I would have never guessed that I would have laughed with, cheered on, and cried for Alexander Hamilton. After my finals week at Tufts, I went to see Hamilton with my dad. At the time, I knew very little about the play. I couldn’t understand why it took months to get tickets since all the shows were perpetually sold out. I did not know about the fantastic crew and their fearless marvel of a leader – Lin-Manuel Miranda. My first clue that this play was unlike anything else was when I realized all the parking garages around the Richard Rogers Theater were full. It seemed as if everyone and their cousin’s great uncle were attending this show! After waiting in a 25-minute line and anxiously hoping the show did not start without us, my dad and I finally found our seats. I flipped through the playbook while trying to figure out why the whole theater was full with over-excited faces that couldn’t stop fidgeting in their seats. As the lights began to dim, I read in the playbook that Lin-Manuel Miranda played Alexander Hamilton, a Caribbean native turned founding father. The shocking opening lines of the play describe Hamilton as a “bastard, orphan son of a whore”. It is later revealed that Alexander Hamilton was the youngest founding father, and single-handedly built the United States monetary system (which is still in use today). I continued reading to find that Lin-Manuel Miranda created the plot and the lyrics as well! I finally understood all the hype. Miranda essentially wrote the whole musical. Furthermore, he performs as the lead eight times a week. To say I was star struck was an understatement. Even before the ground-breaking performance that the cast of Hamilton gave at the 2016 Grammys, this show had obtained a stellar reputation. I can’t give only one reason to describe why this revolutionary show is gaining such a review – the reasons for the success are multi-faceted.
Here is why Hamilton is my favorite show on Broadway:
So… the next time you pull out that crisp 10-dollar bill, I hope you remember two things. Firstly, Alexander Hamilton was a young, scrappy, revolutionary who believed in civil liberties and freedom. And secondly, Alexander Hamilton was a homie.