On July 3, the Disney Plus streaming service will release a filmed version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton,” timed for the Independence Day holiday …
On July 3, the Disney Plus streaming service will release a filmed version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton,” timed for the Independence Day holiday weekend. Here’s what you need to know.
What is this “Hamilton” I keep hearing about and why should I care?
It’s the most successful Broadway musical of the modern era, a blockbuster phenomenon penned by Lin-Manuel Miranda that tells the story of the founding fathers of the United States of America by focusing on Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury and an influential economic thinker and a leading promoter of the Constitution of the United Sates. The score is hip-hop influenced but varied in style. When seen live, the rapturously reviewed show commanded unprecedented ticket prices in both New York and Chicago, where it closed earlier this year.
So is this the stage show or a new movie?
This is the stage show, shrewdly filmed on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in 2016, mostly for documentary purposes and then hidden away for potential future use. It is directed by Thomas Kail, the director of the show (no one else has yet directed any other production of “Hamilton”). There are also plans for a movie but that is likely years away and it will be a very different animal when it arrives. Kail, a skilled director of both stage and screen, was able to edit the work of multiple cameras but the performers are doing exactly what they did every night on stage.
