What don’t I know about Hamilton that I should?

[Anonymous]

The story of how it came about is fascinating. If you really like it I would watch the poetry jam at the White House from 2009 before this became a musical where Lin manual debuted a near final draft of the titular song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WNFf7nMIGnE

Then watch the cast doing a rendition of the song in 2016 in the same room: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPrAKuOBWzw (warning: Obama adds some interesting color and humor when introducing the cast but skip about 8 minutes to just get to the singing).

[Anonymous]

OP how many of the hip hop references did you catch? Slate lists many of them here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/09/24/hamilton_s_hip_hop_references_all_the_rap_and_r_b_allusions_in_lin_manuel.html

[Anonymous]

There's a book called Hamilton: The Revolution which is about the creation of the musical. If you're interested in the many references the musical makes, or how the songs got written, and stagecraft details like "the bullet" role (someone posted above about watching the dancer who is "the bullet" -- watch that cast member throughout the whole play to see a lot else going on too) -- then you would be interested in that book. It's in some libraries. Lots of pictures and lyrics but it does pick apart the lyrics to show you what Miranda was thinking as he wrote the songs.

Getting the musical out of Miranda's head and onto the stage was a very interesting process if you're into musicals at all. If you like "Hamilton" like I do, you owe a lot to director Thomas Kail and musical director Alex Lacamoire, who have worked with Miranda for a long time, and who were crucial to keeping Miranda on track. This isn't me saying so--Miranda is always quick to credit Kail, Lacamoire and choreographer Andy Blankebuehler with making the musical a reality.

[Anonymous]

This may not be news, but there are interesting connections between The West Wing and Hamilton. In at least one interview Miranda talks about it (may be on the West Wing Weekly podcast). I'm watching WW again (and if you haven't seen it, please watch -- it is just so good and hopeful and funny and great) and I can sometimes spot the overlap or the inspiration to a part of Hamilton I happen to remember.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This may not be news, but there are interesting connections between The West Wing and Hamilton. In at least one interview Miranda talks about it (may be on the West Wing Weekly podcast). I'm watching WW again (and if you haven't seen it, please watch -- it is just so good and hopeful and funny and great) and I can sometimes spot the overlap or the inspiration to a part of Hamilton I happen to remember.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trivia:

Angelica was married before she met Hamilton. They did have a very flirty relationship, though.

Eliza actually went by "Betsy."

Burr was a much bigger jerk and even more ambitious than the musical makes him out to be. He attempted to establish a new country in the southwestern United States that was independent of the US, and was charged with treason.


Hercules Mulligan sponsored Hamilton in New York. He knew Hamilton's employer in St. Croix. He helped Hamilton enroll in grammar school to get ready for college. Hamilton lived with Mulligan while he was enrolled at King's College (now Columbia University). Mulligan was an alumnus of King's College. Mulligan heavily influenced Hamilton's view of the need for American revolution. He was one of the first members of the Sons of Liberty, an American spy organization working against the British. Mulligan was an abolitionist and continued to work for abolition after the war. He was an Irish immigrant.

Hamilton, Mulligan and John Jay founded the New York Manumission Society to work for the abolition of slavery.

Burr left his second wife after he took all her money. I think. Don’t quote me in that.

It was kind of the other way around. Burr married a wealthy widow. Four months in, when she realized he was losing her money on land speculation, she separated from him. Fun fact: Alexander Hamilton Jr. was her divorce lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Dear Theodosia makes me cry every time I hear it.

Google the story of the loss of Theodosia. It's a fascinating rabbit hole I went down a few years ago, so I won't remember all the details now - she was on a ship from South Carolina to NY that never arrived. There are stories of Burr walking the waterway in NY looking for the ship to come in, and it never did.

There are relatively credible sources that say the ship was boarded by pirates off the outer banks, and varying accounts of her fate if that is true (killed, raped, dropped overboard, taken hostage and lived on in the Outer Banks, etc). It's haunting. There's a credible sighting of a painting that was believed on board the ship in a house on the outer banks.

It could have just been lost at sea, or wrecked along the outer banks and then plundered, but who knows.

It's terribly sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dear Theodosia makes me cry every time I hear it.

Google the story of the loss of Theodosia. It's a fascinating rabbit hole I went down a few years ago, so I won't remember all the details now - she was on a ship from South Carolina to NY that never arrived. There are stories of Burr walking the waterway in NY looking for the ship to come in, and it never did.

There are relatively credible sources that say the ship was boarded by pirates off the outer banks, and varying accounts of her fate if that is true (killed, raped, dropped overboard, taken hostage and lived on in the Outer Banks, etc). It's haunting. There's a credible sighting of a painting that was believed on board the ship in a house on the outer banks.

It could have just been lost at sea, or wrecked along the outer banks and then plundered, but who knows.

It's terribly sad.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/theodosia-burr

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:John Laurans was almost certainly gay (there are letters from his father when he was a teenager worrying that he hadn't developed interest in women) and many believe he and Hamilton were lovers.

I'm not an expert in male friendship in the 18th century, but their letters are kind of steamy: http://bobarnebeck.com/hamlau.html#:~:text=The%20gay%20historian%2C%20Jonathan%20Katz,to%20Washington%20during%20the%20Revolution.&text=Laurens%20evidently%20wrote%20first%20but,the%20correspondence%20that%20we%20have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dear Theodosia makes me cry every time I hear it.

Google the story of the loss of Theodosia. It's a fascinating rabbit hole I went down a few years ago, so I won't remember all the details now - she was on a ship from South Carolina to NY that never arrived. There are stories of Burr walking the waterway in NY looking for the ship to come in, and it never did.

There are relatively credible sources that say the ship was boarded by pirates off the outer banks, and varying accounts of her fate if that is true (killed, raped, dropped overboard, taken hostage and lived on in the Outer Banks, etc). It's haunting. There's a credible sighting of a painting that was believed on board the ship in a house on the outer banks.

It could have just been lost at sea, or wrecked along the outer banks and then plundered, but who knows.

It's terribly sad.

+1

Also, Burr appears to have really loved his first wife, and been close to, and respected, his daughter. He believed in and advocated for education for women, and Theodosia received an education similar to what a young man of her class would have received. He was an advocate for women's suffrage, too.

[Anonymous]

It’s not that great. I know, I’m the only one but still it’s not that great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not that great. I know, I’m the only one but still it’s not that great.

It’s a decent work of art. It’s just that guilty rich white liberals created a stratospheric and undeserved level of hype around it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not that great. I know, I’m the only one but still it’s not that great.

It’s a decent work of art. It’s just that guilty rich white liberals created a stratospheric and undeserved level of hype around it.

The expert critique offered by users of DCUM. Unless you tell us why exactly you think it's "not that great" as eloquently as Miranda wrote the musical, respectfully STFU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not that great. I know, I’m the only one but still it’s not that great.

It’s a decent work of art. It’s just that guilty rich white liberals created a stratospheric and undeserved level of hype around it.

The expert critique offered by users of DCUM. Unless you tell us why exactly you think it's "not that great" as eloquently as Miranda wrote the musical, respectfully STFU.

Yeah, okay. Time to take your meds, sweetie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not that great. I know, I’m the only one but still it’s not that great.

It’s a decent work of art. It’s just that guilty rich white liberals created a stratospheric and undeserved level of hype around it.

The expert critique offered by users of DCUM. Unless you tell us why exactly you think it's "not that great" as eloquently as Miranda wrote the musical, respectfully STFU.

Yeah, okay. Time to take your meds, sweetie.

OK, sweetie. But you still haven't offered a single reason as to why "it's not so great."