Hamilton

Hamilton at the Public Theater: Additional Casting Underway

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Broadway World reported today that “auditions are currently underway to fill several key roles” in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s forthcoming Hamilton play at the Public Theater.  The show is scheduled to run from January 20-February 22, 2015.  Tickets for the show went on sale to Public Theater members last week and tickets to the general public will go on sale July 29.  (I am going to the January 21 and January 23 performances!).  Interestingly, the casting call lists an extension closing date of May 10, 2015, suggesting that perhaps the theater is anticipating a longer run for the show.

Backstage reprinted the casting call, which seeks actors for the parts of Aaron Burr, George Washington, and a few other characters:

HAMILTON
Dir: Thomas Kail
Music/Lyrics: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Music Spvsr: Alex Lacamoire
Choreo: Andy Blankenbuehler
Casting: Telsey + Company/Bethany Knox
1st reh: 11/24/14. Runs: 1/20 – 2/22/15
Extension Closing: 5/10/15
Hamilton

GENERAL NOTE: Looking for people of all ages and all ethnicities for these roles. This storyline spans 25 years+, so age is not literal – like Aaliyah said, it’s nothin’ but a number.

SEEKING:

AARON BURR: tenor/baritone, sings and raps in equal measure. Our narrator. A cool, steely reserve. An orphan raised in wealth, plays his cards and opinions close to the vest. Slow to anger, but when he gets there, look out. Javert meets Mos Def.

GEORGE WASHINGTON: tenor/baritone, sings and raps in equal measure. Authoritative, regal, aloof, aware of his place in history at all times. John Legend meets Mufasa.

HERCULES MULLIGAN/JAMES MADISON (dual role): Tenor/baritone, MUST be able to sing and rap well.
MULLIGAN is the life of the party, dripping with swagger, streetwise and hilarious. Joins the revolution to get out of being a tailor’s apprentice, and befriends Laurens, Hamilton and Lafayette. Busta Rhymes meets Donald O’Connor. MADISON is incisively intelligent, quiet, professorial. A former Hamilton ally, he becomes Jefferson’s detail man concerning all matters—he gets things done. RZA meets Zach from Chorus Line.

KING GEORGE: tenor, British accent. The King of England. Entitled, pouty nihilist. Sees the American Colonies as a deluded former lover, who will come crawling back. Rufus Wainwright meets King Herod in JCS.

PEGGY SCHUYLER/MARIA REYNOLDS (dual role.): Mezzo-soprano. PEGGY SCHUYLER: sweet, shy, youngest of the three Schuyler Sisters. The Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child. MARIA REYNOLDS: sultry, young, calculating. Affects the role of a damsel in distress to seduce Hamilton. Jasmine Sullivan meets Carla from Nine.

All other roles have been CAST.

Hamilton, Paterson, and Economic Independence

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Leonard A. Zax, president of the Hamilton Partnership for Paterson, recently published an article in NorthJersey.com regarding Hamilton’s role in pushing America towards economic independence by building strong support for American innovation.  Zax states:

Fifteen years after the Declaration of Independence and long after the British had surrendered, America remained woefully dependent upon England for all manufactured goods, including military supplies. Hamilton recognized that America could never be free from foreign dominance without economic independence, and as treasury secretary he created an ambitious strategy to achieve it, starting in Paterson.

Hamilton’s plan was to harness the force of the Great Falls, then the most forceful waterfall in America —the British still claimed the lands around Fort Niagara — to power the new industries that would secure our economic future. The Paterson Great Falls are 300 feet wide and 77 feet high and pour up to 2 billion gallons of water into a narrow chasm each day. Hamilton knew the Falls could provide power to mills at a time when there was virtually no manufacturing in the United States.

Paterson became the world’s first planned city of innovation, the Silicon Valley of the American Industrial Revolution. Today, the Great Falls is a living reminder of the birthplace of American industry at a time when manufacturing was the high-tech of the day.

Paterson Great Falls

The Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park website states:

The history of the City of Paterson includes its beginnings as the ambitious project of Hamilton and the Society for Establishing Useful Manufacturers (S.U.M.) in 1792 at the Great Falls, the early development of water power systems for industrial use, and the various types of manufacturing that occurred in the District’s mills into the 20th Century. These included cotton fabrics, railroad locomotives, textile machinery, jute, and silk spinning, weaving, and dyeing, among many others. preserves this important legacy.

Founders Online features many fascinating primary source documents showing Hamilton’s ambitious architecture for this early Silicon Valley hybrid.  These documents make clear how important Hamilton’s farsightedness was to the ultimate success of America’s early industrial revolution.  As Sax suggests, without Hamilton’s economic vision, the United States could have been a nation with independence in name only, dependent on Great Britain to supply all manufactured goods.

