Hamilton: The Revolution

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The audiobook provides a similar content with chapters alternating between bios, essays and the song selection process. Hamilton: The Revolution, which tells the story of the musical from its inception through its current Broadway run, has just the kind of fun, conversational tone I was hoping for. It makes you feel like an insider, which is exactly what fans like me who aren't going to get within a thousand miles of New York City are clamoring for. You want to feel like Hamilton is your musical, too, even though you're limited to blasting the cast album and binging on #Ham4Ham videos on YouTube. Lin-Manuel Miranda's groundbreaking musical Hamilton is as revolutionary as its subject, the poor kid from the Caribbean who fought the British, defended the Constitution, and helped to found the United States. Fusing hip-hop, pop, R&B, and the best traditions of theater, this once-in-a-generation show broadens the sound of Broadway, reveals the storytelling power of rap, and claims the origins of the United States for a diverse new generation.

I’ve never been a huuuuge musical theater nerd, but I do follow it somewhat casually and that summer, I listened to practically nothing but the cast album for Lin’s Tony-winning first musical, In the Heights. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before, but it was magical. Hamilton is so richly detailed—from song lyrics and music to choreography and staging—that it truly rewards multiple viewings. It turns out that my obsession had only gone into hibernation, but did Stay Alive and return with the force of a Hurricane. This book is a must read for anyone who is looking for a deeper appreciation of this incredible piece of art. For those of you who live in caves, Hamilton: The Revolution is the story behind the musical. Specifically, how it went from a crazy idea for a concept album to a once-in-a-generation smash hit. It takes you inside not only Lin-Manuel’s head, but also Thomas Kail and Alex Lacamoire who completed the trifecta which brought Hamilton to life. As nearly everyone who has ever bothered listening to all FORTY-SIX songs in this nearly 100% sung production says . . . . Seriously, if I could give it every damned star in the cosmos, I would. This is honestly the most beautiful book I've ever seen in my life. The way they've tried to make it look like an eighteenth century book is A+. The texture and quality of the paper is wonderful. The photographs are astonishingly gorgeous and give you a real sense of how the show is staged and choreographed.Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater, where the show held its workshop run, lost his 16-year-old son in late 2014. Lost for what he should say, Lin sent Eustis and his wife a demo of the song "It's Quiet Uptown" in the hopes that it might offer comfort, and they listened to it every day. More sobs.I mean, really. How could you expect this to be anything but wonderful? Everything this man does is smart, thoughtful, and complex. Watch any interview out there with him (may I recommend the Charlie Rose piece that got chopped up for 60 Minutes), and you immediately realize that he is one of the most passionately enthusiastic people ever. His mind never stops going. He pours everything he has into everything he does. This book is no different. If you're a fan, this is a must. I inhaled this thing in a single sitting. No kidding.

The book is at once an expanded playbill, an annotated libretto and a journalistic account that documents how each of the collaborators (actors, choreographer, director, producer, etc.) contributed to the musical and how it has impacted their personal and professional lives. And let’s talk about content. Are you a Hamiltonian? What’s your fave? While Quiet Uptown makes water leak out my face errrrrrry dang time I hear it, I can’t ever get enough of King George . . . . .There's a chapter on the book that explores the impact the play is already having on kids, many of whom before seeing Hamilton had not interest in learning American history and are now, like my own kids, thoroughly engaged and fascinated by it. Granted, I'm the sort of person who loves talking and reading about the process of creating art, and why certain words were chosen, and rhyme schemes, etcetera, so I'm always going to want as much of that as possible. There were lyrics and moments that I'm dying from curiosity to know how he came up with them, and why he wrote them a certain way, that nothing was said about. It is now less than 2 months until we see Hamilton. It will be about 1 year after they moved into the Rogers Theatre and most likely right after Hamilton cleans up at the Tony Awards. I bought this book which, btw, is beautifully made and organized and a sort of cheat-sheet, uber playbill for the musical. It is organized into 32 chapters and two acts. It roughly follows the Musical and history of the musical. It tells the story of the production. Each chapter contains a detail about the musical, written like a review or online article. One chapter discusses the choreography, another discusses the album, another discusses Daveed Diggs, another Ron Chernow. Each of these chapters gives a little bit more insight into the development of the Musical from one song played at the White House, to a Mix Tape of songs, to the Public Theatre, to the Richard Rogers Theatre. This is a book definitely for fans. Then there's a note about Lin's homage to Ja Rule in the song "Helpless" that describes Ja's voice as "a bear roaring at the bottom of a well, approximately." Which is the best description of Ja Rule I think ever. And, honestly, I didn’t think much about it until September when I saw that NPR was streaming the album. I immediately grabbed my earbuds and hopped into the bathtub to listen to it, and that was really the first time I actually started to pay attention to the show’s content: researching the cast; trying to understand the historical context for the song’s lyrics; trying to find interviews with anyone who was involved in it. My appreciation grew, and I began to realize just how buzzy and sensational it was for everyone else, too.

