Hamilton
their other collaborators, including music director Alex Lacamoire and choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, are tasked with capturing lightning in a second bottle for the Chicago company, which sold out most of its initial six-month block of tickets long before any casting was announced. But there’s more than just that massive advance and the Broadway production’s 11 Tony wins (one shy of The Producers’ record of 12) setting the sky-high expectations for Chicago’s Hamilton.
The show has a huge and hugely loyal base of fans who’ve never seen it. They’re fueled in part by the hit cast album, produced by the Roots; its October 2015 launch was the highest debut by a cast recording on the Billboard 200 chart in more than 50 years, and it also became the first-ever cast album to reach No. 1 on the rap chart. And then there’s Hamilton’s expert social media presence, led by Miranda’s prolific tweeting to his nearly 720,000 followers. For In the Heights’ 2007 Off Broadway debut and 2008 Broadway bow, Miranda had gained permission from his producers to make YouTube videos promoting the show to nontraditional audiences. With Hamilton, on the other hand, potential fans got to follow Miranda through the entire creation of the show. “I kind of got addicted to Twitter while I was working on Hamilton. And that has provided a weird way in for a lot of people. I find that’s an interesting substitute for coffee when my stomach hurts, to have the dopamine of interacting with people in real time while I was working to unlock the thing that was very hard to unlock.”
“The things we fight about as a country, they’re just our things.”
That generous openness found another online outlet after Hamilton opened on Broadway, when Miranda began putting together eclectic street performances for the fans waiting in line for the show’s daily $10 ticket lottery. Dubbed the #Ham4Ham Show, the preemptive consolation prize for dedicated lottery entrants became a treat
Meet thecast
in its own right on YouTube; with frequent guest appearances by stars from other shows, #Ham4Ham became a homegrown marketing campaign for Broadway as a whole. (Expect a version of it in Chicago as well.) Thus, Hamilton has developed a community of deeply invested fans who’ve yet to set foot in the theater. “What’s wonderful about most Hamilton fans is they fall in love with the show the same way I used to fall in love with shows; it’s the cast album,” says Miranda, recalling rifling through his parents’ collection of Broadway records as a kid. “I can’t tell you how many hilarious Tumblr posts I’ve seen of, like, ‘Hamilton as I picture it in my head since I haven’t seen the show.’ People imagine the show, and I love that because I think Hamilton is gonna be around hopefully long enough for most people to get a chance to see it. But also, I’ve never seen a production of Camelot, but I can tell you the version in my head, and it’s incredible.” Those who do get in to Hamilton in Chicago will see a cast that includes Tony winner Karen Olivo and two-time Tony winner Joshua Henry, alongside a raft of lesser-known actors, such as Miguel Cervantes in the title role. “It’s a really thrilling mix of people you know and people you don’t who we think are stars. Which was kind of how we felt about our Broadway cast—there were names you’d recognize and names you’d never heard of that you know now because of the success of the show,” says Miranda. “I’m confident that’s going to happen again in Chicago.”
(Angelica Schuyler) Karen Olivo
A Tony winner for West Side Story who also had a leading role in Miranda and Kail’s In the Heights before leaving New York for Madison, Wisconsin, Olivo saw Hamilton from the audience at its Broadway opening night. “Now I get the best of both worlds: I get to be a fan of it and love it and be in awe of it, and now I get to get inside of it and figure out how it works.”
Miguel Cervantes (Alexander Hamilton)
Cervantes, whose Broadway credits include small roles in If/Then and American Idiot, steps into Hamilton’s creator’s shoes. “Lin has this sort of mystique threaded in, that you see him do the show and know that all of these words came out of his brain,” he says. “And then there’s little me, little Miguel coming in to step into this role. I don’t think I have any idea how it’s all going to go down.”
Time Out Chicago September–November 2016 16
(Eliza Hamilton) The San Diego native booked Hamilton shortly after moving to New York. “Timing is everything, because the opportunity of Hamilton wasn’t there five, six years ago, and it couldn’t have been; [with the
Ari Afsar
musical’s] having a pop background and opportunities for diversity, it’s fantastic that Lin-Manuel created such an amazing opportunity for all types of people.”
(John Laurens/ Philip Hamilton) Chicago native Ramos first
Jose Ramos
auditioned for Hamilton at the Public Theater but didn’t get the gig. “So then I had to wait and see it become the monster that it is. I worked in
Times Square, so I would literally see the buzz of Hamilton happen. And I made a promise to myself: You are
going to be a part of this, don’t worry, just wait, wait, wait.”
PHOTOGRAPHS: TOP: JOAN MARCUS; BOTTOM LEFT, BOTTOM LEFT CENTER, BOTTOM RIGHT CENTER, BOTTOM RIGHT: COURTESY BROADWAY IN CHICAGO
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