After five years of being accessible only to those who could afford a pricey Broadway ticket, the filmed stage show of Hamilton is now available …
After five years of being accessible only to those who could afford a pricey Broadway ticket, the filmed stage show of Hamilton is now available to anyone with a Disney+ account. Directed by Thomas Kail (also the director of the musical), this is Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s acclaimed hip-hop musical about the founding fathers was with close-ups, dolly shots, and crane shots. Even for those lucky enough to snag tickets with the original cast, it will be like seeing the show for the very first time.
The Gist: Even those living under a rock heard about Hamilton when it debuted on Broadway in 2015. Inspired by the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, Miranda took it upon himself to rewrite the legacy of one of the most overlooked founding fathers of America, who, before this musical, most people knew as “that one guy who died in a duel with Aaron Burr.” Now anyone who saw the show or listened to the cast recording knows Hamilton as the fiery revolutionary, the prolific right-hand man of George Washington, the fierce defender of the U. S. Constitution, and the adversary of Thomas Jefferson.
None of the above topics may sound particularly well-suited to a sung-through hip-hop musical, but Miranda rewrote that, too, by recasting the stuffy white founding fathers and their wives as people color, including himself as Hamilton, Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr, Daveed Diggs as Thomas Jefferson, and Christopher Jackson as George Washington. The musical was an instant sensation, winning 11 Tony and becoming the highest-charted cast recording since 1963. Miranda and Kail filmed the show over the course of three days in June 2016, with nearly all of the original cast.
