Life doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints

April 2, 2016 6:22 PM

I work with a group of men who aren’t used to seeing themselves in the narrative, unless it’s as the villain, maybe not in your history book, but in a few newspaper articles a few years back and in the hearts of their victim’s families. These men understand that much of America thinks they are monsters, they deserve to be locked in cages. They are the bastard, orphan sons of … every kind of women you can imagine; they are also beloved sons and husbands in close families who come to see them in the visiting room at the prison every week. Maybe they’ve been “livin’ without a family since I was a child. My father left, my mother died, I grew up buckwild.” Many of them know all about impoverished, in squalor, and fathers who split.

Kate Powers, on watching (parts of) Hamilton with prisoners and the power of theatre.
posted by jeather (30 comments total)

This is great.
posted by bunderful at 7:28 PM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

In the comments on that is a link to Musicality, a Chicago public high school group, performing several Hamilton songs. Which, beware of It's Quiet Uptown. The tears.
posted by gingerbeer at 7:44 PM on April 2, 2016 [8 favorites]

Another interesting Hamilton story in the news this week comes from their casting call: ‘Hamilton’ Producers Will Change Job Posting, but Not Commitment to Diverse Casting. Their audition notice stated "seeking nonwhite men and women, ages 20s to 30s, for Broadway and upcoming tours," a description that was deeply problematic to Actors' Equity and raised questions about compliance with civil rights laws. The role of race in casting has been the subject of considerable controversy and debate recently, with thousands signing onto an open letter in January: Standing Up for Playwrights and Against ‘Colorblind’ Casting.

Also a reminder that Hamilton: The Revolution comes out April 12th and the vocal selections are out now.
posted by zachlipton at 8:04 PM on April 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

The rest of Kate Powers' blog is fascinating too. Here's a great post about figuring out how to stage Act III of Our Town at Sing Sing in 2013.
posted by zachlipton at 8:12 PM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

i hope LMM sees this.
posted by you're a kitty! at 8:37 PM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Along with my relationship, Hamilton is honestly been the most important thing in my life over the past year. It helped me dial in a kind of motivation to make my mark that I had been chasing for a long time. I listen to it almost daily and it's helped me pump myself up to do bigger and better things with my career, even prompting me to register for the LSAT. I love seeing people draw meaning from the content of the play and the story of its creation. Today i played portions of it to a room full of white octogenarians and they're hooked. We're reading the book and Lafayette and the Somewhat United States together. I've never seen anything convince so many dissimilar people of their own stake in history.
posted by skookumsaurus rex at 8:39 PM on April 2, 2016 [28 favorites]

This is really great. We just came from the Encores! production of 1776. My spouse was in the original First National Tour, so it was fun seeing it from his perspective. However, this production was cast with Hamilton in mind, with some deliberate racial choices. And to see the young man as the courier come out, a Black actor wearing a hoodie, singing "Mama, Look Sharp." Well, it was a bit of a thing.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:46 PM on April 2, 2016 [6 favorites]

> I've never seen anything convince so many dissimilar people of their own stake in history.

LMM has managed to tell the story of the first Treasury Secretary (and some of the people around him, including his killer!) in a way that makes it universal and encourages empathy. It's really a remarkable feat.
posted by rtha at 9:57 PM on April 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

Oh, wow, this made me actually cry. One thing I have been thinking about this a lot is how Hamilton got me so much more interested in early American history/the Revolutionary era/the Founding Fathers than I ever have been. And I am a white, middle class person, but it still never really felt like "my history," partly because my ancestors weren't here then, partly because of how women were so marginalized, but I think also because the way this history is taught is often so dry and devoid of passion or conflict. Which, now that I've started reading more, it's clear is bullshit.

I think it's so exciting that Hamilton is giving more people a way "into" the founding of our country, because it really is all Americans' history, even if our families didn't come until later, or if our ancestors were not part of the privileged few whose stories usually get told. It's still our history, and we all deserve to have it told in a way that allows us to see ourselves in it. Really, it's a pretty radical and very exciting thing.
posted by lunasol at 10:02 PM on April 2, 2016 [12 favorites]

After weeks of listening to the album (yeah, not a chance I get to see the play anytime soon), I'm struck that given the power of "Wait For It" - what would LMM do if he'd set out to create a Burr-centric musical?
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:20 PM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I dunno. In a lot of ways, I feel like it IS a Burr-centric musical. No, no, I get what you're saying, and of course it would have likely been just as remarkable, but Hamilton is already much more about Burr than about Eliza or Washington or Jefferson. I wouldn't say Burr is his Salieri, but a second hero.