  • Prospectus of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures
  • Proposals to Contract for the Construction of the Manufacturing Plant of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures
  • Draft Minutes of a Meeting of a Committee of the Directors of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures

Buzz Building for Miranda’s “Hamilton!”

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Following its workshop debut last month, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is receiving major budge in advance of its debut in New York’s Public Theater this winter.

Deadline reports:

With producers hollering huzzahs after the last week’s final workshop presentations of Lin-Manual Miranda‘s Hamilton, the race for next year’s Tony best musical is underway three weeks before this year’s CBS Tonycast. “This was the best workshop of any musical I’ve ever attended,” one mega producer  – who’s not producing the show — told me after seeing Friday’s final outing of the monthlong development and buzz-inciting gig. The Broadway-bound musical formerly known as The Hamilton Mixtape, by the prodigiously talented  Miranda (best known for the four-Tony winning 2008 In The Heights) — will kick off next January at the nonprofit Public Theater. But with enhancement funds from three top Broadway producers — Jeffrey Seller (Rent), Roy Furman (current Tony nominees After Midnight and Mothers and Sons, among many others) and Sander Jacobs (In The Heights) — you can count on a fast Broadway transfer.

Very exciting stuff!  Can’t wait for Hamilton’s debut at the Public Theater (January 20-February 22, 2015)!

The Public Theater’s description states:

From the groundbreaking team behind the Tony Award-winning musical In The Heights comes a wildly inventive new show about the life, death and rhymes of a scrappy young immigrant who forever changed America: Alexander Hamilton. Tony and Grammy Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda takes the stage as the unlikely founding father determined to make his mark on the new nation as hungry and ambitious as he is. From bastard orphan to Washington’s right hand man, rebel to war hero, a loving husband caught in the country’s first sex scandal, the Treasury head who made an untrusting world believe in the American economy, HAMILTON is an astonishing musical exploration of a political mastermind who was both sinner and saint. George Washington, Eliza Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton’s lifelong friend/foil Aaron Burr all make their mark in this uproarious, heart-filled new musical. Tony Award nominee Thomas Kail directs Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s breathtaking array of music in this bold new show about taking your shot, speaking your mind and turning the world upside down. HAMILTON is produced with the support of Jeffrey Seller, Sander Jacobs, and Jill Furman. 

Hamilton [College] on Hamilton: Voices from Students Past

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HamCol Book

 

I came across an interesting collection that I wanted to share.  Franklin Harvey Head, who penned an extremely influential address on the meaning and goals of liberal arts education in the US, sponsored a prize foundation at Hamilton College that awarded the top student orator for each year a prize for preparing and delivering a speech on Alexander Hamilton.  The introduction to the collection states “Mr. Head established the prize called by his name, designating that the subject for this Prize Oration year by year should have reference to the character and career of Alexander Hamilton.”  The introduction also notes:

“No name from the rolls of our struggle for independence and our binding together as a nation awakens more intense interest or opens wider fields for consideration than that of Hamilton.  From the first appearance of the youthful student, to the tragic hour on the heights of Weehawken, the story has the attraction of romance, and in it can be found the kindling of influences potent not only for then but for all time.”

The thirty-one topics include:

  • Hamilton as a Constitutional Statesman
  • The Character and Statesmanship of Hamilton
  • Hamilton as an Expounder of the Constitution
  • The Intellectual Rank of Hamilton among his Contemporaries
  • Hamilton as a Political Prophet
  • The Relations of Hamilton and Burr
  • Our Political Indebtedness to Hamilton
  • Hamilton Compared with His European Contemporaries
  • The Position of Hamilton in American History
  • The Career and Character of Hamilton
  • Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson
  • The French Revolution and the Political Doctrines of Hamilton
  • Alexander Hamilton and Salmon P. Chase
  • Hamilton and Seward as Political Leaders
  • Alexander Hamilton and Louis Adolphe Thiers
  • The Death of Hamilton
  • The Political Doctrines of Hamilton in the Light of Recent American History
  • Hamilton and the Tariff Question
  • Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Disraeli
  • The Political Services of Hamilton and Webster
  • The Debt of Our Government to Washington and Hamilton
  • Hamilton and the Presidential Election of 1800
  • The Military Services of Hamilton
  • The Verdict of Experience on Hamilton’s Constitutional Theories
  • Hamilton and the Constitutional Convention of 1787
  • The Influence of “The Federalist”
  • Hamilton, Webster, Seward
  • The Principles that Distinguish Hamilton and Jefferson as Statesmen
  • Alexander Hamilton and John Adams
  • Hamilton as a Lawyer
  • Hamilton and the Code of Honor
  • Hamilton’s Theory of the United States Senate

