Assuming you haven’t been living under a rock for the past three weeks, then you likely know that Hamilton is now live on Disney+. Hamilton is one of those
Assuming you haven’t been living under a rock for the past three weeks, then you likely know that Hamilton is now live on Disney+. Hamilton is one of those benchmark Broadway musicals, like Phantom of the Opera or Wicked, that changed the game and generated insane amounts of hype when it first premiered. And like those two shows, it’s going to be a long, long time before we see Hamilton close on Broadway or stop touring.
That’s why it’s sort of miraculous that we’re even talking about Hamilton launching on Disney+. Broadway tends to be very protective of its shows, particularly ones that are still running and especially ones that are raking in piles of cash. Even after shows close, it’s rare to see official recordings of stage productions; instead, the big musicals are more likely to get movie adaptations, which in my humble opinion as a theatre nerd don’t really capture the essence and energy of live performance, while the smaller shows are likely to just fade out and be forgotten.
To be sure, there are a few recordings of stage productions floating around out there – Disney+ is also home to a recording of Newsies, while Netflix has Shrek the Musical (which is fantastic in its own right) and Amazon Prime has the 1994 revival of Carousel – but for the theatre-obsessed who would rather watch official recordings than scour YouTube for bootlegs recorded in secret by audience members, the pickings are definitely slim.
So the idea that I’m sitting here writing about Hamilton on Disney+ is a big deal, because it definitely isn’t often that a musical as big as Hamilton becomes so readily available.
