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

[0:17] Mo Brady: No matter if watching the filmed performance of Hamilton on Disney Plus is your first time seeing the show or your tenth, one thing is clear while watching: this is a very good show. Numbers like "Schuyler Sisters" and "The Election of 1800" not only tell story and develop character, they're also thrilling to watch. On stage and on screen, Hamilton is chock-a-block with good musical theater moments. And, as will be a surprise to no one, those thrilling moments of stagecraft are due in part to the show's ensemble. With only 11 members, Hamilton's ensemble is as featured as any in recent memory. You can imagine future high school productions of Hamilton, where dozens and dozens of young people will play American civilians, British soldiers, and cabinet members. Here, we see all of that expertly handled by less than a dozen performers.

[1:11] Mo Brady: One of the eleven who took on this monumental feat for the filmed performance is Hope Easterbrook. Joining the Broadway Company in March 2016, she played the Woman 2 track. Hope joined me this week over the phone to talk about her roles in the show, as well as her experience filming the show for posterity. Here's our conversation.

[1:30] Hope Easterbrook: My name is Hope Easterbrook. I am calling from my house in Jersey City.

[1:59] Mo Brady: Well, everything's legal in New Jersey, as we learned this weekend. Funny enough, I just recently got a city bike and I biked my way all the way to Weehawken and I finally visited the Hamilton Park, which I had never been to. And I was like, thank God I did this. And thank God I had like the time to just bike over there and like have that moment. But it was really, it's really cool.

[2:19] Mo Brady: Speaking of which, you are in the Hamilton film that released and everyone has watched this weekend. I promise you no one listening to this podcast will have not seen it. Can you say what you do in the Hamilton film?

[2:32] Hope Easterbrook: So I'm in the ensemble. I've coined my little part as being the dirty bar wench because I'm slinging drinks in the tavern in my shot.

[2:41] Mo Brady: Oh, and you were the first replacement, right?

[2:43] Hope Easterbrook: I was the first replacement to the original cast. Yes.

[2:46] Mo Brady: So you joined the Broadway company in March 2016. This is sort of like post-Grammys, pre-Tonys. What's the first whisper you heard about this film project?

[2:57] Hope Easterbrook: It was around when we were rehearsing for the Tonys. Did we get a little, I had a little hint from production that we were going to be doing this film. So I was like in the midst of doing the Tony Awards, Broadway Bears, and then we filmed the movie. And when I tell you, I've never been so tired in my life. Like if you know, like Tony's just were the most incredible epic night. Like we had a party that till the sun came up and then continue to do eight shows that week. Right. And Broadway Bears, which we all know is like shenanigans and crazy excitement. It directly followed by filming the movie. It was very, very soon before we started filming. Did we hear from production that we were going to be doing this?

So it was, I would say literally a week before filming. It was like we finished the Tonys. They were like, we're going to give you guys contracts. We're filming in two weeks. It was like, it was crazy. We filmed it on Sunday matinee live performance. We filmed all that night. We filmed on our day off on Monday, all day. And then all day Tuesday, that show that night was filmed. So three days of madness. Two performances. And then in between that one, you're supposed to let be letting your body rest and recuperate not only from eight shows, but from Broadway Bears, from Tony's, from award season. You're still filming. I remember there was one moment where it was like 6am. I'm telling you, I've never been so exhausted, and kind of complaining, honestly, in the wings.

And I remember Chris Jackson turned to me and he goes, "Come on, Hope, you've been dreaming of this since you were born." And I was like, "All right, you're right, snap out of it." And I'm watching it, you know, and I'm thinking to myself, yeah, like this is something I, a kid could only dream of, like, Hamilton so exceeded those expectations and those dreams for me.

[5:16] Mo Brady: So how much of the show that we're watching at home is those two live performances versus all of these things you were doing in between the performances?

[5:26] Hope Easterbrook: I would say the majority are the live performances, because you're getting a lot of those wide shots. I would say the only those really close up shots are the shots that we did on those extra extra days. But I would say the majority you're getting the live performance. But I would say that that's like kind of the one takeaway that I'm getting a lot from family and friends, which is like people that have been lucky enough to see it, they're finally actually seeing it like seeing Renee's expressions and seeing like, all of it so up close, right. And like seeing Burr make that switch, and like really seeing it, those acting chops that all of them have. And so everyone is actually seeing it in a way that it never was able to be seen, if that makes sense.

