Shownotes
Hopewell Valley Student Podcasting Network
Show Name: Hyperfixation Nation
Episode Title: All About Hamilton: The Musical
Episode #5
You are listening to Hyperfixation Nation, the podcast with your host Blake.
In this episode of Hyperfixation Nation the Podcast, I will talk about the musical Hamilton and how it broke all Broadway standards. I will cover how it is different from every other Broadway musical, where it was historically accurate vs. when an artistic license was taken, and my opinion on some of the characters' decisions.
Segment 1: Introduction to the topic
So we’ve got the music, the actors, and the politics in the show that are different from most Broadway musicals previously. We’ve got the creative license that Lin Manuel Miranda took because it made the story more interesting, it rhymed, or it was just easier to put in the show. And we’ve got the slightly controversial decisions of the characters like Burr shooting Hamilton and Washington serving the amount of time he did.
Segment 2: How Hamilton is different from previous Broadway musicals!
- Music
- Rap
- Hip-hop
- R&B
- Soul
- Traditional show tunes
- Black and brown actors were on stage but the story doesn’t depict any slaves
- Lin-Manuel Miranda, the person who wrote the music, is Puerto Rican and wanted to incorporate the feeling of being sidelined into the music and Alexander Hamilton's character but also wanted to go against the white-washing of history. There is a musical with an all-white cast that is a show about a similar time that portrays the story in a much different and could be called racist, way.
- Having people of color play white historical figures flips the tradition of white people in blackface being on stage.
- It showcases the good and bad things that these founding fathers did
- Sally Hemmings for example
- Say no to this
- The relationship between Angelica and Hamilton
- The politics/political stand that this musical represents
- Laurens especially being very for an all-black military force
- Black actors playing the all-white Founding Fathers
- The layers of the aspects, “meta”
- The depiction of how society appropriates minority cultures
- The message is there but it is not the main point of the musical
- The song Wait For It and how it shows the pain when minorities are told to wait their turn
- They RHYMES BRO - and the music overall
- Socrates - mediocrities
- Manumission - abolition - ammunition
- Panicky - anarchy (with a French accent of course)
- Matching the age of the character to the style they sing in - jazz-ish for Jefferson and more hip-hop for younger characters
- Using the changes in song style of the characters to demonstrate how they have changed
- Burr starts with a sort of gospel-type, a choir-backed song in the first act and then has a song called The Room Where It Happens that is upbeat, more hip-hop, inspiring, and loud, in a political sense. This song shows that Burr has stopped waiting but also shows political exclusion and gaps in history
- Very little spoken dialogue - almost operatic style
Segment 3: Accuracy vs artistic license
- Burn
- I wonder if this song was written because they did not have much about Eliza’s reaction to Hamilton cheating
- Historically it is a stretch in many places
- Burr was not asked to write the Federalist Papers
- Angelica was already married when she met Hamilton but Miranda said her being single was better for the plot
- She also had a brother which invalidates the plot of the song ‘Satisfied’
- More accurate than most creative biographical works
- Changing cabinet battles into rap battles exposes some of the instability in the Washington administration
- Hamilton did not punch the bursar (mentioned in the song “Aaron Burr, Sir”) and then drop out of college and meet his friends
- Many factors like Lafayette not arriving from France at that time and the British controlling New York earlier than Hamilton could have had a chance to get there
- Hamilton is portrayed as a very loud person when it comes to his opinions on slavery but while in real life he disagreed with slavery more than others, he had slaves and did not speak out against it.
- The Schuyler sisters were not feminists
- They were educated but not progressive
- While John Adams and Hamilton did not get along, Hamilton was not fired by him - he resigned during Washington's admin
- The real Jefferson was the opposite of the loud, eccentric character played by Daveed Digs
Segment 4: My opinions on some decisions that the characters made
- Say no to this
- Hamilton being shot
- Burr’s character development/changes
- “Talk less, smile more”
- The duel where Phillip died
- Duels in general
- Eliza forgiving Hamilton
- Should she have done this?
- The Reynolds pamphlet
- Washington resigning after 2 terms
- Earlier?
- Later?
I got a lot of my information from an article called “Why Hamilton is making musical history” on the website called The Guardian and an article on the World Treasures website called “Hamilton The Musical Five Truths and Five Lies” that you should check out if you want more information. I hope you enjoyed the episode, learned something new, and had fun! This is Hyperfixation Nation, hosted by Blake, goodbye y’all!
Link to the article: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/05/why-hamilton-is-making-musical-history
This article goes over some truths and falsities in the musical: https://worldtreasures.org/blog/hamilton-the-musical-five-truths-and-five-lies#:~:text=False%3A%20In%20the%20musical%2C%20 Hamilton,narrative%20is%20not%20 historically%20 accurate.
Music Credits: Balynt, Places
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