You wouldn’t think that a musical about the history of America would be so captivating and fresh, but Lin-Manuel Miranda managed to do just that. From Hamilton premiered in Broadway in the year 2015, has become a smash hit, both on the stage and now with a new movie of Disney+. While the show is enriched with an interesting narration and the historical facts, we can’t help but wonder: why does Miranda decide to write a musical about Alexander Hamilton you of all people? Well, it all started with a book.
“I knew about as much as he did about Alexander Hamilton, before that I picked up Ron Chernow’s amazing biography,” Miranda told CNBC in December 2017. “I knew that he was on our $10 bill in the united States and I knew that he died in a duel. You know you learn that in high school and that was about it. And that was enough for me to take a book off the shelf and I was going on vacation with my then girlfriend, now wife, and I just wanted a great book to read.”
To read the biography of Miranda admitted that it was “sweeping” in Hamilton’s incredible story. “I thought that ‘out-of Dickens’ Dickens in the improbable this man’s rise from its humble beginnings in Nevis in the Caribbean, to change, helping to shape our young nation. And is exclusive of a history of immigration and it is only a story about the writers,” he said. Even so, he added that the show was “no overnight success”, as it took nearly seven years to write it. It took him a year just to write the second song in the show, “My Shot.”
Through the years, the fair has introduced a new generation in American history. However, one thing that Miranda really hope is that the music will inspire people to make their own mark on the world. “Your story will be told by those who survive you, you have no control over that,” he said. “You can only control what you do and what you put into the world. Hamilton put a lot into the world in your short time and was survived by their enemies for a very long time. But he was also survived by his wife, who was, for me, the hero of the show. [Hamilton’s wife] leaves behind a great legacy of their own. And I think that is what moves people, is the notion of what we do with the time we have on this planet.”
