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[0:00] Moe Brady: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out.

[0:16] Moe Brady: Hamilton tells the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton and how he impacted American history. That's Broadway historian Jennifer Ashley Tepper back to talk about the constantly evolving legacy of Hamilton.

[0:45] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: When they bestowed it with the 2016 prize for drama, the Pulitzer committee called the show a landmark American musical about the gifted and self-destructive founding father whose story becomes both contemporary and irresistible. As the first hip-hop infused musical to win the Pulitzer, how does this represent the qualification of speaking to American life? The thing that's different about Hamilton is the way that it uses modern music, the way that it uses political issues that are current and that are historic from immigration to race, the way that it kind of is a melting pot in itself of all of these social political issues, all of these musical styles. It takes like everything and swirls it together into one thing.

So I think that Hamilton already has had an impact in that. I mean, this is my theory, but more people are going to go, oh, that kind of music can be on Broadway the same way that they thought that with Rent. So in that way, it's very different.

[1:50] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: The ensemble of Hamilton, it's really fascinating. I think that the way that dance is integrated into the show is pretty revolutionary as far as the ensemble. Every person in the ensemble has such a specific movement track that it's down to the fact that Ariana DeBose plays the bullet and that for the rest of time, this is going to be the first replacement bullet. And the bullet is literally a dance role in the show played by an ensemble member that I guess anthropomorphizes the moment of a shot bringing out. So I think that when something has so much attention focused on it, people focus on all aspects. The ensemble, just like the ensemble in A Chorus Line, is getting a lot of attention as individuals.

We're paying attention to what they do on stage and analyzing that. In analyzing that, I think a lot of the ensemble members do have, I guess, specific moments in the show that even the average audience member sees and goes, oh, they can go in their program and see like that is that person. I guess it calls out the ensemble members to be a little bit more distinctive.

[2:51] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: The ensemble in Hamilton, the men and the women play soldiers, people who would have been in America in the 1700s when the show was happening. No one is playing anyone at any given time, not related to historically what race or gender that person might have been, including the ensemble. We spoke to two of the talented actors from the original Broadway company of Hamilton about their ensemble work in that production.

[3:14] Sasha Hutchings: My name is Sasha Hutchings, and I love living in Harlem, New York. In Hamilton the Musical, my role, most importantly, is ensemble, mainly dancing and creating the foundation of the show. We kind of jump in and out of the story a lot. My smaller roles mean bringing on chairs and tables and things, and then I play like a little schoolgirl at one point when you're getting to know Philip Schuyler.

[3:36] Neil Haskell: Hi, I'm Neil Haskell. I live on the Upper West Side. Currently in Hamilton, I'm playing the track of Man 1, originated by John Rua. I originally started as a swing when it transferred to Broadway, but I left for about three months to do another show, Tuck Everlasting, and then I came back and John's track opened up, and so now I'm playing that, which is also the role of Charles Lee. We transform a lot as the ensemble. Sometimes we're playing the lead characters' reactions and emotions and different experiences, and then all of a sudden we'll transfer into being a townsperson with our own ideas and thoughts and problems. Everybody's track is so necessary in the show, because one thing is always leading to the next, and if one person is incorrect in what they're doing or is messing up, a chair is going to be on the wrong side of the stage, and then that chair isn't going to be there, so somebody's going to have to go and snag another one, and then another prop's going to be out of place because the other person had to do this and that.

Everybody's track is 100% necessary, so you would think that when an ensemble member goes on for a principal and a swing's coming on, things might get scary and different, but the swings are so well-prepared that it works. There's two tracks on the male and female side that are possible cut tracks, but it sucks when they are, so they try everything they can not to.

[5:03] Neil Haskell: Playing multiple roles, often within one song, without leaving the stage. How is this even possible? Neil shared some of the ways these transitions have been steeped into the foundation of Hamilton. He's choreographed some actual visible transitions, which they're visible to us. I'm not sure if they would be super visible to the audience, but it helps me as a dancer change from one thing to another, either becoming a specific person, a specific member of society, or if we're playing that person's feelings and stuff like that. The first one you'd see right at the end of the opening number, you'll hear like a ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-doom, and then you'll see everybody pull up and then transition into whatever character they are in that point in time.