As a few Goodread reviewers have stated, sometimes the right person tells the right story at the right moment. I found this behind the scenes story utterly inspiring, if nothing else, it is the most delightful and entertaining history lesson ever! This book does a fantastic job of exploring all of these themes, bringing in notes and interviews and discussions along with the history of the musical. Being able to read Lin's thought process was fascinating, and because I don't know a lot about rap/hip hop/r&b, reading about how much music influenced Lin's process was SO interesting. I love learning, and I love reading about subtle things artists do within their craft (e.g. the choreographer having Burr walk in straight lines while Hamilton walks in arches, because it represents how the two men thought and acted) of which audiences may not be cognizant, but are still able to register. Then on November 2009, a newly minted President Obama and First Lady Michele Obama welcomed Miranda and his collaborator Alex Lacamoire to the White House's "Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word". At the last minute Miranda decided to sing the first song from the Hamilton Mixtape, his performance that night is already on the history books. You can watch the video here. In which a family of non-theater goers gets swept off their feet by the cultural phenomenon that is HamiltonThere's a note about how someone threw a shoe in fake disgust during the recording because Leslie Odom Jr. was so damn good while singing "Wait for It," then when the rest of the cast was supposed to go add in their harmonies, Okieriete Onaodowan responded, "I'm not singing shit right now." I was already a huge Hamilton fan before reading this book, but I appreciate the show even more now. There were songs I didn't really like, and while they're still not my favorites, I understand and like them so much more now. I also got really emotional during the Renee Elise Goldsberry/Satisfied chapter, and almost cried on the bus while reading everything surrounding It's Quiet Uptown.

I suppose that's not fair of me. If I had it my way, at least every other line of the musical would have a footnote, if not a paragraph, accompanying it. But it is what it is. Lin-Manuel Miranda's groundbreaking musical Hamilton is as revolutionary as its subject, the poor kid from the Caribbean who fought the British, defended the Constitution, and helped to found the United States. Fusing hip-hop, pop, R&B, and the best traditions of theater, this once-in-a-generation show broadens the sound of Broadway, reveals the storytelling power of rap, and claims our country's origins for a diverse new generation. UPDATE 1/22/17: Sooo because this world is crazy and sometimes dreams do come true, I saw Hamilton on Broadway last week. :O You can read about our trip here, if you're into that. (We stayed in a hotel that used to be a library!) I think is difficult to overstate the importance of having a second generation Puerto Rican drawing attention to the story of Hamilton, himself an immigrant from the Caribbean. I have always loved history. Always. And while Rap isn't my #1 genre, something about the mastery of lyrics that some rappers have will never cease to amaze me. When I first heard about this play--that it took one of our founding fathers (one that had had such a HUGE impact on our young nation but that no one spoke much about) and turned the events of his life into a rap musical I just KNEW that this was going to be something that I was going to love. I'd say it has been at least three months since I have really started getting into the play and I seriously sing applicable lyrics or talk about these historical figures throughout each and every day (ask my boyfriend and sister). Alexander Hamilton was just such an intricate man that I think the best way to show our nation what he was really all about was in the form of rap lyrics. It truly encapsulates his life. From his lowly beginnings to his gradual and then meteoric rise to the top--we are able to FEEL every experience. I get goosebumps every. single. time. listening to "Yorktown (1776)" when Hamilton sings "Tens of thousands of people flood the streets." after the battle of Yorktown is fought and won. (I mean just picture the EXCITEMENT of this huge mass of newly free people. I can practically hear the roar of their voices as they flooded the streets). I tear up every. single. time. listening to "It's Quiet Uptown" and "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story." I just think this play is SO ENTIRELY IMPORTANT because it shows the rise of our nation, but it also shows how we struggled in the beginning. Just as we are struggling now.

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The reaction from the people on the audience that night should have given us a hint of what was to come. Edit:*This play is so relevant to our world right now. This country has been a place where "A place where even orphan immigrants can leave their fingerprints and rise up" since the day we've been founded. Why should that ever change? The fact that people are calling for a boycott of this play is complete idiocy. The only people who are calling for one are those who support the hate and the racism in the first place. How about we try our best to not let them EVER win?* The show is about the builders, carpenters, the story behind the music and lyrics, the crew, actors, singers, dancers, the scenic designers, the choreographer, the director, the history, .....the musical performance. And in the passage about Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow, we learn that when Chernow's wife passed away in 2006, he chose for her headstone the line "Best of wives and best of women" from Hamilton's actual goodbye letter to Eliza. Sobs.