THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED: We have been busy, busy, busy these past few days. And a fair amount of our activity has centered around the musical "Hamilton."
We were lucky enough to score tickets to the touring production for one of its Seattle shows.
Last Wednesday night, we made our way to downtown. We had a fun dinner at Blue C Sushi before the show. The kids love the conveyor belt delivery of food. The wrapper on the chopsticks made me smile, and reminded me of a line from Hamilton, "Talk less, smile more."
After dinner, we walked to the theater. We were excited just to see the semi!
The show was at the Paramount, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year.
I'll have Annabelle tell you a bit more about the show.
Hamilton: an American Musical is a production centering around the life of Alexander Hamilton and his part in the founding of the United States. What separates Hamilton from a traditional musical, though? Almost all of the music is in Hip-Hop and other non-traditional genres for theatre, such as Jazz. The humor throughout is hilarious and perfectly timed, while there are plenty of sad moments and songs to balance it out.
The first song, “Alexander Hamilton”, briefly introduces almost every main character while detailing exactly what happened to Hamilton before he arrived in America: His father left while he was young, his mother died from a horrible sickness, and a cousin he moved in with afterward committed suicide. As he moved to America via donations from his community he began to really grow, becoming George Washington’s secretary and eventually manning his own battalion.
The songs in the musical are quite catchy and I frequently find myself singing them. With this being a musical, the lyrics are almost always about a major event or otherwise help tell the story. There’s hardly any spoken dialogue in Hamilton aside from transitions between songs. I think most of my favorite songs are included in the first act (partially due to the sheer number of them) but I do also enjoy a few songs from act two like “What’d I Miss”, “The Room Where It Happens”, and “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”.
I believe the musical is a great way to use modern media to tell the story of a remarkable founding father and the founding of the United States. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Hamilton is that Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote it, composed it, and played the lead role of Alexander Hamilton himself. The play is best enjoyed live, but even just listening to the soundtrack is a great way to experience it. When we attended a performance at The Paramount Theater on March 14, the actor for King George the III provided an even wackier voice than the original cast recording and some of the other funny moments were much louder and clearer. I could tell there were people who hadn’t seen or heard Hamilton before, as there was quite a bit of laughter in the crowd at those points. I would strongly suggest at least researching the play and listening to it, if you can’t afford or acquire tickets. There’s a reason it’s somewhat kickstarted Broadway again.
And, of course, CJ has a review, too.
Since making its Broadway debut in 2015, Hamilton: An American Musical has been a commercial and critical success, having once grossed $3.3M in a single week on Broadway, and has won several awards (list courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation). Hamilton details the life of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, referred to in the musical's intro song as the "$10 Founding Father without a father."
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the writer of Hamilton, got the idea for the musical after reading the book Alexander Hamilton, by historian Ron Chernow. Hamilton, unlike most of its "peers" (as in, other Broadway and West End musicals), is largely a hip-hop musical, a prospect that seemed unlikely to be successful. For most of hip-hop's existence, the genre seemed confined to 8-tracks/cassettes and CDs rather that the stage of theatres. This, in large part, was due to the economically disadvantaged backgrounds of many rappers.
All of the characters are distinctive, even those that are played by actors with more than one character. For example, the same actor (Kyle Scatliffe, on the night I saw the play at the Paramount Theatre) plays both Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson, yet the characters would be hard to confuse. Near the beginning of the second act, Jefferson is introduced with fanfare. The character of King George (played by Jon Patrick Walter in the show I saw) is also distinctive, only appearing by himself, almost never with other actors on stage. In all of King George's songs (You'll Be Back, What Comes Next?, and I Know Him), he sings about the United States becoming independent from the British Empire.
The musical's beginning has at least seven strong, memorable songs in a row. These songs, beginning with the titular "Alexander Hamilton", and ending with "You'll Be Back", make up the most well-known songs in the musical.
While the musical tells a story that ended over two centuries ago, there were still surprises to be seen. For example, the absence of Thomas Jefferson in the first act is surprising, making his appearance in the second act a welcome presence. The musical also has the potential to make theatergoers care about Aaron Burr, the man who shoots Hamilton at the end of the play. From the first song (in which Burr introduces himself as 'the damn fool who shot [Hamilton]", the audience is shown Aaron Burr's development from a rival of Hamilton to the man who would kill Hamilton in a duel several years after the revolution, in 1804.
The musical featured a diverse array of songs, from clear hip-hop (for example, the Cabinet Battle songs) to songs that I think are hard to describe (for example, Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story, the final song of the musical). My family and I saw the performance of the play at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Seattle. The Paramount Theatre is a very old (turning 90 this year) venue that I have visited multiple times in the past.
Friday night, we were treated to more Hamilton fun. This time, an event at a local spot, Luther's Table. A talented group called "Rise Up" performed a number of songs from the musical.
Recently, my family attended a production of the Broadway musical Hamilton. More recently, this past Friday, we went to a Rise Up concert at Luther's Table. Per its Facebook page, "Luther's Table is a non-profit coffee shop and community gathering space in downtown Renton." Rise Up describes itself as follows:
A tribute to the songs of "Hamilton" and its musical influences. Rise Up is an 11 piece pro ensemble featuring several top Seattle vocalists.
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Rise Up is a non-dramatic cabaret performance of selected individual songs from “Hamilton” and other sources.
The event at Luther's Table involved a buffet dinner at 6 P.M, prior to the show (though Rise Up did one song at that time). Among the food served were slices of pizza, as well as bread, salad, and potato chips.
Rise Up performed renditions of many of Hamilton's
songs (I don't remember an exact setlist), with an intermission in
between the two halves of the performance (which, if I recall correctly,
represented the first and second halves of the original musical). As
stated previously, not all of the songs Rise Up performed were from Hamilton, but rather, from other musicals. However, I don't think I recognized any of the non-Hamilton songs.
And here is Annabelle's take on the evening. ...
Rise Up, a Seattle-based Hamilton tribute band, recently had 2 performances at Luther's Table, a local non-profit that serves buffets and usually has live entertainment. The performance we attended on March 16th was sold out, although a few tables were reserved for walk-ins and the homeless who regularly came to Luther's Table. Rise Up had five singers and a small band on the stage, and they performed fairly accurate renditions of some of the most popular hamilton songs such as "You'll Be Back", "Guns and Ships", and "Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)". They also squeezed in a few songs from other musicals ("Song That Goes Like This" from Spamalot and "Waving Through a Window" from Dear Evan Hansen) and an original song called "Beyond the Stars". Near the end of the show, they also invited people on stage to sing a group rendition of "My Shot". The volunteers at Luther's Table provided good food throughout the show, and it was very entertaining to watch the performer's reaction to a table next to us that had a few huge musical fans. It was really enjoyable and I suggest supporting Rise Up at one of their future shows, and if you live in the Renton area, Luther's Table has weekly events like an open mic night!
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