I’ve always been a lover of history. My first solo foray into history was via the American Girl Doll books featuring Felicity, the plucky revolutionary war era red-head who rode horses and fought for what she believed in. Side note – I took horseback riding lessons for three years in middle school in part due to her inspiration – something young girls today will not be able to benefit from. This author sums up my feelings on the American Girl Doll changes well, and you can read more background on the subject here.
I am a firm believer in learning from the past, both of mistakes and of successes, but most importantly in overall understanding of humanity. In my undergraduate career, after a year and a half of experimenting with different majors and classes, I realized the common thread of enjoyment could be found in reading, discussing, and learning about our history. As a history major, I learned from some of the best how to think and to debate. Above all, I realized how certain teachers and writers could make a subject absolutely fascinating, while others could make that same subject mind-numbingly boring. It’s no wonder that those not naturally drawn to history have trouble accessing it and understanding it, with the latter interpretations floating about!
In late 2009, I came across a YouTube video that was to be my favorite for the years that followed – I bookmarked it and would listen and re-listen. I may or may not have forced an entire class to listen to it one day as we waited for the professor to show up. This video was of Lin-Manuel Miranda, at the White House, performing the opening song for a musical he was working on about the life of Alexander Hamilton. I was drawn to this video for a number of reasons. For one, the American Revolution has always held a special place in my heart, perhaps due to growing up in the heart of its history, the Boston suburbs – the thought of delving into the details of this lesser known but oh-so-important revolutionary figure enticed me. Mostly, though, the song was damn good, and made the content interesting and accessible in a way only the best teachers can do.
When the play was finally finished this year, I mentioned the play and my excitement about it to my pizza-loving-man. True to form, he did some of his own research and became similarly hooked. He downloaded the soundtrack as soon as it was available and very quickly memorized all of the songs. Early this past fall I woke up to a text that read “I did it! Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas! We’re going to see Hamilton on December 18!”
This play was turning out to be pretty important in ways other than making history accessible to the general public – while not the first to do so, it was a play utilizing a variety of musical techniques, including rap and hip hop traditions. Similarly, the cast consists of all people of color, again not the first but still unusual for Broadway. The New York Times summarized its success pretty well here.
In the end, the play was every bit as good as that original song and as its growing hype (the only difficult part was trying to get pizza-man to stop singing along to the songs long enough for me to appreciate the live versions!). Upon leaving, my only objection was that it was over. When can I see it again?!