The World Turned Upside Down

How many of us can say we know who Alexander Hamilton is? A founding father of our country, chief staff aide to George Washington, and our first Secretary of Treasury, he created the national bank and developed friendly trade relations with Britain. Ringing any bells from U.S history yet?

Let me ask another question. How many of us are familiar with the musical, Hamilton, that’s on Broadway right now, and is about to tour in Chicago?

Some of you may be surprised about how many people actually do know.

Hamilton is an American musical whose lyrics, music, and book is written by Lin-Manuel Miranda an American composer, lyricist, librettist, rapper, and actor. He got inspired by reading the biography by Ron Chernow- Alexander Hamilton- while on vacation from his other Broadway show In The Heights.

The show begins with a little backstory on Hamilton, but mainly starts with Hamilton in New York joining the American fight for Independence. The show then follows his life during and after the war, including his death.

The musical debuted off broadway on February 17, 2015, but quickly gained popularity and opened on Broadway on August 6th in the same year.

The reason for its success has been placed mainly in its take on music as it’s a hip-hop, jazz, with some of the traditional broadway themes. This take on making Broadway more modern (they rap in the show) appealed greatly to the younger audience as well as Miranda’s take on making the actors more black and hispanic to represent how America looks now.

Mrs. Mowery, who helps put on the musical at LCHS every year, first found out about the musical from Mrs. Wallace after Journalism returned from New York this past year, and also thinks that the musical will get younger audiences involved.

“It’s a neat idea that’s it’s geared toward younger audiences. I remember seeing 1776 in high school, and now you can just get more to watch Hamilton now than 1776,” said Mowery.

Hamilton has already won several awards and had started its tour in Chicago. Most claim that the show has already proven itself a success and giving life to the founding fathers in a new and modern way.

But this is just the beginning of Hamilton, and who tells his story.

Sources: Wikipedia.org’s Hamilton (Musical), HamiltonBroadway.com’s Hamilton, & Linmanuel.com’s Lin-Manuel Miranda  Bio: Composer, Lyricist, Actor