Anyone seen Hamilton?

[Techno-Druid]

I absolutely love the music. Hamilton for those who don't know is a broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda about the founding father Alexander Hamilton.

Beautiful music.

[Xisa]

The play looks amazing.

The politics around it are revolting.

[Techno-Druid]

The play looks amazing.

The politics around it are revolting.

What do you mean? I'm curious that you brought it up

[Xisa]

What do you mean? I'm curious that you brought it up

-White people were explicitly forbidden from even trying out for the play (which is actually illegal, although his has already been addressed in NYC).

-When asked why, the creator said she wanted it to represent "The Modern World, what people you meet might actually look like"...so a in her view, a new world where white people don't exist.

-The only white person in the play was the King of England AKA The Villain. He represented the "Old World". The main cast represents the "New World", where white people no longer exist or are a burden.

It may sound like I'm being over dramatic, but I have a feeling people wouldn't be too happy if they made a Broadway version of "Roots" with an all-white cast.


What's the most upsetting to me is, on it's face, I have no problem with any of this. It's art! Let it be art! I've heard the play is fantastic, and I wish the creator had let it rest as a performance to measure on it's own merits. Instead, she chose to make this a Bulwark for the Brave New World where White people are gone to make room for "good" people.

It taints the piece.

[Alvito]

Take away the turn table and all of a sudden a bunch of old rich white people love rap, as long as it is about idolizing other rich white people.

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-White people were explicitly forbidden from even trying out for the play (which is actually illegal, although his has already been addressed in NYC).

-When asked why, the creator said she wanted it to represent "The Modern World, what people you meet might actually look like"...so a in her view, a new world where white people don't exist.

-The only white person in the play was the King of England AKA The Villain. He represented the "Old World". The main cast represents the "New World", where white people no longer exist or are a burden.

It may sound like I'm being over dramatic, but I have a feeling people wouldn't be too happy if they made a Broadway version of "Roots" with an all-white cast.


What's the most upsetting to me is, on it's face, I have no problem with any of this. It's art! Let it be art! I've heard the play is fantastic, and I wish the creator had let it rest as a performance to measure on it's own merits. Instead, she chose to make this a Bulwark for the Brave New World where White people are gone to make room for "good" people.

It taints the piece.

This is far too popular of a play for anybody to care about that stuff now though. This play is a new version of teflon nothing is going to stick to it.

[Reeve]

I picked up the soundtrack 2 days ago. It's amazing.

[Dasffion]

-White people were explicitly forbidden from even trying out for the play (which is actually illegal, although his has already been addressed in NYC).

-When asked why, the creator said she wanted it to represent "The Modern World, what people you meet might actually look like"...so a in her view, a new world where white people don't exist.

-The only white person in the play was the King of England AKA The Villain. He represented the "Old World". The main cast represents the "New World", where white people no longer exist or are a burden.

It may sound like I'm being over dramatic, but I have a feeling people wouldn't be too happy if they made a Broadway version of "Roots" with an all-white cast.


What's the most upsetting to me is, on it's face, I have no problem with any of this. It's art! Let it be art! I've heard the play is fantastic, and I wish the creator had let it rest as a performance to measure on it's own merits. Instead, she chose to make this a Bulwark for the Brave New World where White people are gone to make room for "good" people.

It taints the piece.

Why do you keep using female pronouns? It is written and starred in by a man.

[Macaquerie]

The play looks amazing.

The politics around it are revolting.

I thought you were going to go on a rant about how Hamilton's excessive policy focus on empowering the Northeastern banking elites at the expense of small farmers undermined the foundation on which this country was built....

[eschatological]

-White people were explicitly forbidden from even trying out for the play (which is actually illegal, although his has already been addressed in NYC).

-When asked why, the creator said she wanted it to represent "The Modern World, what people you meet might actually look like"...so a in her view, a new world where white people don't exist.

