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[0:00] Miranda Moffat: Hello and welcome to another extra special episode of Theatre in the D. I am joined today by my partner in all things, Christi Esterle.

[0:15] Christi Esterle: Hello everyone, and tonight we were delighted to be able to see Broadway in Detroit's production of Hamilton, of course, as we all know, book, lyrics, all of it, every single bit of this musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, based on the book by Ron Chernow and directed by Thomas Kahle.

[0:37] Christi Esterle: So, I think for me, personally, as someone who very, very well remembers Lin-Manuel Miranda's initial song that he came out with and watching it in AP U.S. History in high school way back over a decade ago, or APUSH, for those that are in the know, never want to write another DBQ in my life, I very, very, very vividly remember watching, I think it was My Shot maybe, or no, I think it was the opening number to Hamilton that he created first and was able to present. And that was something that we saw in history class, and that is something that is burned into my memory. He did that for a Poets' Night for, you know, slam poetry was really big in the 2010s, and he was invited off the success of In the Heights, and they were like, hey, do you have something history-related?

And he's like, yeah, it's gonna be weird. And he presented it to Barack Obama and Michelle right after their inauguration, like really freshened into it, and it really strung a bell of hope for America and change and good things ahead. Man, we got that wrong, didn't we? Don't you miss it when you used to have hope for the country? Anyway, for those that aren't aware, which I don't know how you couldn't be, because Hamilton was a huge phenomenon when it came out and continues to be, but either way, Hamilton is a musical about the story of Alexander Hamilton, who was very famously instrumental in the American Revolution that led to our independence. He was also the first Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington.

He was also instrumental in getting the Constitution in place, creating our system of the Treasury, of the way that we use money, the way that we have credit in this country. It goes into his personal life as well as his public life as a politician.

[2:30] Miranda Moffat: You're forgetting his most important and most long-lasting impact, being the first politician with a sex scandal. He paved the way for Anthony Weiner. He paved the way for so, so, so many people, so many politicians in American history. He is on our $10 bill. If you haven't seen his face, if you don't think you have, you definitely have. He never got to be president or vice president, but he was a very influential politician, and this musical is basically the story of him from his childhood up until his death when he was very famously shot by his longtime political rival, Aaron Burr, who plays kind of the role of Judas, if you will, telling the story of, you know, Jesus, aka Alexander Hamilton in this musical.

[3:21] Christi Esterle: For me, I think, just to kind of like start off with, I think it is very interesting, the sort of, you're right, it is a very hopeful take on American history, and I think it deals with the complicatedness of that history in an interesting way. I think a lot about the fact that the casts of Hamilton have, you know, since its inception been typically people of color, and you have people of color in roles like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, people who were very influential and very important to the foundation of this country, but also very much skewed in their own, in the consistency of their own morals and ethics, in that they owned human beings, they owned slaves. And so we definitely have a complicated understanding and a complicated history with these people who did very great things, who did very important things, but also could be terrible people in some respects and had terrible beliefs. So I always think it's interesting, I think Hamilton as a musical deals with that complicated past in an interesting way by casting people of color in those roles generally.

[4:28] Miranda Moffat: I agree, and I think that the casting has kind of grown. I'm kind of very grateful that this has around ten years removal for it. This is not the first time we've seen a national tour of Hamilton. We saw this, I want to say, about eight or nine years ago. Fresh tour, like, Tommy Kail was in the audience when we saw it, so was Jeffrey Seller, who was the producer of Hamilton. It was a big deal. And that performance bothered me because it felt like everyone was just doing the cast album, and now it's become so ubiquitous, and especially with the Disney Plus film that released in 2020, that now people are bringing their own taste to these roles and playing it so completely differently. And I'm really, I was much more engaged with this one than I have been with this musical in a very long time, and it all has to do with this cast, specifically the roles of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, who are just wholly different than the iconic performances of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr. They're doing their own thing, and it almost rings true of, like, Will Smith and Carlton kind of vibe. And it really felt different and new and interesting.

[5:38] Christi Esterle: I brought this up to you when we saw it, but the gentleman playing Aaron Burr understands that he's playing the villain and leans into that a lot more than someone like Leslie Odom Jr., who in some occasions, I feel, feels more like the lead than Hamilton in that original Broadway production, where he is leading into the arch, the more kind of darker side, and really the jealousy and frustration and impotence that Aaron Burr felt, and such a great take.

[6:07] Miranda Moffat: I agree, and I apologize, because Jessie's going to give you more actual critical thought on it as a musical, and I'm just going to be, you know, into the history, because that's the stuff that I really enjoy. I agree, and I think this is really the first time, like, I won't say that Hamilton paints things simply, but in terms of a musical, you have to kind of cut down on how complicated and how intricate you're going to get with certain things. And I think for me, this was the first time that, yes, I think Burr was playing it more as a straight villain, but also it was the first time that I thought about his actual historical position, where it's easy for us with 2020, like, hindsight, knowing what happens, knowing what history writes, to say that Burr should have had very strong opinions, political opinions, and been proud of them, and been, like, openly in support of certain things, but it really is difficult when you're in the midst of very historical things happening.

