My favorite performances are probably Priscilla as Angelica and Animal as King George. No disrespect to Gonzo Aaron Burr, but he's the weakest leak. Read the rest

The entire Rotten Tomatoes interview (above) with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is terrific and insightful. But I was especially struck by the part where he shares the songwriting process for "My Shot." His influences were hip hop and the AOL dialup chime:

Lin-Manuel Miranda breaks down his process of writing the song, 'My Shot' for #Hamilton. pic.twitter.com/YjoYGk7qq7

— Rotten Tomatoes (@RottenTomatoes) July 7, 2020

"I'm grabbing from the influences and paying homage to those influences."

screengrab via Rotten Tomatoes Read the rest

On Friday, July 3, Hamilton debuted on Disney Plus. On Saturday, July 4, "Weird Al" Yankovic posted a music video for his "Hamilton Polka" using clips from the filmed theatrical production. Of course, it's a lot of fun.

Previously: Just you wait: This Hamilton parody follows 'Weird Al' Yankovic's life Read the rest

This "Hamilton" parody song justifiably asks, "Can we maybe just all agree to wear a tiny flipping mask?!"

I am not throwing away this mask. I am not throwing away this mask. This really should be bipartisan. Come on now, how hard is it? I am not throwing away this mask.

screengrab via The Holderness Family/YouTube Read the rest

Disney has just released a first look trailer for the new 'Hamilton' film. Read the rest

ICYMI, Actor John Krasinski has a new web show made up entirely of positive news stories aptly called, Some Good News. It's resonating with folks, its first episode came out a week ago and already has 13M views. Episode 2 dropped Sunday and included a big surprise for Aubrey, a 9-year-old girl who missed out on going to see Hamilton for her birthday because of the coronavirus situation. I won't spoil it, but it's a lot of fun and totally 100% heartwarming. I may have cried.

screengrab via Some Good News/YouTube Read the rest

The women who pay as much as $400 to see Hamilton at Philadelphia's Forrest Theatre have only 15 minutes to pee and get back to their seats during intermission, but the upper bathroom only has three stalls and the house seats over 1,700 people. Read the rest

When Lin-Manuel Miranda left the cast of Hamilton in 2016, the production created an archival video of the original cast performance, saying that he had "no idea" what they'd do with the footage, "Throwing it in a vault at Gringotts for a bit probly." Read the rest

If you've seen Hamilton (and I haven't, not live anyway... I've only seen a bootleg on YouTube of it), you've probably marveled at its incredible stage and how they used it to propel the story. I was particularly impressed with the staging in the "Satisfied" scene when the floor's "turntables" started rotating -- in coordination with the actors and music -- to relay that the character's are "rewinding" to another place and time.

Well, in anticipation of the show's run at the Kennedy Center, The Washington Post talked with the Hamilton set designer David Korins to learn some secrets of its stage, including what inspired the circular, moving "turntables":

Built into the floor of the set is a spinning circle of wood, with another, independently spinning ring of wood around it. These “turntables” — which allow the actors to stand still and move at the same time — were inspired by the whirlwind of history that sweeps up Hamilton, as well as the literal hurricane that hits the Caribbean island where he was born. “There’s also this cyclical relationship between Aaron Burr and Hamilton, where they were basically spiraling around each other their entire careers and lives,” Korins says.

Head to the Post to learn more obscure facts about the Hamilton stage.

View this post on Instagram

Two years ago today @hamiltonmusical soundtrack was released. In honor of that here's Lin using our set's "two turntables & a microphone" for the first time. 🎤

A post shared by David Korins (@davidkorins) on Sep 25, 2017 at 5:46am PDT

photo by Peter Dutton

(Coudal Partners) Read the rest

Weird Al's "The Hamilton Polka" inspired Michael William Hunter to create a song about the accordion-playing musician's life. It's a Hamilton parody set to the tune of the musical's "Alexander Hamilton," called "Alfred Matthew Yankovic."

It's really great! Here's a taste of the lyrics:

Well, the word got around said, “this kid is so weird, man!” Soon he’s posing with an accordion in his mere hands.

Perfect yo skills with classes, get glasses with a thick frame! And the world will surely know your name! What’s your name man?

Alfred Matthew Yankovic.

My name is Alfred Matthew Yankovic.

I can’t find and rhyme for “Yankovic.”

But just you wait. Just you wait.

When he's not making a "Weird Al"-Hamilton parody, Hunter runs "Weird Al"Phabet, a podcast that discusses every "Weird Al" Yankovic song in alphabetical order.

