I was chosen to chaperone the school trip!!! ^:)^
Awesome, @rebeccar! You teachers deserve those kind of perks when you can get them!
Do they plan some unit around the show at all - history, music, or otherwise?
It’s actually kind of interesting how they do it! In order to come to the show, the Hamilton people actually required the students to do some sort of creative project. So we got primary sources to give to them about colonial events like the Boston Massacre, the tarring and feathering of loyalists, the Bill of Rights, etc and all students had to create either a rap, poem, skit, monologue, etc about one of those topics. Then the Hamilton people choose the best ones from each school, and the students get to perform it on the Broadway stage.
I finally got to see it last night in Chicago, but I had to get aggressive. My husband had a business dinner, so I was on my own. After losing the lottery, I went to theater 45 minutes before show time and started asking people if they had any extra tickets. (I know, really bold.) A few other people said they were there looking for tickets, too, and one woman was standing by me when a family of 5 stopped and the father said, “We have an extra ticket.” I was worried the woman would start a bidding war, so I quickly paid him. He told me he thought she was with me, so I wouldn’t want a single ticket. I asked one of his daughters if someone cancelled at the last minute and she said, “No. We had to buy tickets in a block of 6”. Dress circle, 2nd row, dead center was perfect. While the show was excellent, I’m still having a hard time justifying the ticket price. Refreshing history lessons and listening to the soundtrack ahead of time might have made it a better experience.
As far as I am concerned, the original cast is gone. So I might as well wait a few years until things, prices, settle down.
I saw Wicked last year. It had an outstanding lead. She had been the lead in the London show and won their equivalent of the Tony. We saw her on her last day. It was sold out. But we had no idea when we bought the tickets. It was phenomenal. And this was how many years after the show opened?
It is amazing how pricey the resale market remains for these tickets given the multiple venues at time that has passed!
I saw it for the second time last night, on Broadway. I still loved it, and would see it again in a heartbeat. But I missed the original cast. I know all the lyrics now, so I was able to focus on other aspects of the performance.
Yes, and all they have to do is pay ~$52,000 in tuition plus other fees that will equal a total of ~$73,000!
Since they were going to do that anyway…it’s a nice surprise for them.
Yes, @ClaremontMom , I understand that. It’s the headline about “free” Hamilton tickets that is more than a bit silly.
I would love to see it, even though I know it is more entertainment than history.
I will have to wait until it is somehow on TV or DVD. I had a hard time catching all the lyrics to the scenes I’ve seen on TV, and without closed captioning I will be sunk for the full show.
@bearcatfan - You could listen to the recording repeatedly. The more you listen the more of the story and lyrics you pick up. Or if you are really motivated you could go get all the lyrics here with annotations to explain both the historical and artistic elements of the show.
https://genius.com/albums/Lin-manuel-miranda/Hamilton-original-broadway-cast-recording
Hamilton: The Revolution is a great resource. It has the lyrics, lots of footnotes/annotations, and the story behind writing the musical.
My D got a free ticket ( along with other lucky students) from Stanford the week before ( San Francisco) and got to see Stephen Curry and wife who were in the audience .
Yesterday was our EduHam field trip and I have to say, I was a little personally underwhelmed. I’ve listened to the soundtrack so, so many times that seeing it in person was less of a revelation and more “yup, those are the songs I like!” The cast just isn’t the same as the original cast, especially when you’re so used to hearing every inflection and every extended note sung a certain way. Plus it was mostly understudies. The best way I can describe it is like, a cover band performing Hamilton. I’m actually kind of glad because I felt so guilty seeing it without my fiance (still so weird typing that) and now I could genuinely reassure him he didn’t miss anything life-changing.
It was still amazing, obviously, and the kids went crazy. They were obviously a bit more reactionary than the typical adult audience. There were audible shocks and gasps and "noooo!"s when Hamilton cheats with Maria Reynolds, for example. I heard some "oooooooooh"s when Washington says “Burr, close the door on your way out” or when Jefferson says “daddy’s calling.” And a bunch were crying during It’s Quiet Uptown. They liked the king, too, and were hysterically laughing during The Reynolds Pamphlet.
The coolest part was actually seeing the students perform. There were students representing 14 different schools and performing their original song, rap, skit, etc on stage. To be honest, I was expecting some nervous, clap-to-be-polite sorts of things, but they were all INCREDIBLE! One rap had a chorus of like, “George Washington, uh huh, I need some oxygen” and the audience went wild for all of them. (If anyone wants to see my school’s, I can send the video by PM 
)
There will always be differences in cast recordings and live performances, even if it’s entirely the same cast. It’s never a good idea to compare the two, to be honest, because you will almost always be disappointed if you’re so familiar with the cast recording prior to seeing a show.
As for understudies/swings, please don’t think that they provide a ‘lesser’ performance or that they just aren’t as capable as those cast in the roles. That is very rarely the case.
Glad you got to enjoy the students performing. I’m sure that was a special experience for them.
+1 to reading Hamilton: The Revolution. It helps a lot.
@rebeccar was this a performance specifically for students? I’d love to see your school’s video!
With most professional theater, whether on broadway or on the national tours, because it is so hard to get into those productions even the understudies are going to be very strong in the roles, the demand is so low and the supply so large it isn’t like you are seeing a community theater production of it:).
Cast albums always sound different than going live, even if it is the original cast, besides the fact of the the way you control the sound in a recording studio and the like, playing to a live audience is a totally different experience, the energy of an audience, the unique dynamics of any performance,make it quite different.
Obviously, there are transcendent stars who bring their own magic to a part, Zero Mostel doing Tevye because of who he was was pure magic, but that doesn’t mean that the other actors who did it were horrible, either, William Daniels as John Adams in 1776 to me defined the part (as did Howard Da Silva doing Franklin, made him a lot more warm human being than he really was), but I enjoyed the revival where Brent Spiner played Adams and Pat Hinckley played Franklin (the original version of 1776 had John Callum in it, hard to beat that, too).
That doesn’t mean I don’t wish to see the original casts of many shows, I still think that broadway producers and others do themselves a disservice when they don’t allow people to see recorded versions of the original cast once the show has run its course, I know some may now be available, but it isn’t enough:)
By understudies, I just meant that there’s people in the current cast I would’ve really liked to see but didn’t! Like Brian D’Arcy James as King George (he originated the role and I loved him in Something Rotten) or Javier Munoz who I’ve seen in so many interviews and articles since he took over for LMM. Not that understudies in general are “lesser,” just that ideally, it would’ve been nice to see those specific people. And yup, the whole audience was students.