Wednesday, September 23, 2015
The Hamilton Cast Album: Has Theatre Been Reinvented?
OnStage: I don’t live in New York. I don’t have the funds to travel to see theatre, and I’m so frequently in production (as I am right now) that I frequently feel distant from the Broadway vibe. And it’s been hard that I’ve not been able to see and respond to Hamilton and the buzz it’s creating. I’ve had to wait for the cast album, and hope that (unlike so many others) it will simulate the visceral ephemerality of the stage production. I also felt this way about Spring Awakening…and the cast album failed me in nearly every way. I suspect that Spring Awakening played so much better on stage than it did on CD—it must have, because I was completely unmoved by the album. So much so, in fact, that I lost any interest in seeing the show. So Hamilton has had me worried. I’m always leery of hype, and always suspect of largely universal praise. I was very intrigued yesterday when the album dropped on NPR.
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I think because of Hamilton we have now have so much more to work with. I absolutely adore the soundtrack. I haven’t seen the show and plan to see it as soon as I can but just listening to it without the visual counterpart I still am enthralled by the story and how it has been told. To take this obscure founder of our country and make a musical about him that sounds and feels contemporary but yet still in that time makes me feel at level with these people from back then. They were just like us growing up and wanting to make a difference in the world. Social customs may have been different then but they still felt the same way we did and I think that Hamilton took that idea and ran with it. I know for a fact that Hamilton has set a new bar for musical theatre and the ones that follow after this will hopefully be just as extraordinary and unique. These are the type of shows that will really bring the passion and importance of theatre back to the forefront of our minds.
I spent the first 3 hours after the album came out sitting in an airport and airplane staring straight listening to the soundtrack in my earphones. To be honest, I did not have the same reaction that Austin Hill had. I was disappointed in myself that I wasn’t immediately obsessed. But then I thought about the first time I heard In The Heights and I hated it and let me tell you, the second the curtain rose when I saw In The Heights my opinions changed completely. I hope that the more I listen to the soundtrack, which I will do a lot, I become more obsessed and if I ever get a ticket to the show I hope I love it. I really want to see it on Broadway but I do not know If I will ever be able to. No matter how good a cast recording is nothing compares to seeing the energy on stage (Not to mention the sets and lights, which to me is a huge part of theater, and that’s a good things seeing as I am a DP).
It's interesting to read the reaction of someone who has never seen Hamilton before in person. I have found it intriguing listening to my friends' reactions to this show's cast recording. Pretty much everyone I've heard from, with the exception of Drew above, has loved it. I think it is a true sign of genius that people who have not even seen Hamilton are really connecting with the music. What many people may not realize is the cast recording of Hamilton is the entire show. There is very little dialogue that exists outside the actual songs. So, this is not just a cast recording release. This is a release of the entire aural story of Hamilton, simply removing the visuals. As someone who has seen Hamilton on Broadway, this album completely takes me back to seeing it in person. I remember a whole lot of what was going on onstage after hearing the music again, and I think this is really special. If it were any other show, as a producer I would be hesitant to release the entire cast album on NPR. However, Hamilton isn't just any show. Its diverse cast and unique sounds make it something people will be willing to spend money on, regardless if it is up for free on NPR. I will be interested to see how well the album sells on iTunes. I imagine it will sell extremely well. After all, there are tons of people out there who don't have the funds to make it to New York, and this album makes Hamilton in its entirety just one click away.
I think that the release of this album is a bold and important choice. My first reaction when I heard that it would be released for free on NPR was, "Are you sure you want to do that?" I was considering the financial repercussions of giving away what is essentially the meat of the show, when the tickets for this show are so ludicrously expensive. Seems like if you want to hear the story but don't want to pay for the show, you'll just take the free stuff and forego attendance, which will lose the production money. However, like Jess says, people are still going to see this show. From what I've heard, Hamilton is a revelation. A completely new, beautiful story that totally changes the way we're going to think about theatre. So I think it's actually wonderful that the soundtrack was released for free, because this way thousands and thousands of people who will not have the opportunity to see the show for whatever reasons will be able to at least experience the heart of it. I think there is a lot to learn from Hamilton, and it would be a shame if those lessons were restricted to those who are able to make it to New York with tickets in hand. I have not personally listened to the recording because I would like to wait until I see the show, but the more buzz this gets, the more I want to give in and listen to it. We'll see what I end up deciding.
I think it's really important to make a show like this easily accessible, and something you can listen to for free. I was talking to Jess a couple of days ago about how this show is changing how our industry will go about producing musicals and how we expect quality from a Broadway production...not that we didn't already. I think changing it up is really important in theatre, and I love that Hamilton is telling an important story, with an important sound track, and I would absolutely love to see this show on Broadway. Lin Manuel Miranda is doing something incredible with this show, and it's really a fantastic cast recording/soundtrack in general. I can't wait to see what happens after this, but so far, I'm pretty hooked. And releasing it for free? Whatever. Nobody would have listened to this on their own time otherwise except us theater nerds...not for a while anyway. Doing something like this makes a show that is new and exciting so much more accessible, and especially for people who didn't know there were shows for them, and this is definitely a show that could reach more people outside of the standard musical theatre bubble.