As we well know at this moment in time, it is hard to make a stand and say what you mean and stand behind your beliefs when you're not sure what side is going to win and who will be the victors. So I think in that respect, I was almost a little bit more sympathetic this time to Burr a little bit, but he is definitely, he is the villain, and rightfully so.

[7:29] Christi Esterle: Something I would like to talk about that they kind of, like, gloss over, like, we know that Hamilton was definitely, like, a womanizer and a terrible husband, obviously, a part of the, which feels like so out of left field for what the musical is covering. We know that he, like, has an affair. But the thing that they gloss over a little bit too much for me is the Angelica stuff. Like, if my sister introduced me to my husband and then had an emotional affair with him all those years and left so many, like, letters and love notes behind that history knows that he was having an emotional affair with my sister, girl, I would kill her. What in the world? You and I have walked through Trinity Church, and we found Hamilton's grave, and it is spitting distance away from Angelica, and I could not find Eliza's grave anywhere nearby.

I mean, it was a marriage of convenience, like, that is kind of what they talk about in the show. Hamilton paid one of them for their money, and I think he did grow to love Eliza, but I think she also was aware that that's kind of why that happened. But Angelica's painted so, like, not saintly, but, like, you know, so sisterly to Eliza. Like, it never, you never get to see how it factors into that relationship and her understanding that her sister is having an emotional affair with her husband. I think that's just a little, just a little thing that I'm like, hmm, that's a little glossed over.

[8:54] Miranda Moffat: I think, if I remember my documentaries on the raiding at Hamilton, Eliza did not know about it until Hamilton died. Based on, like, her deciding to go through all those letters, at long last, I'd be like, uh-oh. For all the shit that he pulled, the way that this musical presents Eliza is, like, telling his story and defending his story, it's like, I would have let that man burn, too. I would have let him die in history and let nobody talk about him for all the shit he pulled. He got all these kids that are his, though. They had, like, eight kids. Like, Yvonne Trapp amounts of kids, and one died. But, um, she had his legacy with him, and there was nowhere moving it. And she was very active in politics post his death. She even met, while he was a lawyer, Abraham Lincoln. Like, she lived a long time, like, into her late 80s. So, in that time, I think it's easier to forgive a specter.

[9:50] Christi Esterle: I suppose. Karmic retribution for you, though. Eliza deserved to live that many years for everything that she was handed there. Something I do want to say is, I loved the George Washington that we got so, so, so much. It's kind of weird, because in the first act, his voice was, like, so deep. It was almost hard to hear at times. And then, when he was singing in the second act, it seemed like it was so much, like, higher and lighter. I don't know if that was, like, an intentional thing, but he just has, he just had so much presence, which I think you need to play George Washington. I think people forget that the real, historical George Washington was, like, a really, like, a crazy, tall, red-headed motherfucker. I mean, you can imagine the British soldier's, like, absolute horror to see this giant of a man.

[10:40] Miranda Moffat: Did he look like Carrot Top, the comedian? Like, that is who you're describing to me, is the comedian Carrot Top with his giant. He should play George Washington. That biopic should exist.

[10:52] Christi Esterle: No, he absolutely should not. But I just, I think about that when I watch this, how crazy he must have looked. I also, something that I thought about while I was watching it this time around is, like, how did they manage that kind of collective action in an era without, like, social media communication devices? And why are we so unable to do something of the same magnitude now? I mean, like, we definitely have large demonstrations now, but it just feels like they were really able to kind of, you know, pull something together, which I always find impressive.

[11:27] Miranda Moffat: Less people being literate, I think, is one. You have, like, a handful of people that know how to read and know how to arrange, and then you have people that are willing to put their names attached to something, and then that one thing gets spread around. And also, when you're not physically around, you kind of, they become legend status in a way. I think George Washington felt more like a god than a man to a certain point of Americans and early colonial folks.

[11:55] Christi Esterle: That's a good point. And I think, too, like, what the musical really leans into, which is true, is, like, Hamilton's strength was his writing. It was his wits, his ability to defend things, to create things, which is, I think, really well portrayed in this sense. And perfect for hip-hop, which, famously, is about people in really bad situations using their power of voice, their power of writing, the power of storytelling through their voice to get them out of the situations. There is, like, you know, those cases of people that wrote their way out of the quote-unquote hood through their writing, through their rap, through their art. And it's just another one of those hip-hop stories, and told equally beautifully.

[12:39] Miranda Moffat: And I hate to say it, because I know it's almost because Hamilton is so popular, and because it got so famous, that, like, the using a modern form of music to tell a historical story has almost, like, become a cliché. But I really do think, like, the way that he uses, like you said, the themes of a modern music and a modern story to tell something that is still so, so true about humanity is, like, I think one of my favorite parts is the rap battles, because a political debate essentially is a rap battle. It's people, like, using their wits against each other to try to prove a point. I just, I think that those are all things that are particularly well done. But, and also, if you think about it, like, some of the base issues that are at play in Hamilton, like the reasons for the revolution, the sort of difficulties of a new nation, wealth disparity, like, taxation without representation, gerrymandering, like, intimidation of the colonists by the British Army, like, these are all, like, these types of political intimidation things are still things that we are presently struggling with. So, I think it's very, it's very timely.