Burr infuses so much of small moments -- in Washington's quarters, after the wedding, at Laurens' duel with Lee, his meeting a twice-distracted A. Ham. in the street post-Maria/pre-The Room Where It Happened, even his exhausted campaigning. Without Burr, there is no Hamilton musical. There could have been a story, but there could not have been this kind of richly textured story. The ribbon through it all is Burr -- how Washington is dismissive of him, how his failure to really rap sets him apart from "The Four of Us" (read: Lafayette's tipsy groaning, "You are the worst, Burr!") Yes, we care as much about the villain of our history as we do about our hero, but unlike in almost any other story, we never roll our eyes at Burr overreacting to these actual or perceived slights. And it may be the performance is just stronger than Miranda's, but in Dear Theodosia, I feel Burr's love for his child more than Hamilton's.

And damn, I love Metafilter for its love of Hamilton.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 11:30 PM on April 2, 2016 [35 favorites]

And I got so wrapped up in replying, I didn't say what I came in here to say (from my ridiculously and multiply-privileged positions), that if there were more real and compelling arts programs in the schools, I hazard we'd need fewer prisons.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 11:32 PM on April 2, 2016 [16 favorites]

And I got so wrapped up in replying, I didn't say what I came in here to say (from my ridiculously and multiply-privileged positions), that if there were more real and compelling arts programs in the schools, I hazard we'd need fewer prisons.

We artists and theater people and musicians and dancers have been trying to tell all y'all that for DECADES.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:25 AM on April 3, 2016 [13 favorites]

That's wonderful.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:49 AM on April 3, 2016

A few years ago, she brought Michael McKean into Sing Sing to introduce him to the actors during their run of Superior Donuts. McKean also wrote about that experience for the Huffington Post.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 6:47 AM on April 3, 2016

Yeah, watching the show live does a lot to drive home that this is very much Burr's show - he narrates, he drives the story, the entire play sort of coalesces around him. I think a lot of it ties back to how staggeringly talented a performer Leslie Odom Jr. is. It's kind of hard to explain, and it really doesn't come across on the album, but he's like a center of gravity for the entire production; when I left the theater the first thing I said to the person with me was "wow, that really is Odom's show. Lin's just kind of along for the ride".
posted by Itaxpica at 7:08 AM on April 3, 2016 [5 favorites]

Actually, Itaxpica, it does come across on the album, to an extent. I bought it because some friends played selections that impressed me, and before I knew who the narrator was I was captivated by both his voice and by "Whoever was singing Burr."

Leslie Odom Junior and Daveed Diggs are two of the three most commanding characters in the musical, along with the actress who plays Eliza.

Love this thread.
posted by Schadenfreudian at 9:12 AM on April 3, 2016

i love phillipa soo and she's incredible (and i think she's going to be a star far beyond what is amazingly her first broadway role), but for me renee elise goldsberry's angelica is in my top two or three characters. also, i love that lmm knows that burr is the best character with the best bits in the show - he talks all the time in interviews how hard it was to give those parts away to someone else. he also says that unlocking the idea of telling the story from burr's pov/with a seed of friendship is really what unlocked the story for him - it's how he first really got inside of it.
posted by nadawi at 11:20 AM on April 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

Itaxpica, I pretty much said the same thing verbatim to my husband after the show. He's magnetic.
posted by gaspode at 12:28 PM on April 3, 2016

I agree with those who said that Burr and Angelica are the heart if Hamilton.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:04 PM on April 3, 2016

I’ve written before about how theatre can teach trust, empathy, compassion, peaceful conflict resolution, deeper cognitive thinking, delayed gratification, create community and understanding.

...and she demonstrates it perfectly in just this short post. This is what theater is for.

/yep, theater major here
posted by desuetude at 4:26 PM on April 3, 2016

Oh, my gosh...the article and the video in the first comment. Both so great.
posted by trixie119 at 5:30 PM on April 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Lin-Manuel Miranda's reaction to this:

This made me cry.
Grateful grateful grateful.

Also, his tweeting the link seems to have temporarily killed the site.
posted by harujion at 7:20 AM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

Inside Amy Schumer takes on Hamilton with 'Betsy Ross' in exclusive preview
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:13 AM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

The C.E.O. of ‘Hamilton’ Inc.
posted by zachlipton at 10:31 AM on April 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Holy crap, Ham4Ham live is back for Wednesday matinees only, presumably so the crowds are a little bit more manageable, but that looks just as hectic as before!
posted by kmz at 9:51 AM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

And just in time for my Hamiltrip next week!!
posted by lunasol at 9:10 PM on April 8, 2016

We have a Hamiltrip coming next month. Please tell us what you did and how it went!
posted by gingerbeer at 9:27 PM on April 8, 2016

'The Schuyler Sisters' from Hamilton get MisCast from MCC's annual gala.
posted by zachlipton at 9:36 PM on April 10, 2016

And for today's entry in the burgeoning Hamilton backlash: ‘Hamilton’ and History: Are They In Sync?
posted by zachlipton at 11:23 PM on April 10, 2016