"America, you great unfinished symphony,
you sent for me
You let me make a difference
A place where even orphan immigrants
Can leave their fingerprints and rise up"
Hamilton, “The World Was Wide Enough”
Like most of America I have fallen for a Broadway show that I have yet to see. Hamilton has taken my heart and sings in my head. Lin Manuel Miranda's extraordinary show has turned musical theatre on its proverbial ear infusing Hip Hop with history and opening the lives and stories of America's Founding Fellows. Perhaps the most wonderful aspect of this ground breaking show is not only that Broadway is cool but that kids everywhere are being handed history in a way that will resonate with them and spark their vision of history and of their own lives.
“When you got skin in the game, you stay in the game. But you don’t get a win unless you play in the game. Oh, you get love for it. You get hate for it. You get nothing if you…Wait for it, wait for it, wait!” Hamilton, “The Room Where It Happens”
This week PBS' Great Performances airs Hamilton's America a documentary on the making of Hamilton,not only the creation of the musical but also how Lin Manuel Miranda brought the most unlikely of historical figures to life and how historians and politicians, such as a guy named Obama, views the man who most of us only thought as the face on the $10 bill.
In this insane political season where so many have lost faith in how this is all supposed to work, how wonderful to be taken back to "The Room Where it Happened"... to see it has always been messy, and yes even nasty, but here we are still! We may want to take a shower after debates, and hide under the bed til it all goes away...but we come from history that teaches us that the characters who built our foundation and upon the foundation have always been flawed, and sometimes completely unlikable, but they made history, they changed history...and so can we!
“You want a revolution? I want a revelation. So listen to my declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” And when I meet Thomas Jefferson, I’m ‘a compel him to include women in the sequel!” —Angelica Schuyler, “The Schuyler Sisters”
“The plan is to fan this spark into a flame.” —Hamilton, “My Shot”
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