The only answer I can give to this question is yes. I have never seen Hamilton, but I have been listening to the soundtrack non stop since it was first released (I may or may not be listening to it right now). I love how they made it accessible to everyone to listen to. Before listening to the soundtrack, I was a bit skeptical about how hip hop and the american revolution mixed. I have never been a huge hip hop fan in the first place. But now I am fully convinced how well this works. Miranda mixes hip hop, Broadway, and colonial America perfectly. Hamilton has certainly reinvented my idea of theatre, and I hope that this amazing mashup of different genres continues into the future.
As always, Lin-Manuel Miranda is a genius. Additionally, the marketing and public relations people for Hamilton are geniuses. By releasing the album for free online, they generated a whole lot of buzz. In case anyone in the theatre industry had forgotten about Hamilton for one second, the Hamilton crew dropped the cast album a couple days early for free, allowing anyone to experience the show (sort of). By letting anyone listen to the show's music, a lot of people finally get how good it is. Before I saw the show, I was constantly wondering what the hell was so special about this show that it was able to sell millions of dollars worth of tickets before it even started previews. Once I saw the show, I got it. I could go on for hours about how beautifully done the score of Hamilton is, but I'll save that for the next article about Hamilton that's posted on this blog. I'll briefly summarize by saying that Miranda is able to blend hip hop and theatre in an extraordinary way, and it's important that everyone can experience that by listening to the album online.
The ways in which Hamilton makes us rethink our manipulation of the historical narrative remind me of a fantastic book which my APUSH teacher had our class read as a supplement to her teaching. The book was entitled "Lies My Teacher Told Me", by James W. Loewen, and it made me love learning history far more than I ever thought I could. The book itself called into question everything students learn from cookie-cutter, white-washed, over-manipulated history textbooks, the kind that vaguely mention Sacagawea when discussing Lewis & Clark and completely pass over the men of color who came before Christopher Columbus could stake his privileged white claim on the Americas. I think Hamilton as a musical, as a historical narrative, and as an artistic venture does something amazing for anyone who has ever been told the Thanksgiving was the pilgrims' idea - it makes us question what is "accurate" in how we tell our history. More than this, it is a reminder that we learn the truth of the past far better through stories rather than through facts and figures and bold-faced "information". Hamilton is doing amazing things for theatre and history and art on too many fronts to count. Thank you, Thespis, for Lin-Manuel Miranda.
I have not yet seen the musical itself, but I am in love with the music, the story, and the cast. Ever since the this blog shared a video of the Hamilton Stage manager calling the song "Ten Dual Commandments" on the sidewalk. The music is a fresh, and much needed, interpretation of a musical and deviates far from Broadway's typical musical fare. The use of Hip Hop and an ethnic cast are is fantastically executed. I can't wait to see the show and the heights it will reach this season. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with everyone about the "revolutionary" quality of the show. Productions similar to Hamilton have been put on in the past. The ideas it presents and casting are old hat for college and progressive theaters. This show's claim to fame (other than the absolutely phenomenal music that I ca't seem to stop listening to) is the fact that the show is being preformed on Broadway, which, in modern times, is a tad whitewashed and has lost its sharp progressive edge. Nevertheless, I look forward to the shows that will follow in Hamilton's path.
I am in love with this album. On the day it got streamed on NPR, my director friend Kayla and I locked ourselves in a practice room to marvel at the beauty that is Lin Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. The album is revolutionary is the contradiction it imposes with its style. The modern verses and raps and hip hop stylizing, make history so much more fun than it is. The vocals blew me away. To be honest, by the listening to this amazing album, the story and sequence of events were very clear to me and I dont really need to watch it.... But oh my gosh! Im definitely watching it. Apart from this particular album, I have followed the creative team in their endevors since the opening of in the heights. I cant wait to see this style spread through more of broadway.
What makes this show so unique if that it introduces a new way of storytelling that hasn't been explored and executed to the level that Hamilton possesses. It's a history lesson explained through musical spoken word that displays the dead Founding Fathers that we, up until the musical opened, only had the opportunity to interact with from pages in our history books, as real, relatable people. And the delivery of the language fits what today's audience wants to hear- if this kind of show were proposed even 3 decades ago, it wouldn't nearly have the success that the show has today. Today's theatre audience is ready for storytelling like this, and it's opened up doors to people who wouldn't normally listen to Broadway show tunes the same way it opened doors to people who don't usually like Hip Hop music, like the author of this article. I think that a musical Hamilton has paved the way for new forms of storytelling, and it can only go up from here.
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