The collection of thirty-one prize-winning student oration is interesting for several reasons.  First, it offers us a snapshot of what students in the 1864-1895 time period were focused on studying.  Second, the range of topics varies from purely historical discussions of particular aspects of Hamilton’s legacy, to discussions of Hamilton in comparison to contemporary political figures.  I found the essays comparing Hamilton with contemporary politicians (Disraeli, Thiers, etc) extremely interesting.  Those orations offered an insight both into Hamilton and into the political theory of the late 1860s.  Keep in mind that these orations were being delivered for the three decades immediately after the Civil War, when the nation was still reeling.  Little wonder that students would seek lessons from the Constitutional period for guidance during another time of division and crisis.

The full text of the thirty-one orations is available via Google Books and Cornell’s Internet Archive..

Aaron Burr, Part 2

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An interesting short film has been making its way across the film circuits.  Aaron Burr, Part 2, is a 9 minute comedic film that purports to retell the story of Hamilton and Burr’s duel from Burr’s perspective.  Much like Gore Vidal’s Burr, the film is filled with inaccuracies, but I think it raises some interesting dialogue points.  I’d be curious to know what It’s Hamiltime readers think.

The Atlantic’s description states:

Complete with iPhones, battle reenactments, and a very snarky first person narration, this short film is a hilarious take on the event that tarnished Burr’s legacy. Aaron Bur, Part 2 comes from director Dana O’Keefe. The film has been showcased in film festivals across the country, including SXSW and the Dallas Film Festival where it received the Jury Prize for best short film.

Film School Rejects states:

Why Watch?Dana O’Keefe and company take up the task of humanizing Aaron Burr, an incredible figure whose memory has been reduced to one label: the man who killed Alexander Hamilton. In this unconventional take on history, Burr is a man out of time, sliding between his pre-Revolutionary days fighting in Canada and a modern day New York City where hip hop hugeness paints his larger-than life with every slow motion step.

It’s tough to say why this works. Maybe it’s because Burr appears here as a ghost kept alive by the people that remember him, foolishly trying to set the record straight while lamenting what time has done to the world he knew. Maybe it’s the hipper-than-thou attitude it carries. Maybe it’s because it’s the kind of comedy that keeps a straight face. Or maybe it’s just because it’s really damned cool.

Short of the Week writes:

The effect is brilliant. Reimagined as a brooding anti-hero, Burr (Alex Kliment) enchants. It’s a crazy comparison, but with the culture obsessed as it is, Burr reminds me of a vampire, a historical Lestat. Beautiful, dangerous, he haunts the modern lanscape, filled with regret, damned by an unforgivable act committed ages ago.

Mirroring the theme, if History is a contested narrative, the narrative of the film is a contest between its various styles. Amazingly the film has been programmed as both a fiction and documentary film, playing reputable venues like SXSW, HotDocs, and being nominated for the Cinema Eye Honors, as one of the best documentary shorts of the year. With its archival images and historical re-enactments, it shares elements of films in the Ken Burns mode, however its playful style is much more in line with modern American fiction directors like Wes Anderson in its dramatic use of music, slo-mo, and on-screen text.

You can watch the film on Vimeo here.

True/False Film Fest also had an interview with director Dana O’Keefe about the film.

Images of Hamilton: William Rimmer Statue in Boston

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Visitors to Boston may have noticed a unique Hamilton statute on Commonwealth Avenue, between Arlington Street and Berkeley Street.  The statue, erected in 1865 was the first to appear on Commonwealth Avenue.  According to the iWalked Boston audio tour guide, the it is also the only stone structure on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.  The statue was funded by Thomas Lee and designed by Dr. William Rimmer, who had a fascinating background as a physician and a sculptor.

Public Art Boston offers this description of the statue:

This sculpture by William Rimmer shows Hamilton with cloth draped over his Colonial-era outfit. The heavy folds of drapery bring to mind depictions of Greek and Roman leaders in ancient statuary. Through this anachronistic touch, Rimmer evoked the first democratic-style governments in ancient Greece, thereby emphasizing Hamilton’s formative role in the newly emerging American democracy. Interestingly, Rimmer was a physician before devoting himself to art. He did not use a model to create the statue, but instead employed his unique knowledge of human anatomy to chisel Hamilton’s body from a block of granite. Due to Rimmer’s unusual technique, this sculpture is particularly fragile and difficult to maintain.

