Hamilton is a central figure in the forming of America - he founded the Treasury Department, strengthened the banking system and helped write The Federalist Papers - and the size of his biography reflects the importance of the man. It is Chernow’s book Alexander Hamilton that provided Miranda with the inspiration for the production. It opens with Alexander Hamilton and George Washington discussing the trade and treatment of slaves, features the ghosts of slavery including Harriet Tubman, and closes with Miranda refusing an award for his work, admitting he’s been a “co-conspirator in a crime against history”, and saying he’s been duped by Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow. Reed later wrote a play, The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, described by The New York Times as “A cross between A Christmas Carol and a trial at The Hague’s International Criminal Court”.Ĭharacters left out of Hamilton come back to fill in Miranda on the violent context the show omits. ![]() “His reputation has been shored up as an abolitionist and someone who was opposed to slavery. In it, he argues that through the writings of “establishment historians”, Hamilton’s “life has been scrubbed with a kind of historical Ajax until it sparkles”. In 2015 after the show’s debut, he wrote an article for Counterpunch titled “Hamilton: The Musical”: Black Actors Dress Up Like Slave Traders. Ishmael Reed, an American poet, author, and activist, has been one of Hamilton’s most prominent critics from the start. “It is easy to miss the fact that there isn’t a single black character in the show, because there are so many black and brown bodies on the stage,” she adds. “This has never been a white nation,” she writes in a 2016 essay. Rutgers professor Lyra Monteiro, one of the contributors, says the show erases black and brown people from that history. There is also the book Historians on Hamilton which, according to its publisher, Rutgers University Press, “brings together a collection of top scholars to explain the Hamilton phenomenon and explore what it might mean for our understanding of America’s history”. ![]() When Hamilton started streaming on Disney+ in 2020, historians took to Twitter under the hashtag #HATM (historians at the movies) in a generally fun event to comment on the show. They have taken part in panels, written papers and even provided their analysis live online. The debate has never threatened to derail the Hamilton juggernaut but it has raised questions about the way such stories are told and drawn historians into debates and discussions like no other production. A popular line promoting the show reads, “This is the story of America then, told by America now.” “ A way of pulling you into the story and allowing you to leave whatever cultural baggage you have about the founding fathers at the door,” was how Miranda described the casting decision to The New York Times when it opened on Broadway in 2015. ![]() Miranda has been hailed as an artistic genius for rethinking the modern musical and turning the casting process on its head to give a new face to the founding fathers and present Hamilton as the rags-to-riches archetype of the great American dream. Since its debut on Broadway in 2015, the show has been taken to theatres around the world, streamed to millions through Disney+, and won a string of awards, including 11 Tonys, a Grammy and a Pulitzer Prize. It’s the hip-hop melting-pot musical for the new millennium. Coloured actors in the roles of white men rapping about revolution. The production by Lin-Manuel Miranda about the life of American founding father Alexander Hamilton is an international smash hit. Not everyone likes Hamilton: the musical. Hamilton: the musical creator Lin-Manuel Miranda appears in the leading role with Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton in the original Broadway production.
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