Little tiny costume changes also transition us into new people, or even like bringing a chair out on stage and then shifting into the transition of the rap battles and stuff. We transition into being different senators or house members and everything like that, and then we're back into another mode of backing up Thomas Jefferson, how angry he is, and all that sort of stuff.

[6:12] Neil Haskell: So these 11 ensemble tracks are playing a lot of feelings, emotions, environments, and actions. And actions. Because you can't play any of those other things. You can't play them. Are they playing characters? That's my question. So that's what we asked Sasha and Neil to share some of their stories from the rehearsal room discussions that formed their performances.

[6:31] Sasha Hutchings: We had a lot of conversations about who we are on stage at all times, because we step in and out and there's a huge surround. And one of the things from the beginning that Andy Blankenbuehler and Tommy really wanted to play with was just the presence of everyone on stage at all times. So it kind of becomes this point of view thing, like you're trying to figure out who am I and what role am I playing to this story right now. So I think at all times, and I think what has served this musical so well, is that no matter where you are, no matter what you're saying or not saying, everything is to forward the plot. And so for you, standing on the side, like a lot of times I come on, and yeah, I do enter the show just as Sasha.

I like to come on as honest as possible to set the tone of the show because the show requires so much honesty. And it's just this communal feeling that not only is it us on stage, but you're here with us and we're going to tell a story and we're all going to experience the story together for the first time. So it kind of is like an improv game. Like if you see that they need another character, you're like, oh, let me jump in. I mean, that's choreographed at this, you know, for the musical, but there's this sense of right now, this is what's needed for the story. It's a lot more pedestrian and real. I'm not up there playing Neil, but I am playing these characters in their set circumstances, but trying to be as real as possible and not trying to look like a dancer, not trying to look like an actor.

And if that requires a point of view from me, like a certain energy from me, if that requires me to represent where Burr is and his train of thought through movement, then that's what I do. So I'm an extension of Burr at that moment. You kind of just have to live in the world, which is really freeing. I definitely think that that skill of approaching a show in that way is something I'll always take with me. I think it's always something I've had. Like this is the way I wanted to experience being on stage. Hamilton is its own thing. It's its own concept. So it doesn't always apply to like Music Man. Like when you're just kind of on singing, trouble, trouble, trouble. But I do think that that sort of surrendering to the world is a skill that you should take with you at all times.

[8:32] Sasha Hutchings: In their job requirements, the Ensemblists of Hamilton are much more in line with the Ensemblists of Rent than, say, the Seabees of South Pacific. In Rent, the seven members of the ensemble play Mark's mom and others, or Gordon and others. But in Hamilton, most of the ensemble features aren't even listed in the playbill. So how do you bring truth to your performance while juggling all these different characters and responsibilities? Do you end up just bringing more of yourself to the story? If you're coming on for any ensemble number, there should be a surrender to what's happening on stage. So if I am third girl from the right, I don't have to be more than that. And I can enjoy that for what it is.

I think that's so much more fun to do. It's so much more fun to watch. Just be you. I think people will find that way more interesting than any extra effort you feel like you have to put on. I think honesty is more interesting than anything else. When you see like an old classic show and the dancers are in the background doing like flapple change, flapple change, jazz hands, you know, they don't really look like people because they aren't being people. But when you see a show that makes the dancers more pedestrian and makes them more relatable, it's kind of cool. And that's the kind of shows that I want to do. And like Rent, the actors in the Ensemble of Hamilton are a diverse group, an intentional part of the show's casting.

Casting-wise, you see America as it is today, presenting America as it was then. But also when it comes to the elections in the show, it's talking about the two-party system, which is still very relevant today, and trying to get people's endorsements and that stuff is still extremely relevant today. Not much has changed, but like everything's changed.

[10:14] Mo Brady: In one of only two episodes this season, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama was originally given just to the book writers, and then eventually to composers and lyricists as well. But the Pulitzer has never been given to the director or choreographer of a show – just the text. However, anyone who has seen Hamilton on stage or in snippets online would be hard-pressed to state that the show's physical production is not intricately woven into the story. Because everything starts with the text. And I think Lynda does such a great job of pulling out words from the text of the foundation of the country. I've never been a part of an experience where I feel like every other element that was built on top of that was just as honest to the text.

