The Analysis of Hamilton

Hamilton: An American Musical, or more commonly known as simply Hamilton, is a Broadway play, lyrics, and music written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, a book written by the same man, Lin-Manuel also takes the role of Alexander in the musical. Lin-Manuel was inspired by a 2004 biography for Alexander Hamilton written by Historian Ron Chernow.

The musical that has the running time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, consists of upbeat singing, music, and rapping to give the grim story some nice upbeat feeling to most of the songs, though, there are a few songs that have darker feeling to them, ‘Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story’, ‘It’s Quiet Uptown’, ‘Satisfied’ and ‘Wait For It’ are the a lot of popular, darker themed songs of the musical among the various dark songs. All up, there are forty-six songs and as of July fifth, 2016, the most popular song from the musical is ‘Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)’. The musical additionally features a cast of actors of colour to play each of the founding fathers and various historical figures.

The play made its Off-Broadway debut at The Public Theatre in February 2015. The theatre in New York City was founded as the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp. The debut of the now-famous musical was sold out, the musical making its way to Broadway in August of the same year of its Debut at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, also located in New York. First showing on Broadway, Hamilton received a great critical reception and unexpected advance in box office sales in 2016. Hamilton set a record, receiving 16 Tony Nominations, winning 11, including best musical, and was the recipient of the 2016 Grammy Awards for Musical Theatre album and 2016 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Before its debut, the musical won the 2015 Drama Desk Award for outstanding musical and several other Drama Desk Awards out of a total of 14 nominated categories.

The play has two acts, telling the life of Alexander Hamilton through the major events he went through in American History. It explains Alexander’s life from beginning to end, along with a number other characters, such as Marquis De Lafayette, Aaron Burr, John Laurens, Hercules Mulligan, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, Angelica Schuyler, Peggy Schuyler, Phillip Hamilton, and former presidents George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson.

Works Cited

1. Chernow, R. (2004). Alexander Hamilton. Penguin Books.
2. Gioia, T. (2015). How Hamilton is revolutionizing the Broadway Musical. The Daily Beast.
3. Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) [Recorded by Various Artists]. (2015). Atlantic Records.
4. Kaufman, S. (2015). Hamilton: How Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical rewrote history. The Guardian.
5. Kopan, T. (2016). "Hamilton" wins Pulitzer Prize for drama. CNN.
6. Miranda, L. M. (2015). Hamilton: The Revolution. Grand Central Publishing.
7. Miranda, L. M., & McCarter, J. (2016). Hamilton: The Revolution. Grand Central Publishing.
8. Rothstein, M. (2015). Hamilton and the hip-hop case for progressive heroism. The Atlantic.
9. Stern, R. (2015). The historical inaccuracies in Hamilton: A guest essay by Michael Newton. The American Scholar.
10. Weinert-Kendt, R. (2015). Hamilton at the Public: An ecstatic snapshot of American culture. The New York Times.