The overhead cam and the cam from upstage, that shocked me. Like I freaked out during "Right Hand Man" when I first saw it. And Chris like puts his sword away. And I was just like, holy crap, like it was just the cool, I got such chills because I was like, no one's ever seen it from there. No one's ever seen Chris Jackson go into "Right Hand Man" like that. And I just thought that that was so epic.

[6:30] Mo Brady: That's like a view only you had or only people on stage have had before. And I bet you're seeing stuff that you never got to see really.

[6:38] Hope Easterbrook: You have no idea. There's so many parts where I was like, I never knew the guys did that. Like I was always facing upstage and I never realized. And even when I was learning the show and I was watching it every night before going in, I was watching my track. It really is very cool because I learn new things every time I see it.

[6:55] Mo Brady: So I want to ask you one more question about filming before I ask you to divulge all the secrets you can. Okay, so when you're looking out into the house on this Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday morning, is it an empty house? Are there like, is it like tech tables everywhere? Like what are you seeing when you are performing these pickup shots?

[7:13] Hope Easterbrook: I know, for instance, when they because it was pretty last minute that they decided to film this before some of the cast decided to leave. They had to take out a lot of seats in order to I think there were like six cameras or something in the house. And then so they had to take out a lot of seats. So a lot of the seats were gone. Obviously, the amount of people that were there was enough for you to feel the energy in that live theater. I wasn't trying to look at the cameras. I was like, I'm just going to do my show the way I know it. And I'm just gonna perform any other night. I had no shame, especially during like the cabinet battles to like, look in the audience and see who was there. And that was my moment where I was like, "Oh, okay, cool. There's that person and there's that famous person." Like that was my moment of being like, taking it in.

[8:00] Mo Brady: Yeah, exactly. So I want to ask you some questions about it. As I mentioned before the interview, I spent two hours and 40 minutes watching you in preparation for this interview. I want to ask you who you are playing. I feel like when I've talked to people in the Hamilton ensemble before, they feel like they're playing sort of themselves or a storyteller that then steps into either these characters or backing up other characters being a feeling or an intention of those characters. Does that feel right to you?

[8:27] Hope Easterbrook: We are embodying those characters. My "Helpless" is a very different than my "Room Where It Happens," right? Because I'm embodying Eliza or I'm embodying Burr, right? So like, I definitely

[8:40] Hope Easterbrook: I don't feel like within my performance, I'm trying to do that, but as far as who I'm playing, I think the ensemble, we're not only watching history being made and acknowledging that, but we are also helping it because, you know, we're enforcing it and we're moving it along because, you know, who's moving all the tables? Who's putting Hamilton's chair down before he sits down and writes? It's us. We're not only bystanders of history being made and watching it happen, but we're also, like, allowing it to happen, if that makes sense.

[9:16] So when you walk out on stage for the very first time in the opening, you're you?

[9:21] Yes.

[9:22] You're Hope. You're like, I'm here, I'm Hope, I'm gonna, along with all these other people up here, we're gonna take you on a story, audience.

[9:29] It transitions into, you know, in the opening number, in Alexander Hamilton, that opening number, you already know what happens. You know that Burr is the guy who shot him. You know how it ends. So this is us being like, like you said, as Hope, as the cast. Here we are. We're gonna tell this story. And then, boom, we're in it.

[9:48] So there are these moments in which you're sort of playing characters, right? You're playing Dirty Bar Wench. In the Cabinet Battles, do you have a specific person that you're playing? Are you like, I'm from Virginia? Or like, do you like, do you know anything about this person?

[9:56] That's so funny you ask that, because I'm watching my facial expressions. And like, I mean, I'm like, she is in it. I was like, there's certain things, because every night it's different. Every night, there's always one thing that you hear that you like resonate with. And so it's just funny when you're watching, like, you know, yourself on screen. It's like, oh, that's really interesting that I reacted that way.

[10:23] There was one moment where, and it's too many damn pages for any man to understand. And I remember being a woman and I said, I can't even read. Blow Us All Away, you have the feature of being the woman on stage in the green dress.

[10:37] Which is the quickest change. I don't know if you know this. Blow us all away. And it's like, run off stage, get this gown on, and then you're on stage. And I would say I'm in some sort of, like, Shakespearean moment. But I never really said, oh, this is what I'm playing, because it's such a quick moment. Like Rua pours something on my lap and I'm trying to wipe it off and then I point. And then it's literally over.

[11:02] I do want to ask you about what is harder? Is it dancing? Is it watching? Is it moving chairs?

[11:08] I would say in the long run, for my body, moving the chairs, that was the biggest toll. Because dancing is what I'm familiar with. But I've never had to do a turn with a chair above my head. So that's all very new.