And that's definitely attributed to Tommy and his direction and the brilliance of Andy and Lac and everyone. And then when we came on as a cast, I didn't feel any need to add anything extra. It was just about bringing that to life through whatever I had. Everything is tied back to the text and what's happening, and I've never seen something so accurate. The score, there's no extra, there's no fluff. And then even in the book itself, they made sure that the text was streamlined so that the music could be streamlined. And the set itself is streamlined. It's very minimal. It's everything that's needed and nothing that's not. The Pulitzer can be awarded to the text, but musicals are dimensional. And so every dimension is honest to that first seed.

[11:40] Mo Brady: The Pulitzer's lineage shows a healthy appreciation for turning a mirror on society. And just like Of Thee I Sing and How to Succeed, Hamilton uses humor to portray many of the serious issues facing our nation's creation and governance, both in the 1700s and right now. I remember the first time someone told me about the show, and they were like, yeah, Lynn's writing a show about the Founding Fathers and Alexander Hamilton, and Jefferson's a black guy. And I was like, that doesn't work. He was a slave owner. He was terrible. And then I saw it and I was like, oh, totally works because it's like this thing, it's making you face an ugly truth about how we got here. But in a way that kind of empowers you to feel like you can change it or that there's hope.

It's a hopeful way of looking at we're not our worst selves. We're not our best selves. You have to deal with all of that as people. And that's one of the things in the show. It's like there's always a sense of like, not yet. There's more work to be done. There's that moment in the show. It's like we studied and we fought and we killed for the notion of a nation we now get to build. It's like we're still doing that. I think the irony inside there, it's used very well with just the fact that these characters are black and brown and not what they were. There are lots of things that are said in the show, but they wouldn't land the same way if they were said by people who would have said them back then.

You know what I mean? Who had the right to say and the right to be included in history in that way. The reason they can stand up and say immigrants, we get the job done. And that gets a laugh. The descendant of an immigrant is saying that. So it's just that juxtaposition of there are people saying these things who would have never had a stage to say these things. That's the comment on society. I think those are the things that stick out to me as a satire and the irony that really make the piece as a whole unique. But it does it in a way that you don't feel cynical about our history. You still feel inspired, which is what we need to keep moving forward.

[13:18] Mo Brady: I think one glaring example of it is King George. They're using a 1960s British pop rock song to represent something that's happening 200 years ago and making him seem like a manchild and making it sound like he's in a relationship with the states and he's the sad ex-boyfriend. I think that definitely has a ton of humor and satire in it. Hamilton is huge. It's huge in every sense of the word. And it's hugely relevant to where we are today as Americans, first and foremost, because it speaks to our inception. This one thing that we all have in common. And I think that automatically audiences have an interest and a connection and an investment in the story, which is so important. And then you take it and you flip it on its head and you make it look like something completely different with people of color and young people, these vibrant lives on stage.

You put a language on it that is so 2016, is so today. And I think there's such a through line of culture. You're seeing so much of how we got to where we are today. I think it speaks to the changing face of what we think America is, what it looks like, who represents what we are. And it challenges people, but in a way that's inviting and in a way that's fun, which is really hard to do. But it's allowed people to receive a hard message sometimes. Like it's hard to talk about race in America. It's hard to talk about oppression. It's hard to talk about the things that were wrong. And I think that it's just telling the story sort of like we still have a lot of work to do on our country. And I think that seeing where we started and then seeing this representation of where we are now and how those things contradict themselves sometimes goes to show the work that we've been doing and then the work that still needs to be done.

[15:06] Mo Brady: Rarely has an ensemble been so visible as they are in Hamilton. The term ensemble of principles has been used to describe the cast and for good reason. Every track in the 11 member ensemble is highly unique and memorable. The way that I'm talking about how, like, you know, which person is the bullet. It's similar to how, like, you know, which person was the bikini girl in Rent. It's like they're not necessarily playing these characters you really get to know, but they're called out in a way so that you notice the actors. Part of the show that we see that these people kind of look like people we might see on the street today, even though they're playing humans that existed in the 1700s. And that extends to the ensemble.

