Hamilton Brings Hope and Change to an ‘Amazing’ Time in History

When Jeremy McCarter first heard the idea for Hamilton, he was skeptical, he said. Many people would have been. A hip-hop musical set at the time of the American Revolution and telling the story of the nation’s first secretary of the treasury, the concept for Hamilton was far outside the norm.

Instead, the show was essentially about “the founding fathers rapping to each other in period costume,” said McCarter. He later decided to work on a book about the show anyway.

Hamilton opened on Broadway in 2015 to enthusiastic acclaim from both audiences and critics. The show centers on Alexander Hamilton, an American statesman and one of the founding fathers of the United States. It uses hip hop and dance to tell the story, and went on to win 11 Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize; its author, Lin-Manuel Miranda, was awarded a MacArthur Genius Fellowship.

McCarter, coauthor with Miranda of the book that follows up on the show, titled Hamilton: The Revolution, shared his thoughts on the hit musical with a crowd of fans at Calvin College on January 18 as part of this year’s January Series. The series  hosts 15 speakers on a wide variety of topics each year, filling the auditorium and live-streaming to over 50 remote locations.

Given the chance to write about the musical and its huge success since opening on Broadway in 2015, McCarter, a writer, director, producer, and former theater critic, was hesitant to take on the task. He changed his mind, though, when he realized the important impact of the show on American society, arts, and culture, and wanted to share that with his readers.

“At the rate it’s going, Hamilton pretty shortly is going to be selling out theaters on the moons of Jupiter,” McCarter joked. “But I don’t think its popularity is the most important thing about it. I think it’s what’s beyond that popularity. I think with Hamilton, there’s a bigger question at stake.” He went on to describe the power of stories, and the influence of artists and culture on politics and wider society.

McCarter pointed out that even a small effect of culture on society will mean that people can be entertained and unified by singing the same songs in their cars and discussing the same books. But if it produces a larger effect, art has the power to actually help shift society, the way we think about politics and each other, giving people a reason for hope.

With Hamilton, McCarter explained, Miranda tapped into the inherent drama of the American Revolution. Independence had been an untried experiment, with no guarantees that the war would be won or that the resulting nation would succeed.

In “Dear Theodosia,” a piece sung by two of the musical’s characters to their young children, McCarter points out that there’s an “if” — an uncertainty. The founding fathers, here seen as simply fathers, hope that if they “lay a strong enough foundation . . ..” they can hand their children something solid to build on.

Just as a solid foundation requires a concerted effort, a musical takes a lot of work and cooperation. “Lin [Miranda] is justly acclaimed,” said McCarter. “He wrote the music, the script, produced it, and played the lead. But he couldn’t make Hamilton by himself.”

To create the sensation that Hamilton has become, Miranda surrounded himself with talented people: choreographers, directors, costumers, and actors. While many of the characters were of European descent, the cast playing them includes mostly black and Latino actors. “Color became irrelevant,” said McCarter. “The show needed good rappers and performers . . . someone who could rap, sing, and have the inherent dignity to be George Washington.”

Because of this, said McCarter, “Hamilton is a story about America then, being told by America now.”

When they workshopped the show — performing it for a test audience to see how it was coming together — they got to the climactic battle at Yorktown, a defining moment in the war for independence. “And we won!” said McCarter. “When that number ended, it was like a bomb went off. Those actors, those costumes, that moment . . . by an immigrant writer. It made a point. There was a huge reaction: ‘This is our country too.’”

For actors and audiences, seeing the story told in this way was changing how people of color felt about themselves and their country, explained McCarter. People now felt more connected to all of U.S. history. As the show swept New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other U.S. cities, audience members commented that the show “makes me feel like I belong” and “opens possibilities.”

It was this reaction that caused McCarter to overcome his initial hesitation about cowriting the book on the musical. “I agreed to write about Hamilton because it tells the story of a revolution and it is a revolution. It changes the way people think of themselves and their country.”

In today’s political climate, McCarter noted, it’s also important to have a story about people coming together. The founding fathers had to gather the 13 colonies to fight together. Alexander Hamilton helped express the need to keep unity. Today, said McCarter, we’re good at individual freedom. “We’re good at liberty. Not as much at fraternity.”

McCarter is excited to see how the show will continue to grow and make an impact on actors and audiences once it goes off Broadway and is licensed for amateur groups and student productions. He hopes to see a generation that, by role-playing or watching the founding fathers in action, will think like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The story has roles for people who often can’t get cast, he said; it becomes harder to say, “That’ll never work.”

McCarter encouraged students and artists to get involved, to tell the untold stories, to help create their national identity. He concluded, “Great stories help us to connect, to find each other across dimensions.”