Molly McNeeley

13 December 2016

Brossmann

CO 441

Hamilton’s Revolution

Introduction

On May 12, 2009, writer and star of the Broadway musical In the Heights, Lin-Manuel

Miranda, is invited to perform at the White House Poetry Jam: An Evening of Poetry, Music, and

Spoken Word. He is expected to perform a song from his Tony Award winning musical, but

decides instead to perform a song he has just finished writing. He introduces the song by stating

that it comes from a hip-hop concept album he is working on about the life of someone he

“thinks embodies hip-hop, treasure-secretary Alexander Hamilton.” The audience, which

includes President Barack Obama, responds to this line with laughter (Lin-Manuel, 2009). Fast-

forward to March 14, 2016. Hamilton is no longer a concept album, but a musical and the entire

cast is invited to perform selections from the show at the White House. They perform in the

exact same room where the Poetry Jam was hosted seven years earlier, and as President Obama

put it in his opening address for the day, “Who’s laughing now?” (Hamilton cast, 2016)

Hamilton: An American Musical is the story of Alexander Hamilton, a man who had a

tremendous impact on the foundation America, but who is somehow not always at the forefront

of our collective memory of history. However, his story was brought to life in the 2015 musical

Hamilton by creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. Boasting eleven Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, and a

sold-out crowd every night since its opening in August of 2015, it is no question that this show is

a hit (Hamilton dominates, 2016). By telling Alexander Hamilton’s story through actors of

varying ethnicities, Hamilton has had a huge impact on not only the musical industry, but also

our society as a whole. Hamilton: An American Musical has truly been a revolution (Chadwick).
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What are the social implications of exploring the history of white men through the eyes of people

of color?

Literature Review

Hamilton has been awarded just about every prize imaginable. Since its opening in

August of 2016, the show has garnered a record-breaking sixteen Tony Award nominations

which resulted in eleven wins including Best Musical, a Grammy Award, a Pulitzer Prize, the

Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, and the George Washington Book

Prize. Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda was also the recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant

(Pipenburg, 2015). When asked if it is really that good, Ben Brantley of The New York Times

responded by saying “I am loath to tell people to mortgage their houses and lease their children

to acquire tickets to a hit Broadway show. But “Hamilton,” directed by Thomas Kail and starring

Mr. Miranda, might just about be worth it…” (Brantley, 2015).

Hamilton is truly making an impact on our country. The cast and crew are really making

the most of the popularity of their show to affect change during this election season. One of the

ways they are doing this is by creating YouTube videos encouraging people to get out and vote.

Titled “#Ham4Vote” these PSAs feature rewritten lyrics of some of the musical’s songs to

describe the urgency and necessity to vote during this election. They then have cast members

sing these new songs for YouTube videos. They even did one video with the song lyrics in

Spanish, really making an effort to reach everybody (Lee, 2016). In addition to this, they recently

set up voter registration outside of the Richard Rogers Theater (the Broadway theater where

Hamilton is performed) and had cast members help people register to vote. All of these tactics

are utilizing Hamilton’s popularity to encourage all people to get out and vote on November 8th

(Jackson, 2016).
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Hamilton’s creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and producers of the show have employed an

educational program through Hamilton. In collaboration with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of

American History, the New York City Department of Education, and the Rockefeller

Foundation, Hamilton will provide an educational opportunity to 20,000 New York City public

school students to see the show on Broadway. These students will then utilize the Broadway

show to further their studies of American history and the Founding Fathers (Hamilton, 2016).

The Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin said in a statement “Here’s a story that talks

about American history and the ideals of American democracy, and it features an immigrant who

is impoverished initially and shows through perseverance and grit what he can achieve, in a

vernacular that speaks to young people, written by a product of New York public education.

Could there possibly be a better combination in terms of speaking to students?” (Paulson, 2015)

It was recently announced that they will be expanding this program to reach more school kids,

this time outside of New York City. The program will follow along with the national tour of

Hamilton, allowing 100,000 school kids around the US to see the show and further their

understanding of American history (Brooks, 2016).

This musical has also revolutionized the ideal of complete historical accuracy. In a

musical about the Founding Fathers of our nation, one would think that white men would

automatically be cast in the roles- people who look like the Founding Fathers. However, creator

Lin-Manuel went the opposite direction. He came out with a musical about America’s history

starring people of color in the leading roles. This method revolutionizes the way we look at the

necessity of historical accuracy to tell a story (James, 2015). This, however, has not come

without backlash. A casting call for Hamilton featured that they were looking for “non-white”
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performers. This did receive criticism, but the show’s producers held by the statement claiming

that the roles were written for non-white actors (Nessouli, 2016).

This show also deals with the currently topical discussion of immigrants. The musical

does not fail to remind us that our nation was built by immigrants, and the actors playing those

roles are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. In the musical, the line “Immigrants, we get

the job done” is explicit in reminding the audience that our nation is born from immigrants who

made a difference, and that is still happening today. It reminds the audience that we are being

hypocritical today if we deny the fact that we are all from immigrants at one point or another

(Staff, 2016).

Hamilton has revolutionized the ideal of a traditional musical, mainly in its genre. It is

defined as a Hip-Hop musical. This means that many of the songs are in the genre of hip-hop, but

it also means that it is a much more fast-paced musical. It has a total of 20,520 words throughout

the musical, which tallies in at about 144 words per minute. The next fastest musical would be

Spring Awakening at 77 words per minute. Hamilton has changed our ideal of what the music

should be like in a “traditional” musical (Libresco, 2015).

