From historian to inspiration for the hottest ticket in town
Hamilton musical ‘worst idea’ ever, said everyone author knew
Of all the lives that have been transformed by the megahit “Hamilton,” none was more unlikely for a musical theater makeover than that of Ron Chernow. A historian and biographer who had written well-regarded books about John D. Rockefeller and the J.P. Morgan dynasty and won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for “Washington: A Life,” he was known largely to avid readers of American history. Chernow’s theatrical life was restricted to the plays — rarely musicals — he regularly attended.
In 2008, he heard through the grapevine that Lin-Manuel Miranda, the composer and lyricist of the musical “In the Heights,” was interested in Chernow’s 2004 biography “Alexander Hamilton.” Miranda had read the 800-plus page work while on vacation in Mexico. The two met backstage at Broadway’s Richard Rodgers Theatre — destined to become the future Broadway home of “Hamilton” — and talked about how a hip-hop-driven show might illuminate a figure Chernow calls “the most underrated and misunderstood of the Founding Fathers.”
Chernow was impressed by the 28year-old theater artist, but thought a hip-hop “Hamilton” might be “a ‘Springtime for Hitler’ idea,” a reference to the show-within-the-show of “The Producers” that was conceived to fail. “Mostly everyone I talked to said it (a ‘Hamilton’ musical) was the worst idea they had ever heard.”
Chernow’s doubts were blown apart when Miranda visited the historian to sing him the first song in his nascent show, his fingers snapping to keep the beat. Chernow, 68, recalled that conversion moment in a recent phone conversation from his apartment in Brooklyn Heights.
“It was the most extraordinary thing,” he said. “Lin had compressed the first 40 pages of my book into four minutes. I was completely bowled over, but it was also a little embarrassing. Either I write really long, I thought, or he writes really tight.”
Chernow was struck by the unique language Miranda had devised. “I could see it was a blend of formal and rather elegant 18th century English with 21st century slang and colloquialism.” It gradually dawned on him what an inspired fit it made for the show’s titular hero.
Like Miranda’s “dense and rapid lyrics,” Chernow said, “Hamilton’s personality was very driven — a fast-talking, fast-moving whirlwind. In addition to suiting his nature, Lin captures the propulsive intensity of the American Revolutionary period itself. I can’t say I saw all this at the beginning.”
When Chernow signed on as historical adviser to “Hamilton,” he assumed his role would be restricted to “vetting for accuracy. As time went on, that proved to be the least important thing I did.” Miranda, Chernow soon discovered, had read his book very closely and was committed to sticking to the historical record. “But when he departed from the facts, he always had a good reason.”
Chernow said that he and Miranda spent a lot of time talking about the characters and their motivations. A number of those conversations bore fruit.
In one of their discussions, Miranda asked if Hamilton might have reminded George Washington of a younger version of himself. “That conversation took root in Lin’s imagination,” said Chernow, who affirmed the notion. “The next time I saw that scene, Washington had the line, ‘Let me tell you what I wish I’d known/When I was young and dreamed of glory/You have no control.’ ”
A similar thing happened when Chernow noticed that the show made no reference to one of Hamilton’s important achievements — taking the young country from bankruptcy to prosperity as the first secretary of the Treasury. Miranda soon interpolated lines for Jefferson and Madison to make that point.
There are even moments that mirror Chernow’s own historical discoveries. In “Burn,” a letters scene sung by the wife to whom Hamilton was unfaithful, Eliza Hamilton concedes her sister’s epistolary remark that she “married an Icarus” who “flew too close to the sun.” Chernow remembers “being in the university library (Butler Library at Columbia University) one day and finding this piece of handwritten paper from Angelica to Eliza. Now there it is in the show.”
Chernow began work on his Hamilton biography in 1998. It bothered him that Hamilton, a brilliant but penniless immigrant who went on to help forge everything from the Federalist Papers to the U.S. Coast Guard, was regarded as “a third-rate founder.” But he also understood it. “Part of the explanation is that his main political rivals were future presidents Madison, Monroe, Jefferson and Washington. The fastest way to the White House,” Chernow noted drily, “was to be an enemy of Hamilton.” And then there was the issue of his “combative personality. If you criticized Hamilton, he could bury you in an avalanche of argument. He could be his own worst enemy.”
It didn’t help his legacy that Hamilton died prematurely, at age 47, in a famously ignominious duel with Aaron Burr. Among other things, said Chernow, “it meant he never got to write his memoirs.”
If Chernow’s 2004 book went a long way toward refashioning and resuscitating Hamilton’s image, the musical has minted that idea in the cultural gold of wildly successful stage entertainment. Chernow has reveled in it all.
“It’s been a through-the-looking-glass experience,” he said. “As a lifelong theatergoer, I never imagined I’d be doing something on the opposite side of the footlights. It’s been a very social experience for someone used to spending a lot of time alone.”
When “Hamilton” was in its pre-Broadway run and still undergoing changes at the Public Theater, Chernow attended numerous performances to provide input. He continues to attend performances on Broadway frequently, and now on the road, paying for his own tickets. Chernow figures he’s seen “Hamilton” more than 60 times. His enchantment is so complete that he’s even performed the show’s opening number in costume, a feat enshrined on YouTube.
Embraced early on by President Obama, “Hamilton,” with its young, multiracial cast that reflects an ongoing demographic shift in the American population, seems emblematic of that president’s times. “But like any great work of art,” added Chernow, “it’s prophetic in ways it can’t even anticipate.”
When President Trump called some Mexicans rapists and criminals on the campaign trail last year, a song in the show suddenly start getting a huge response. Chernow took pleasure in citing it: “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done).”