‘Hamilton’: S.F. high school students get to express themselves before seeing a free matinee of the hit musical.
Special ‘Hamilton’ performance for students resonates with history studies and themes celebrating immigration
When 17-year-old Nathan Lam started listening to the cast recording of “Hamilton” at the beginning of his junior year at San Francisco’s Galileo Academy of Science and Technology, he quickly found he was hooked.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about ‘Hamilton.’ I’m sure my grades plummeted,” he joked.
Since debuting at the Public Theater in New York City in 2015, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical about Alexander Hamilton, one of the nation’s founding fathers and the first U.S. secretary of the Treasury, has become a pop-culture
juggernaut. It’s turned its creator into a household name and won 11 Tony awards.
Since the opening at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco on March 10, ticket prices for performances have shot into the stratosphere, way beyond the reach of students like Nathan.
But on Wednesday, he was among a group of lucky high school students who got to experience the show for free as part of the educational program #EduHam that first launched in New York.
The San Francisco version of the program, which is funded by nonprofits and corporate sponsors, gives 8,500 public school students from throughout the Bay Area the chance to see the show that former first lady Michelle Obama called “the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life.”
A group of 2,200 students from 14 San Francisco public schools — including Lincoln, Lowell, George Washington and Mission high schools — watched as the cast put on a matinee performance just for them Wednesday.
By intermission, students said they were decidedly impressed.
“The movable floor was really cool,” said Loidy Fontanilla, 18, referring to moving platforms that whisked bits and pieces of the elaborate set around the stage. “And I liked how well the colors of the lighting corresponded with the feeling” of each scene.
By the time the curtains closed, it’s safe to say they were starstruck.
Soham Bhatt, 16, of Galileo Academy for Science and Technology, was riveted by the lighting effects and the orchestra pit.
“The live music coming from under the stage — that was so cool. And the performances were so crisp and on point. Everyone brought something different,” he said.
Added 15-year-old Olivia Anderson of Lowell High School, “Honestly, I think it was the best thing I’ve ever seen.”
Before the show began, 17 students from 10 schools took the stage in front of their peers to perform their own original songs, skits, raps and poems inspired by their studies.
“This country is like my mother — it built me,” Diana Falcon of Downtown High School recited in her original poem.
The shows are the culmination of a course on the founding fathers.
For students in a system like the San Francisco Unified School District, in which about 1 in 4 students is learning English as a second language and more than half qualify for free and reduced lunch, it is not difficult to see how a story that celebrates the role of immigrants in early American history, and champions a man who came to this country a poor orphan and made something of himself, might resonate.
“Taking on the emotions really puts you in history,” said a Galileo student, 17-year-old Mateo Langston.
Celeste Guerrero, a 17-yearold senior from Mission High School, and Aila Alli, a 16-yearold junior, performed an imagined dialogue between revolutionary and statesman John Laurens and his father in the afterlife.
“I think it’s very important to feel represented, and with Hamilton, with (the Marquis de) Lafayette — it’s amazing how much they accomplished,” Celeste, an immigrant from Mexico, said.
Emmy Raver-Lampman, who plays the witty Angelica Schuyler and emceed the student performances, said the audience of students was a welcome change.
“We all get a kick out of it and love it,” she said. “It’s a chance to see the show through fresh eyes.”