This musical has reminded us who Alexander Hamilton was, and his effect on the

foundation of our country. Because his life was cut short when he was killed in a duel at the age

of 47, those who did not like him had time to change his story and minimize the effect he had on

the nation. Through Ron Chernow’s biography (which the musical was based off of) and the

musical Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton’s story was able to finally be told (Capobianco, 2015).

Method
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In order to delve into my critical question of Hamilton: An American Musical, I chose the

rhetorical method of Dramatism. Dramatism was created by Kenneth Burke and simply put, it is

“a method for understanding the social uses of language” (Brock, 1985).

Dramatism is further defined as “a method of analysis and a corresponding critique of

terminology designed to show that the most direct route to the study of human relations and

human motives is via a methodological inquiry into cycles or clusters of terms and their

functions” (Overington, 1977). I believe this will be the best method to analyze a musical

because it will allow me to delve into the motives of the characters which will help to better

understand the work as a whole.

Dramatism involves a pentad which consists of five interrelated elements: the Act, Agent,

Agency, Scene, and the Purpose. These can be described as what is taking place, who is

performing the act, how the agent acts, where and when the act is taking place, and why the act is

performed by the agent (Liu, 2009). All of these must be addressed when presenting a rhetorical

criticism because all of the elements are interdependent. Another element of the pentad is listed

as Trouble and is defined as “what drives the drama, and it is generated by a mismatch of two or

more of the five constituent terms of the pentad (Althouse, 2016). A Dramatism strategy is born

out of a combination of two elements of the pentad. This combination is expressed from

combining the definitions of each of the two terms together (Hamlin, 1973).

Utilizing the rhetorical method of Dramatism, I will delve into my critical question of

Hamilton: An American Musical.

Analysis

I will start my analysis by outlining the pentad used in Hamilton: An American Musical.

The Act is the story of Alexander Hamilton. It starts out with a summation of his first nineteen
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years of life in the song Alexander Hamilton. This song describes his early life in St. Croix, his

struggles and hardships such as the death of his parents, and ends with his arrival in America.

This song sets up the rest of the musical to be the depiction of his life in America both in his

public and private life.

The Agent would be the cast of the production. This was a very specific decision by the

creator- to cast actors of different ethnicities to play the roles of historical figures who were

white. To creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, the ethnicity of the main characters was never a question.

When he started reading about Hamilton’s life, he immediately drew connections between the

Founding Fathers and Miranda’s favorite hip-hop artists. According to Miranda, “The idea has

always been to look the way America looks now, and that doesn’t exclude anyone” (Binelli,

2016). Once he started to view these people as similar to Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, and Common, to

name a few, he started writing with the non-traditional casting always in his mind.

The agency is how the agent acts. This was also a very unique choice by the writer. He

chose to have it in the style of hip-hop. The reasoning for this was two-fold. The first reasoning

is that Alexander Hamilton lived an intricate and complicated life. So much so that his

biography, the book the musical was based on, is over 800 pages in length. Lin-Manuel Miranda,

the writer of the musical, knew he could not fit all of the pertinent information of Hamilton’s life

into a normal-paced musical. It required a style of music that is fast-paced in its nature, hence the

choice of hip-hop. The second reasoning for this genre is the similarities Miranda saw between

Alexander Hamilton and Miranda’s favorite hip-hop artists and rappers. Alexander Hamilton’s

hometown was hit by a hurricane when he was seventeen years old and he wrote a letter about

the aftermath of this hurricane. This letter got passed around the town to which people read and

were so moved by the letter and his intelligence that the people responded by collecting money
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to send Hamilton to America to further his education. This reminded Miranda of all the hip-hop

artists who also wrote their way out of their circumstances.

The Scene is the duration of Alexander Hamilton’s life in America until his death in

1804. The show starts with a single song detailing a retelling of his first nineteen years of life, up

until his arrival in America. The show then goes through the many trials and tribulations

Hamilton experienced in trying to establish this nation. It introduces how Hamilton met some of

the other Founding Fathers as well as his wife, highlights some of his more notable works of

writing, emphasizes his key role in the success of the Battle of Yorktown, describes the

disagreements he had with some of the other Founding Fathers, and ultimately ends with a

portrayal of the duel with Aaron Burr which took his life.

The Purpose of the show is ultimately my question for this analysis- what is the

implication of people of color portraying the history of white men? According to Miranda, the

answer is simple. “It’s a way of pulling you into the story and allowing you to leave whatever

cultural baggage you have about the founding fathers at the door” (Paulson, 2015). He claims

that the audience is allowed to view this story independently of facts that might harm one’s view

of American history, such as the fact that many of them owned slaves. We, as an audience, are

now invited to view this story and hear the creator’s comments “on America’s fractured present

through its past, and vice versa” (Paulson, 2015).

There are many elements of Hamilton which lend their way to be imperative both in the

time of the Founding Fathers, and in today’s society. One of the most prominent of these

elements examined in the show is immigration. Having the characters portrayed by actors of

different ethnicities, it emphasizes the notion that this nation was founded upon the work of

immigrants. This idea of immigration also comes to the audience more directly during the song
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“Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down).” The characters Marquis de Lafayette and

Alexander Hamilton are immigrants to the United Sates who are both committed to doing their

part in establishing this new nation. In this song, these two characters are discussing the progress

they have made so far which leads into the line “Immigrants: we get the job done.” This line

exemplifies the fact that our country is founded upon immigrants which is a fact that is not to be

lost in our society today.

Conclusion

In telling the story of Alexander Hamilton and the history of the foundation of the United

States of America, the choice of ethnicity for the actors seems obvious- white. However the

choice to cast these characters as people of all different ethnic backgrounds has had significant

impact on the telling of the story and how this story can be correlated to our current society. It is

ultimately “a story about America then, told by America now” (Delman, 2015).
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