 

Rimmer’s design was extremely controversial during his time, and

Massachusetts: A Guide to Its Places and People states:

“Rimmer had a theory, ahead of his time, of working impressionistically without models.  Though contemporary criticism was violently averse, the statue was admired by Hamilton’s own family for its graceful and somewhat aloof pose, characteristic of its subject.”

An 1895 issue of the New England Magazine describing Boston’s statues states:

“A curious work is the granite statue of Alexander Hamilton by Dr. William Rimmer, in Commonwealth Avenue.  It stands on a high and massive granite pedestal; and it was given to the city in 1865 by Thomas Lee, who also gave the Esther Monument.  There is little or no modeling, except about the head, and the appearance of the figure suggests a snow image which is partially melted.”

Take a look for yourself the next time you’re in Boston!

Images of Hamilton: Hamilton Statue in Central Park

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If you’ve visited Central Park, you may have come across a very handsome statue of Alexander Hamilton.  The statue is located between 82nd and 83rd streets on the East Side of the park.  The statue was donated by Hamilton’s son, John C. Hamilton to the park in 1880.  The Hamilton statue was sculpted by Carl H. Conrads, an American sculptor best known for his work commemorating the Civil War.  Conrads served in the Union Army during the Civil War and designed statues that you can find in West Point and San Francisco.

hampark

The 1880 statue actually replaces an earlier Hamilton statue that was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1835 and had stood on the floor of the original New York Stock Exchange building.  According to Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City:

“A valiant attempt was made to rescue a 15-foot statue of Alexander Hamilton from the floor of the exchange, but just as the statute reached the doorway, the roof collapsed, destroying it.  The statue, by Robert Ball Hughes, was the first marble statue created in the United States and had been installed only eight months earlier.  Though it took 45 years, the statue was ultimately replaced by Hamilton’s youngest son, John C. Hamilton, and it stands in Central Park behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  This statue in the park is remarkable in that it is made entirely of granite– not the easiest stone to carve–and it has long been thought that John C. Hamilton commissioned the work out of this durable stone so that no matter what calamities might befall Central Park his father’s statute would endure.”

The original statue is pictured here, in an image from the New York Public Library.

On November 22, 1880 Chauncey Mitchell Depew made a public address to commemorate the unveiling of the statue at Central Park.  Some excerpts are below:

“Precocious intellects in all ages of the world have flashed with meteoric splendor; and for a brief space amazed mankind; but he only whose full equipped mind knew no youth and never failed in the full maturity of its powers was Alexander Hamilton. ”

….

“…Hamilton, at eighteen, was hailed by the whole country as the peer of the Adamses and of Jay.  But when the multitude, smarting under wrongs and fired by the eloquence of their champion, sought riotous vengeance upon their enemies, he stayed the angry mob while the President of his College escaped, and offered to lead in defence of property and the majesty of the law.  Popular passion never swayed his judgment; personal ambition, or the applause of the hour, never moved or deterred him.”

…

“Hamilton forged the links and welded the chain which binds the Union.  He saw the dangers of Secession, and pointed out the remedy against it in the implied powers of the Constitution.”

…

“Upon the boundless sea of experiment without chart of compass, he invented both.  He smote the sources of revenue with such skill and power, that from the barren rocks flowed the streams which filled the Treasury and the Sinking Fund, and the exhausted land was fertilized by its own productiveness.  Out of chaos he developed perfected schemes which have stood every strain and met every emergency in our national life.”

For the full text of Depew’s remarks, see here.

Hamilton on the Hudson

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Hi all, sorry for the lack of posting recently.  I’m in New York City and working on some Hamilton research and will share details here in the next few weeks.

I wanted to bring your attention to some great Hamilton events going on this weekend (July 26-28, 2013) in Upstate New York.  The events are sponsored by the AHA Society to honor the 225th anniversary of the ratification of the US Constitution in New York (July 26, 1788).  The ratification of the Constitution in New York was a dramatic, tumultuous event.  When the debates began, the consensus of the delegates was to vote strongly against the Constitution.  However, by the time the final votes were counted, Hamilton’s persuasive skills had secured a 30-27 vote in favor of ratification, thus making New York the 11th state to join the Union.