So you can see that the ensemble members also just look like the average person you would see right now. As ensemble lovers, we fell off the couch when Leslie Odom Jr. mentioned ensemble members by name in his Tony speech. I almost fell. And everywhere I looked, there was a Sasha, an Ephraim, an Oak, a David, an Anthony, a Jasmine, a John Rua. We hear the term ensemble of principles, but what does that mean? Sasha and Neil told us how the phrase resonates with them.

[16:12] Sasha Hutchings: One of the things I noticed in this process was it was the first time that I felt like a principal cast really saw the ensemble. Each person for who they were, what they brought, because they leaned on us. They had to. If I don't bring your chair on, you don't have anywhere to sit. And we needed each other. I think Leslie, once he would talk about something like a collective genius. And I also think that because there's this surround, you know, they got to watch us work. They had to be on stage with us. It wasn't like you were called for an hour to do your scene and then they left and then the ensemble was there from 10 to 6. Truly, everyone was there all day long. And honestly, there were a lot of times during rehearsal periods where during the mornings we would be split and we would be figuring out Helpless Satisfied, you know, because that brilliant section where everything reverses.

But then, like in the afternoon, they would come in. So I feel like there was definitely a sense of understanding that, like, we had laid this groundwork to plug them in and they were grateful for it. There was like a recognition of it. And there was so much work to be done that it was truly all hands on deck. And I think we were all just excited to have this experience together. And you just had a lot of creatively selfless people in the room. So I think this idea of like an ensemble of principals, it definitely includes everyone, including the principals. Everyone has a point of view that is so strong and so deeply rooted in the text and what's happening. Like everyone found their anchor and everyone's anchor was holding the same amount of weight.

Literally anybody in the ensemble could be playing any of the leads as well on the show. I mean, a lot of them cover it anyway, but the ensemble of the show is just like wildly talented and everybody's holding their own. You could be sitting in the audience and watch one person the entire show and still feel fully energized by the show and see an entire arc and all this sort of different stories and characters and everything. But just by watching one of the ensemble members. So I think that definitely is an ensemble of principals. This show showcases the ensemble in such incredible ways. Everybody has different specialties and everybody in the ensemble is playing different roles, whether it be Eliza and Angelica's father or Charles Lee.

Like everybody has pop out and stand out moments and they hold their own. People see us, they see this ensemble and what would happen is people would be surprised by it because they would catch someone. And I had someone talk to me and they were like, who is this? And I was like, he was telling such a story. And I was like, yeah, like that's what we do. And so I think that hopefully, in addition to everything else that the show is teaching people, that it's teaching performers and audience members alike what it is to tell stories and what it is to absorb stories and that everyone on stage is a part of what's happening.

[19:19] Mo Brady: That's really nice.

[19:21] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, it's good.

[19:22] Mo Brady: I feel like that's a thing.

[19:23] Sasha Hutchings: I feel like that's a thing, too.

[19:25] Mo Brady: Good.

[19:25] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, there we go.

[19:31] Mo Brady: Thank you to Neil Haskell and Sasha Hutchings for allowing us to reshare their stories this week. And of course, our co-creator, Nika Graf Lanzarone, whose heart and compassion are baked so thoroughly into everything we do here at The Ensemblist. We love you, Mama Nika. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. There are two great ways you can help The Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcast. And the second is by becoming one of our Patreon members. You can do that at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist. Please follow The Ensemblist on Spotify, or you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts. You can also find all of our episodes at bpn.fm with the rest of our Broadway Podcast Network family. And make sure you're following us on Instagram because we are putting a lot of content out there. Things are moving fast, people. All right. Thanks for listening.

[19:52] Mo Brady: Nika, you said there was going to be a connection.

[19:55] Sasha Hutchings: Oh, my God, of course. So each of these nine shows are super different and they have all found their own way to use the ensemble, whether it be a six member cast in Next to Normal or a united voice of opinions in Of Thee I Sing. Not every Pulitzer winning musical uses its ensemble equally, but they all rely on that ensemble to tell the story. And that, we would argue, is what makes a truly great American musical.