Leslie Odom, Jr. history and that history teachers across the U.S are using the musical’s cast album as a textbook of sorts. It’s not surprising that New York City public high school students are attending the show to learn U.S. By casting the U.S.’s founding fathers as hip-hop singing men of color, the show radically revises our perspective on the very meaning of this country’s origins. Let me say first that Lin-Manuel Miranda’s idea to transform Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton was nothing short of brilliant. This piece is meant to gesture in that direction. A takeaway of that session was that we have to keep talking and embrace ambivalence and contradiction in our spectatorship and fandom. Last month at Broadwa圜on (another incredible and inspirational theatre event), I moderated a lively panel titled “Is Your Fave Problematic?” The audience was eager to talk about shows that they love but that represent women or people of color in unflattering or stereotypical ways. I’m adding my thoughts to the mix to expand the discussion and to demonstrate how we can love musicals that also trouble us. ![]() ![]() So many words have been spilled on this musical, and such valuable commentary has been published-most recently James McMaster’s astute “Why Hamilton is Not the Revolution You Think it Is” on HowlRound-in addition to the flood of crucial fans’ cheers for the show. During a recent talk at Princeton, Claudia Rankine observed that when she saw the show, most of the audience was white and older.) (The audience demographics have shifted, it seems, because it’s the hottest and most expensive ticket in town. Lesson to all: if you can get tickets, you can sit in the very back and still love this show. Even though our seats were near the back of the Richard Rodgers Theatre, we could see perfectly and had a great view of the powerful lighting design and fluid set changes. It’s amazing to see so many young people of color in a Broadway theatre-that fact alone is enough to warrant this musical’s blockbuster success. ![]() I saw it again Broadway in November with my students and some colleagues among a packed house of thrilled young people. I got to see it first at the Public last year (as it turns out, the same performance that the Clintons attended, which provided layers of irony and heightened awareness for the entire audience, as we watched a former and possibly future President watch actors playing past presidents and politicians). The performance grabs you and holds you for 2½ hours. It’s fast, kinetic, beautifully designed, superbly performed. From the moments the lights come up, it’s electric, exhilarating, pulsing, infectious. For Your Viewing Pleasure: Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture.Feminist Performance Festival Roundtable (2011).“Feminism, Utopia, and Performance”: The Progressives Corner (2012).Performing Que(e)ries Part IV: Holly Hughes in conversation with Jill Dolan (2013).“What Makes a Jewish Theatre Artist” (2013).Teaching and Mentoring, for Grad Students and New Faculty.“Feminist Performance Criticism and the Popular: Reviewing Wendy Wasserstein” (2008).“Colleague-Criticism: Performance, Writing, and Queer Collegiality” (2009).“On ‘Publics’: A Feminist Constellation of Keywords” (2011).“Casual Racism and Stuttering Failures: An Ethics for Classroom Engagement” (2012). ![]()
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