Ten years ago, Lin-Manuel Miranda's biographical musical Hamilton made waves in the theater world. Instead of filling the two-plus-hour show with traditional-sounding show tunes, Miranda mainly took inspiration from rap and hip-hop music.
With this unique music styling, the show tells the history of founding father Alexander Hamilton in an engaging way for everyone, not just those interested in history. Through the story viewers learn about Hamilton's life, family and legacy, from his meager beginnings as an orphaned immigrant to his vital involvement in the American Revolutionary War.
Today, the Tony award-winning musical, which performs as part of the Best of Broadway series at Spokane's First Interstate Center for the Arts for nearly two weeks (April 8-20), is one of the best-selling Broadway musicals of all time. It is only surpassed by the likes of The Lion King, Wicked, and The Phantom of the Opera, each of which are more than a decade older than Hamilton.
When Kendyl Sayuri Yokoyama was a child she wanted to be a ballerina. She began taking dance classes when she was 3 years old and quickly found herself in the world of competitive dance.
Over time she grew tired of the constant competitions and began looking for alternative outlets for her creative energy. Then when she was 14, she was cast as Princess Jasmine in a junior production of Aladdin.
"After that I was like 'Well, I have to do theater now,'" Yokoyama says with a laugh. "I had this guttural feeling that it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life."
She later went on to play Belle in a production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast and Connie Wong in A Chorus Line at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she was a student.
Then in 2018, the opportunity to audition for Hamilton arose. At the time, Yokoyama was actually at an audition for the revival of West Side Story, but she noticed a group of dancers waiting to audition for Hamilton in the same building. She then did what any aspiring performer might, she lied to the casting director to get into that audition instead.
"I just remember thinking 'OK, if I don't kill this audition I will never be asked back to do Hamilton ever again,'" she recalls. "After a couple rounds of callbacks over the next month I finally got the call that I was going on tour."
Yokoyama began as a substitute dancer for the show's female ensemble cast, and then became an understudy for both Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds (two characters who have always been played by the same actress.) After the pandemic she stayed with the show and began covering for the other Schuyler sister, Angelica, as well.
"I've been able to do so many different roles, you know, I've been in five different roles in the last six years, and each one has been like a promotion," she says. "I have such a privilege in knowing the show so well. Now I have such an appreciation for what everybody has to do, and I think that's really special."
Once that tour ended, she was cast in another touring production, this time as the principal actress for Peggy/Maria. However, after about a month in that role, the show's director asked her to play Eliza Hamilton, the production's leading female role. Yokoyama has now been performing as Eliza for more than a year.
"Without her, the stories would not have been told, and that's the whole point, so I always like to think it's Eliza Hamilton's show."
"The goal was always to be Eliza eventually, but I just thought that would happen in 10 years," the 25-year-old says. "You know, I didn't think it would happen in just five years."
Eliza Hamilton is a complicated character to portray, Yokoyama says. She's central to the story, and yet she's often defined by the men around her.
When first introduced in the production, Eliza is one of three marriage-eligible daughters of the wealthy Philip Schuyler; later she becomes Alexander Hamilton's wife. Aside from a few lines in one song, the show doesn't even pass the Bechdel Test. (To pass the Bechdel Test a show needs to have at least two women in its cast, and they need to have a conversation that doesn't revolve around a man).
"We're talking about a part of history where women didn't have a lot of say or a lot of education, so she is very connected to the men they all are," Yokoyama says.
While the show mirrors history in the way it handles its female characters, Yokoyama says without Eliza, who documented her husband's work for decades after his death, there would be no Hamilton.
"Without her, the stories would not have been told, and that's the whole point, so I always like to think it's Eliza Hamilton's show," she says. "The show is not called Alexander Hamilton. It's called Hamilton. It's about the Hamilton family, and it's about their legacy." ♦
Hamilton • April 8-20; Tue-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sat-Sun at 1 pm, also Sun, April 13 at 7 pm • $45-$125 • First Interstate Center for the Arts • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • broadwayspokane.com