Some highlights from the many great events include:

  •  Friday from 7:30-9 in Poughkeepsie- A talk by Professor Andrew Shankman from Rutgers University entitled, “The Gentleman and the Democrat: Alexander Hamilton, Melancton Smith, and the Battle over the US Constitution.” 
  • Saturday at 11:30 in Garrison- A narrated walk tracing the steps of Benedict Arnold’s escape route/Hamilton’s chase route down to the Hudson River.
  • Sunday at 3 pm in Newburgh- a lecture series about George Washington and his aide-de-camp Alexander Hamilton in the Hudson Valley. The speakers for the afternoon include Hamilton scholar Michael Newton, AHA Society President Rand Scholet, and Johanna Porr, Director of the Historical Society of Newburgh. The lectures will take place at the Newburgh Heritage Center, also known as the Old Courthouse.

For a full listing of the events, see here.

See here for a record of the debates surrounding the New York Ratification Convention.

 

Hamilton’s Legacy

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Today, July 12, 2013 marks the 209th anniversary of Alexander Hamilton’s death at age 47.  Hamilton died at a significantly younger age than his fellow political luminaries: Jefferson survived until age 83, Madison lived to 85, Adams to 90, and Burr to 80.  However, in his 47 years, he fundamentally shaped America’s political and financial foundations.  Hamilton rose from obscurity in Nevis and, without a formal education or financial backing, became an influential revolutionary thinker, a military hero, Washington’s most influential aide, the driving force of the Federalist Papers and the push for the Constitution, the architect of America’s financial future as the first Secretary of Treasury, and so much more.

The inscription at Hamilton’s grave site says it well:

The patriot of incorruptible integrity.

The soldier of approved valour.

The statesman of consummate wisdom.

Whose talents and virtues will be admired by grateful posterity long after this marble shall have mouldered into dust.

I also love this excerpt from the Eulogy on General Alexander Hamilton by the citizens of Boston written by Harrison G. Otis:

But in the man whose loss we deplore, the interval between manhood and death was so uniformly filled by a display of the energies of his mighty mind, that this world has scarcely paused to enquire into the story of his infant or puerile years.  He was a planet, the dawn of which was not perceived; which rose with full splendor, and emitted a constant stream of glorious light, until the hour of its sudden and portentous eclipse.

If you’re in New York, come join the series of exciting events throughout NYC today to commemorate Hamilton’s passing.  If you’re not in the city, check out the live stream of Thomas Fleming’s author talk at Trinity Church here.

Duelversary

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Today, July 11, marks the 209th anniversary of the fatal duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.  I think a lot of popular knowledge of Hamilton is shaped by the duel, which is unfortunate considering the far-reaching scope of his legacy, but understandable given the drama surrounding the duel.  The duel between prominent politicians captivated the popular imagination and stirred up popular hatred of Burr.  Two careers were ruined in the course of the duel- Hamilton’s by an untimely death, and Burr’s by a descent into humiliation and treason.

Burr - Hamilton Duel

Here’s the initial firsthand account by the two seconds to the duel, Nathaniel Pendleton and William Van Ness:

Col Burr arrived first on the ground as had been previously agreed. When Genl Hamilton arrived the parties exchanged salutations and the Seconds proceeded to make their arrangements. They measured the distance, ten full paces, and cast lots for the choice of position as also to determine whom the word should be given, both of which fell to the Second of Genl Hamilton. They then proceeded to load the pistols in each others presence, after which the parties took their stations. The Gentleman who was to give the word, then explained to the parties the rules which were to govern them in firing which were as follows:

The parties being placed at their stations – The Second who gives the word shall ask them whether they are ready – being answered in the affirmative, he shall say “present” after which the parties shall present & fire when they please. If one fires before the opposite shall say one, two, three, fire, and he shall fire or loose his fire.

And asked if they were prepared, being answered in the affirmative, he gave the word present as had been agreed on. And both of the parties took aim & fired in succession. The intervening time is not expressed as the seconds do not precisely agree on that point. The pistols were discharged within a few seconds of each other and the fire of Col Burr took effect; Genl Hamilton almost instantly fell, Col Burr then advanced toward Genl H—n with a manner and gesture that appeared to Genl Hamilton’s friend to be expressive of regret, but without Speaking turned about & withdrew….

The August 11, 1804 Coroner’s Report stated:

Aaron Burr…not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the Instigation of the devil, on the eleventh day of July in the year last aforesaid, which force and Arms…feloniously wilfully and of his Malice aforethought, did make an Assault, and…Mortal[ly] Wound…the said Alexander Hamilton.

For further reading, check out this article on Dueling as Politics by Joanne B. Freeman in the New York Journal of American History.

Reminder- if you’re in or near New York City, come out to the AHA Society’s series of events in NYC and Northern New Jersey starting today and going through Sunday!   Tonight is a  debate between Jefferson and Hamilton at the Museum of American Finance.  Register here.  Hope to see you all there!