Revolutionary Hip-Hop Musical "Hamilton" is Particularly Relevant in 2020

3/29/2020

It’s a Modern Musical Exploration of the Origins of the USA

Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
February 27, 2020

Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of "Hamilton" perform at the Tony Awards in New York in 2016. The acclaimed musical is now playing in Toronto. EVAN AGOSTINI/AP

In December last, two of my three sons, who were heavily involved in professional and personal responsibilities in Alberta and B.C., forgot me and Christmas.

I mean "forgot" in the sense that there was nothing in the mailbox delivered by an actual postal person.

So, I expressed myself. In families, it's generally best to be honest. They lamented and made amends, big time. Knowing my Christmas principle, "Give experiences, not things," they arranged for a big envelope to come to my address. It contained a prize ticket to the hit musical "Hamilton," now playing in Toronto.

I was thrilled. But I needed to prepare.

In my past studies, the American Revolution, that conflict after 1776, in which the 13 colonies in America rose up against the British who ruled them,(the Redcoats), declared they were independent and fought battles and skirmishes over a period of eight years in order to "win" the war, to send the British packing and begin to create a country.

Many names from that dramatic time come to me in a jumble: Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Burr. Well now, I get to sort them out via that most pleasant of learning techniques, the song.

It's an astonishing story, really. In 2015, off-Broadway audiences in New York were stunned by a highly literate hip-hop musical, every word sung. It seems a composer and lyricist named Lin Manuel Miranda, a newcomer to New York from Puerto Rico, inspired by a long biography of one of the framers of the new nation, Alexander Hamilton, wrote, produced and starred in "Hamilton."

What a way to learn your history. It turned out to be a two-hour rap event, delivered by talented and diverse actor-singers, tracing the life of Alexander Hamilton, a fourteen-year-old orphan who arrived in New York having been born illegitimately on the Caribbean island of St. Croix to a white mother and a Scotsman.
Continue Reading >HERE<

You can purchase Positive Community directly from Rosemary Ganley at rganley209@gmail.com
or from >Amazon.com<

0 Comments