-The only white person in the play was the King of England AKA The Villain. He represented the "Old World". The main cast represents the "New World", where white people no longer exist or are a burden.

It may sound like I'm being over dramatic, but I have a feeling people wouldn't be too happy if they made a Broadway version of "Roots" with an all-white cast.


What's the most upsetting to me is, on it's face, I have no problem with any of this. It's art! Let it be art! I've heard the play is fantastic, and I wish the creator had let it rest as a performance to measure on it's own merits. Instead, she chose to make this a Bulwark for the Brave New World where White people are gone to make room for "good" people.

It taints the piece.

Do you have a source for this? Because the very fact that there's a white man in it kind of suggests white people were allowed to try out.

Keep in mind, these roles involve a lot of rapping (as opposed to traditional Broadway singing), and I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't many white Broadway actors who had rapped much. There's 10 main roles, and 1 is white, 1 is Asian, 3-4 seem to be Hispanic (don't know how they identify), and the rest are black.

This isn't like...purporting to be a historically accurate piece. This is like The Wiz, a black remake of The Wizard of Oz. You could make a version of Roots with white people about slavery - but I don't think it would be very interesting.

[Reeve]

-White people were explicitly forbidden from even trying out for the play (which is actually illegal, although his has already been addressed in NYC).

-When asked why, the creator said she wanted it to represent "The Modern World, what people you meet might actually look like"...so a in her view, a new world where white people don't exist.

-The only white person in the play was the King of England AKA The Villain. He represented the "Old World". The main cast represents the "New World", where white people no longer exist or are a burden.

It may sound like I'm being over dramatic, but I have a feeling people wouldn't be too happy if they made a Broadway version of "Roots" with an all-white cast.


What's the most upsetting to me is, on it's face, I have no problem with any of this. It's art! Let it be art! I've heard the play is fantastic, and I wish the creator had let it rest as a performance to measure on it's own merits. Instead, she chose to make this a Bulwark for the Brave New World where White people are gone to make room for "good" people.

It taints the piece.

I'm confused. The cast looks fairly white to me:

[Reg]

It's a great show, but a bit overrated. Friends of mine that saw it before me were throwing out words like "life changing" and best play on Broadway. I liked it a lot, but barely makes it into my top 5 shows.

[eschatological]

I'm confused. The cast looks fairly white to me:

He's not wrong, 9 of the 10 main cast are minority persons of color. The chorus is largely white because, guess what, Broadway is largely white. If you look at the cast, people like Daveed Diggs, who plays Thomas Jefferson, is a rapper, who didn't have a background in Broadway before this show.

What I'm asking is where the source is that white people "weren't allowed" to audition for this show.

[Reeve]

He's not wrong, 9 of the 10 main cast are minority persons of color. The chorus is largely white because, guess what, Broadway is largely white. If you look at the cast, people like Daveed Diggs, who plays Thomas Jefferson, is a rapper, who didn't have a background in Broadway before this show.

Kind of makes sense to have a rapper, given the nature of the show.

But here:

Lin-Manuel Miranda is a pretty white looking Latino:


And he's the creator of the show, so his casting makes a lot of sense.

Aaron Burr is definitely a black dude. Kind of interesting that they chose a black dude for the bad guy.

Washington is played by Christopher Jackson, who appears to be a bald white guy:



King George is Rory O'Malley, whose name makes him sound like an Irish white guy:



Eliza Hamilton is played by Phillippa Soo, who also appears to be a white chick:



Angelica Schuyler is played by Renee Elise Goldsberry, who appears to be black, or at least part black:



Lafayette is played by Daveed Diggs, whose race I can't pinpoint, but seems maybe black?



Phillip Hamilton (Anthony Ramos) seems to be mixed-race latino of some sort:



James Madison is a black guy, Okierete Onaodowan:



Peggy Schuyler is Jasmine Cephas Jones, who's another person who's race I can't really pin down:




Obviously this is hardly the all white cast that would represent the era accurately, but it seems like a far cry from "no whites allowed" to me.

