The Student Arts and Events Council is offering discounted tickets to Hamilton, the acclaimed musical about Alexander Hamilton and other founding fathers, playing at the Citizens Opera House Sept. 23 to Nov. 2. The showing chosen by the SAEC will take place Oct. 15 at 7 p.m.
The Tony and Grammy Award winning musical’s book, lyrics and music were written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2015, a Pulitzer Prize in 2016 and Honors from the Kennedy Center in 2018. Miranda said in 2015 that Hamilton was designed to “eliminate any distance between a contemporary audience and this story.” The show is notable for its success, having run on Broadway continuously since 2015 and spawning performances elsewhere in North America and Europe.
The SAEC typically offers tickets to Broadway shows in Boston during welcome week, but tickets for Hamilton will go on sale Sept. 16 because the chosen showing is in October. Booking tickets for Hamilton was something the SAEC staff “simultaneously agreed we had to do,” said Dev Joshi, SAEC retention coordinator. “If you know Broadway, you know Hamilton.”
Much of the show’s music is inspired by hip-hop — not exactly music of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Its use, as well as its incorporation of a racially diverse cast to portray a body of thinkers who were all white and male, was a way for Miranda to “showcase the diversity of America,” Joshi said He added that hip-hop’s steady rise in popularity likely guaranteed the play a certain level of mass appeal.
Though Hamilton became known in part for its casting choices, there is precedent for actors portraying characters of a different race or gender than their own. In Shakespeare’s time, women’s roles were generally played by boys or young men. Carrie Ann Quinn, chair of UMass Boston’s performing arts department and theater professor, pointed out that various productions of plays predating Hamilton have been known to incorporate casting decisions across race and gender lines. Casting decisions — whether color- or gender-blind, or color- or gender-conscious — are not unique to Hamilton. Quinn acknowledged, however, that Miranda’s casting decisions were likely a new phenomenon to those not familiar with theater.
A filmed version of Hamilton released in movie theaters Sept. 5, at a time when words like “diversity” and “disparity” have become political third rails on a national level. Joshi and Quinn were both optimistic about the play’s resilience and continued success in an era when media is sometimes attacked or even influenced by the federal government.
“Hamilton really doesn’t care what society thinks,” said Joshi.
Joshi, clarifying that his statements did not represent the SAEC, said he sees the play as a chance to educate an audience about American history. Though the era it portrays was in many ways a dark period of American and human history — many founding fathers wrote laws which guaranteed certain freedoms for some despite owning slaves themselves — Joshi said he feels that most negative reactions stem from people’s personal feelings about America and its history as opposed to the storytelling or production itself.
The play deals in part with the crafting of the American Constitution, the interpretation of which is now hotly debated at the highest levels of government. As heated a subject as that can be, Quinn said the play is a reminder that the Constitution “is a living, breathing thing that can continue to be constructed.” She speculated that the play may even renew interest in the Constitution’s contents, the amendment process and the steps that can be taken to change it should the population — and the legislature — be in favor of doing so.
According to Quinn, the play has the potential to join the ranks of some of the most highly regarded and best known American musicals, such as “Rent” and “Guys and Dolls.” She said that casting in particular was as much a function of finding performers willing and able to perform the music as it was of trying to make the cast diverse. Though casting decisions are ultimately tailored to the story in line with the playwright’s intentions, Hamilton has, in her view, updated a piece of American history with a novel take on how the historical figures in question interacted with each other and expressed themselves.
Tickets are available starting Sept. 16 at 10 a.m. in Campus Center suite 3400.