[13:51] Christi Esterle: It's also very timely, because King George, or King George, King Charles, that's the one that's there now, right, just gave his speech before Congress talking about the fact that early, you know, George Washington and Hamilton and these folks were rebels with a cause, you know, the kind of, as he put it, the tale of two Georges.

[14:13] Christi Esterle: Welcome back to The Dear Friends Podcast! Today, we’re diving into the world of Hamilton, the groundbreaking musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

[14:43] Emily Clark: Yes! It’s such an important piece of theatre, and I can’t wait to discuss its impact on both history and the theatre canon.

[15:13] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Absolutely! Hamilton has changed the way we think about musical storytelling. It’s not just a show; it’s a cultural phenomenon.

[15:43] Christi Esterle: Right? And the way it blends hip-hop with traditional musical theatre is just genius.

[16:13] Emily Clark: Plus, the casting choices have opened up conversations about representation in theatre.

[16:43] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: For sure! It’s a perfect example of how art can reflect and influence society.

[17:14] Christi Esterle: Speaking of influence, let’s talk about how Hamilton compares to the actual history it portrays.

[17:25] Emily Clark: Yes! It takes some creative liberties, but it also brings historical figures to life in a way that feels relatable.

[17:43] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: And it’s interesting to see how audiences react to those portrayals. Some people love the modern take, while others are more critical.

[17:55] Christi Esterle: That’s true! It sparks a lot of discussions about accuracy versus artistic license.

[18:05] Emily Clark: And it’s important to remember that it’s a musical, so some elements are exaggerated for effect.

[18:17] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Exactly! The emotional weight of the story is what really resonates with people.

[18:27] Christi Esterle: Let’s not forget the music itself. The score is so innovative and catchy!

[18:39] Emily Clark: I can’t help but sing along every time I listen to it.

[18:49] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Same here! The lyrics are so clever and packed with meaning.

[19:01] Christi Esterle: It’s a masterclass in lyric writing. Lin-Manuel Miranda really knows how to tell a story through song.

[19:11] Emily Clark: And the choreography complements the music perfectly, adding another layer to the storytelling.

[19:23] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: It’s a visual feast! The staging and movement are just as important as the music and lyrics.

[19:33] Christi Esterle: I love how the ensemble plays such a crucial role in the storytelling as well.

[19:45] Emily Clark: Yes! They’re not just background dancers; they’re integral to the narrative.

[19:55] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: It really creates a sense of community on stage, which is so powerful.

[20:07] Christi Esterle: Speaking of community, how do you think Hamilton has influenced the theatre community as a whole?

[20:17] Emily Clark: It’s opened doors for more diverse stories and voices to be heard.

[20:29] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: And it’s encouraged more people to engage with musical theatre, which is fantastic!

[20:39] Christi Esterle: Absolutely! It’s bridging gaps between different audiences.

[20:51] Emily Clark: I think it’s also inspiring a new generation of artists to create their own work.

[21:01] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Yes! It’s a reminder that theatre can be relevant and impactful.

[21:13] Christi Esterle: And it’s exciting to think about what the future holds for musical theatre because of shows like Hamilton.

[21:23] Emily Clark: I can’t wait to see how it continues to evolve!

[21:35] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Me too! Let’s keep this conversation going. What are some of your favorite moments from the show?

[21:45] Christi Esterle: I love the song “My Shot.” It’s so empowering!

[21:57] Emily Clark: “The Room Where It Happens” is another standout for me. The political intrigue is so well done.

[22:07] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: I’m a big fan of “Satisfied.” The storytelling in that number is just brilliant.

[22:19] Christi Esterle: Each song really adds to the overall narrative and character development.

[22:29] Emily Clark: It’s a perfect example of how music can enhance storytelling in theatre.

[22:41] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: And it’s a testament to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s talent as a composer and lyricist.

[22:51] Christi Esterle: We could talk about this for hours! Hamilton truly deserves all the accolades it has received.

[23:03] Emily Clark: Definitely! It’s a game changer in so many ways.

[23:13] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Let’s wrap up our discussion with some final thoughts on its legacy.

[23:25] Christi Esterle: I think Hamilton will be remembered as a pivotal moment in musical theatre history.

[23:35] Emily Clark: Agreed! It’s inspiring a new wave of creativity and storytelling.

[23:47] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: And it’s encouraging conversations about representation and history that are so important.

[23:57] Christi Esterle: Well said! Thank you for joining us today to discuss Hamilton.

[24:09] Emily Clark: We hope you enjoyed this bonus episode!

[24:19] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review!

[24:31] Christi Esterle: Until next time, keep creating and sharing your stories!

[24:41] Emily Clark: Bye everyone!

[24:53] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Bye!