[Svifnymr]

What I'm asking is where the source is that white people "weren't allowed" to audition for this show.

Google shows a few articles about the casting call for "non-white men and women", but they never said "weren't allowed" or "explicitly forbidden". Obviously they cast a role as non-white and the odds that a white person would get the role is minimal at best. It's just a matter of semantics, really, and they did change it to say anyone could try out (though of course there was no chance of a white person getting the role). Except King George, as stated.

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Obviously this is hardly the all white cast that would represent the era accurately, but it seems like a far cry from "no whites allowed" to me.

To your credit perhaps, you are very bad about identifying ethnicities. :-p
(especially using what appears to be a grayscale photo of Jackson)

There's also the "Hispanic question" since there's White Hispanic or Black Hispanic in some things.

[Dellis0991]

I hate musicals but when I heard the music I was like hell yeah!

[eschatological]

It's a great show, but a bit overrated. Friends of mine that saw it before me were throwing out words like "life changing" and best play on Broadway. I liked it a lot, but barely makes it into my top 5 shows.

I wouldn't call it "life changing" per se, but it's certainly "Broadway changing." Even musicals set in traditionally urban settings like Rent and West Side Story have shied away from the music of those places in favor of more traditional Broadway show tunes. And in that way, it's kinda "life changing" (though I'd still put that in air quotes) because it changes young New Yorkers lives in that they might actually be interested in Broadway now. I know when I lived in NYC, I could never convince my friends (mostly minority) to go to a show - I ended up always going with my gay and/or female friends, and it would be when we hang out since they weren't part of my every day life. Now all of my friends who grew up in Harlem and BK and BX are calling me up and saying I need to come back to the city and see this show.

So there's that.

[Reeve]

It's a great show, but a bit overrated. Friends of mine that saw it before me were throwing out words like "life changing" and best play on Broadway. I liked it a lot, but barely makes it into my top 5 shows.

What's in your top 5?

I think for me:

1) Thoroughly Modern Milly
2) Book of Mormon
3) Phantom of the Opera
4) Les Miserables
5) A Chorus Line (The music, not so much the show)

I haven't seen Hamilton yet.

[Reg]

What's in your top 5?

Come to think, it probably still isn't in my top 5 lol My favorite is still Lion King. Second I would put Wicked, but back when Idina Menzel was still there. She is such a huge talent and I feel the show lost something when she left. Then I share Book of Mormon and Les Miserables with you. I'd round out my top 5 with Jersey Boys, followed closely by Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, and Hamilton.

There are probably better ones, but I saw my first show in 2003 with Les Miserables. Then I really didn't get into Broadway until years later so I probably missed things.

[Damajin]

So one giant PC diversity bomb with the title character being the most despicable Founding Father by a long shot? Nah, not seeing that crap.

[Reeve]

Come to think, it probably still isn't in my top 5 lol My favorite is still Lion King. Second I would put Wicked, but back when Idina Menzel was still there. She is such a huge talent and I feel the show lost something when she left. Then I share Book of Mormon and Les Miserables with you. I'd round out my top 5 with Jersey Boys, followed closely by Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, and Hamilton.

There are probably better ones, but I saw my first show in 2003 with Les Miserables. Then I really didn't get into Broadway until years later so I probably missed things.

I actually didn't much like Wicked. I liked one or two songs, but felt that the majority of the music in it was flat and generic.

Kristin Chenowith was fantastic, though.

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I think the other thing that I like about Hamilton is that it covers the period of history just after the Civil War at a high level reasonably well. While the federalist/anti-federalist argument was briefly mentioned in my High School history courses, I've found that generally most of the people in the US couldn't tell you if Jefferson was a Federalist or Anti-Federalist. This, despite the fact that they idolize him and think he was the best ever. They know about his Declaration of Independence, but basically nothing of his nationbuilding politics. And that's just Jefferson. Many don't know the first thing about Hamilton or Madison.