There is a lot going on in Hamilton, from its multilayered historical backdrop to its showcasing of a wide variety of musical styles, including hip-hop and pop. It all comes at you fast. Some prefer to take in the onslaught all fresh and new, but many people have found even more satisfaction from studying up ahead of time to enjoy the show and all its facets.
Listen to the Hamilton soundtrack. You know how when you first hear a song, you're still trying to get a feel for it? That's sure to happen with Hamilton, since each song jams in so much history. Listen to the soundtrack with the original cast, so that by the time you actually see the show, you're not trying to figure out the songs. Instead, you're celebrating the music like you're seeing a concert of your favorite artists.
Watch the YouTube videos. There's the cast performing songs at the Tony awards. There are celebrities performing their own covers of Hamilton songs. There's Lin-Manuel Miranda and co-star Daveed Diggs having rap battles. But I especially recommend watching the original Hamilton cast performing songs at the White House for President Barack Obama, if for no other reason than the fact that there are few things as entertaining as Obama bobbing his head to rap as everyone else in the room nervously looks at the former president and wonders if their own body movements are sufficient. Also, maybe I'm not supposed to tell you this, but sometimes you can find bits of the original broadway show on YouTube.
Watch the filmed version on Disney+. You probably won't ever get another chance to see the original cast perform Hamilton live on Broadway. Thankfully, Disney+ released the filmed version on July 3, 2020 — one of the few cultural highlights of the early pandemic.
Read Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow. As legend has it, Lin-Manuel Miranda read this book on a vacation after his first successful musical, In the Heights. That's when Miranda first envisioned the musical. The book presents Hamilton as a spirited, flawed genius who could spit out a vigorous defense of the U.S. Constitution in one breath and form the foundation of American capitalism in the next. But what likely attracted Miranda to the story was the notion that Hamilton was misunderstood in history books, that he was a tragic figure whose brilliance fueled his success but also his failures. Miranda had Chernow advise him on the creation of the musical, and the rest, as they say, is history. ♦