(Neatorama) Read the rest

Hamilton has traveled to the city of my birth, Denver, Colorado. Read the rest

Fans of the Broadway musical Hamilton have been all in a tizzy because "Weird Al" Yankovic worked with Lin-Manuel Miranda on the latest "Hamildrop." It's a squeezebox ditty called "The Hamilton Polka" and it's described as "remixed medley of ‘Hamilton’ hits, featuring Weird Al’s twist on songs like ‘My Shot,’ ‘Wait For It,’ ‘The Schuyler Sisters,’ and more." Read the rest

Here's an F-bomb-filled anthem about Benjamin Franklin that never made it into Lin-Manuel Miranda's hit musical, Hamilton. It's a humorous tune called "Benjamin Franklin's Song" and it's sung by The Decemberists.

The band shares the song's story:

HAMILTON, as you probably know, is an American musical theater production written by a guy named Lin-Manuel Miranda. Lots of people have seen it, lots of people are continuing to see it, lots of people have raved about it. We saw a production of it in New York last year and we can tell you: it’s very very good. And important. And transformative to our countrys current milieu. Etc.

Well, it happens that Mr. Miranda reached out to our own Colin Meloy to put music to a set of lyrics that had been written for HAMILTON but had never been used: a first-person introduction to one of the US’s founding fathers, Mr. Benjamin Franklin. Lin said that he’d wanted to include Franklin as a character in the show initially, but it just never quite worked something about not wanting to remove the audience more than once from the action taking place in our nascent United States. Funnily enough, he said he’d imagined Franklin singing in a sort of Decemberist-y way, whatever that means.

FAST FORWARD TO 2016: Lin passed on the lyrics to Colin, who was very much up to the task, and a new song was born: BEN FRANKLIN’S SONG, to be exact. We really like it. It’s very swear-y, but there’s a clean version too.

TangerineBlast's Alexander Hamilton: An Equestrian Musical is far from perfect, but there are inspired moments in the execution that speak of an encylopedic grasp of the entire corpus of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic canon. (Thanks, Alice!) Read the rest

On The Late Late Show with James Corden, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda said that, while on a recent vacation, he digitized all the VHS home movies he made in his childhood. Read the rest

The 2016 Hamilton mixtape invited musicians to remix songs from the musical’s cast recording and now one of the tracks has its own music video. “Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)” is performed by K’naan, Residente, Riz MC (a.k.a. Rogue One’s Riz Ahmed), and Snow Tha Product. And the video blends the song’s powerful pro-immigrant message with equally evocative visuals.

The video is part of the #Ham4All challenge, which sprung up around a Prizeo competition Lin-Manuel Miranda is running to raise money for the Immigrants: We Get the Job Done Coalition. For a $10 donation, fans can be entered to win VIP tickets to the opening night of Hamilton in Los Angeles. And Miranda is also encouraging entrants to upload a video of themselves singing a portion of the Hamilton cast recording and then challenge their friends to do the same.

HelloHelloHelloIntroducing our biggest @Prizeo contest yet& the #Ham4All Challenge!Donate at https://t.co/ENfeupTPL5! Sing!Oh, I ❤️ you. pic.twitter.com/7jCb1unwVo

— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) June 26, 2017

Since then a whole bunch of celebrities have gotten in on the action too. For instance, young Beguiled actors Emma Howard, Oona Laurence, Angourie Rice, and Addison Riecke uploaded an adorable “Schuyler Sisters” music video featuring cameos from Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning.

To see more videos from celebrities and non-celebrities alike, just search the #Ham4All hashtag on Twitter. You can enter the contest/make a donation via Prizeo.

As Groff's online representative:Groffsauce challenges @LeaMichele & @OfficialMolina!https://t.co/pFmd0rCfKU

Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda has released a powerful music video for "Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)" from his late 2016 album, The Hamilton Mixtape. The track features a worldly mix of recording artists: Somali-Canadian K'naan, Mexican-American Snow Tha Product, British-Pakistani Riz MC and Puerto Rican Residente.

Snow Tha Product raps some of the song's most evocative lyrics:

You claim I’m stealing jobs though

Peter Piper claimed he picked them, he just underpaid Pablo

But there ain't a paper trail when you living in the shadows

We're America's ghost writers, the credit's only borrowed

It’s a matter of time before the checks all come

(NPR)

Previously: When Mike Pence came to Hamilton, the cast added a special afterword, just for him Read the rest