[11:24] I would say the turntable was the most challenging aspect of, like, getting into the show. Because you're learning it in a studio and you don't know what it feels like to actually have a thing move you from point A to point B. And when you're learning it, you're like, OK, Schuyler sisters, you start over here and then the turntable moves you over here. And so you're learning it in the studio and you think, oh, OK, cool. Like, I know this choreo. I'm good. The turntable.

[11:51] And then I personally I feel like I was the prop girl. Like, I feel like I just had all the props. And maybe that's because, like, I kind of hate props because of the I hate it because of the responsibility. And I know that I needed to because, like, that's the role. But the responsibility is, like, very stressful. But I would say the turntable and the props were probably like the hardest part about it. Like singing and dancing that I was like, good. OK, I got this. Like, I know how to do this.

[12:18] I would implore audiences to rewatch Hurricane, where you are holding a chair like a foot from the ground. And so the chair stays at this like flat, almost on the ground, but not on the ground angle. And then you like flip your body upside down and then back. It's like a slow motion somersault while keeping a chair in. And I was like, that looks hard. That looks really hard.

[12:45] Like never in my prior training did I think that I would have to exactly what you said, maintain a level of a chair while slow motion, like trying to like do a turn under it, you know. And I really loved watching that, though, because I again, I'm only focused on what I have to do. But when I get to watch the bigger picture and I get to really fully see his entire story in that moment circle around him.

[13:13] I want to ask you about the similarities between Satisfied and Helpless, right? We sort of know that the numbers are in tandem and that we're seeing the story again. How similar is the choreography?

[13:24] It's not I wouldn't say it's exactly the same. There are moments that I would call them like breakdowns or remixes, rather, where it's pretty much the Helpless choreography with little remixes. But I would say, again, learning that and learning the difference between the Helpless and the Satisfied choreography was a challenge. And then on top of that, learning it without a partner. There's crazy things that you don't even realize. But it definitely for me and my brain cells after like a long day of rehearsal, I was like, I can't even tell you the differences. Honestly, like it was it's it's very similar, though.

[14:02] In Wait For It, you are sitting in a chair stage, like basically in front of stage left one, downstage left corner. And there's a moment where you like turn in the chair and you face off stage. And I'm like, someone is playing some practical joke on Hope every show here. She's looking directly off stage. What is happening?

[14:21] I would say the entire cast is on stage. But Hamilton at that moment, Lynn never did. But Javi, Javi would always have like funny faces and try and make me crack on stage. But I would say, you know, it was another thing during Wait For It. When I stood up, I would see Anthony and Anthony. And I would always we had like this thing when when dabs were in, when like dabbing was a thing. But when dabbing was a thing, we would always like lowkey. We would we wouldn't do like real ones because they would be like too too obnoxious and legit. But we would just do like little like head like head nods or as if we had our hand up. But we would just go boom.

[15:00] So one last question I want to ask you is about the work that you're doing right now for your nonprofit Dance for Hope.

[15:06] So I started Dance for Hope in 2018. I had just come back from a trip to Africa. I went to Rwanda, actually, and I taught over there. And it's just this beautiful, beautiful program and kind of the safe haven for these kids. And it was such a life changing experience for me to understand the power that dance had for these kids, you know, and really seeing it for myself, like how dance has helped them get out of their circumstances.

[15:35] When I came back, it was very bittersweet because I felt like this sense of purpose out there. And I felt like I really I needed to kind of bring that back home with me. And how was I going to do that? And then it just jump started this brainstorming session within myself. And I was like, wait, I should offer my services, my education, my privilege. I was thinking of names and I thought, oh, my gosh, Dance for Hope, because it just captures kind of what we're doing, which is offering whether it's immigrant children, underprivileged youth in like low income families, and just give them the opportunity to express themselves and give them a safe space to do so and to find their voices.

[16:15] You can visit my website, danceforhope.com and kind of learn more, maybe donate. But we're just trying to serve as many kids as we can that need these kinds of opportunities.

[16:33] Mo Brady: Special thanks to Hope Easterbrook for sharing their stories with us today.

[16:37] Mo Brady: The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. There are two great ways you can be helping the Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

[16:46] Mo Brady: And the second is by becoming a Patreon member, which you can do at patreon.com slash the Ensemblist.

[16:54] Mo Brady: Please follow the Ensemblist wherever you listen to podcasts, whether that be on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or our home of Broadway Podcast Network, bpn.fm.

[17:05] Mo Brady: You can also follow us on Instagram. Thanks for listening. Until next time.