Hamilton

“Hamilton” is a musical that was written by Lin Manuel Miranda and was released on January 20, 2015. It is about America during the time of the Revolutionary War when the American colonies were fighting to get out of the control of the British monarchy.

Lin Manuel Miranda’s first musical that he created and performed was actually “In The Heights.” It is about the lives of the Latin-American community in Washington Heights in New York. Lin Manuel Miranda is Puerto Rican and was born and was raised in Washington Heights which affected both of his major Broadway musicals.

“Hamilton” follows the life of Alexander Hamilton who was originally played by Lin Manuel Miranda on Broadway. Alexander Hamilton was an orphaned, immigrant child who grew up during the Revolution and is portrayed as arrogant and success-seeking. It goes on to tell of his successes including being Secretary of the Treasury to George Washington, pushing for the national bank, and writing a large percentage of the Federalist papers.

The musical itself gained a lot of attention as it is considered a “modern musical” because it has modern music styles like rap and hip hop. It brought diversity to Broadway while also winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama along with the record-breaking sixteen nominations for the Tony Awards. It led to the cast winning eleven of those awards.

The musical has been enjoyed by millions of people, which must show its significance to modern culture. “Hamilton” offers a new style of music for musicals since they are often opera and theatre music which are considerably slower and more outdated when compared to the hip hop and rap genres that “Hamilton” contains.

Personally, I really enjoy “Hamilton” because I found it more relatable to modern life because of the style that it used. It was able to keep my attention more than other musicals because of all of the excitement.

Once past that, it was clear that Lin Manuel Miranda crafted the musical extremely carefully. In a CNBC interview, he said that it took him seven years to write the musical. This was made clear with all of the little details he added in like humor, mostly unknown information, and recurring themes throughout the whole almost-three-hour musical. 

The soundtrack itself is amazing, but the in-person performance adds so much to it also. There is creative dancing, hidden jokes, and the acting out of scenes that add to the viewer’s understanding. There is also just the sensation of the people being right there that gives a different kind of connection to the audience.

“Before I saw it I was kind of skeptical about going to see ‘Hamilton’ because it had been a while since we had gotten the tickets,” said Tara Callahan, 10, “but seeing it live was way different than listening to it and everything hit differently.”

Although the soundtrack was good by itself, the performance turned it into an unbelievable experience when I saw it. It felt as if it was a thing separate from the musical because it had so much more meaning to it. Overall, both the soundtrack and the live show are great.