South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Miami native Fergie L. Philippe stars in musical’s national tour.
Miami native stars in national tour of megahit musical coming to Fort Lauderdale this week
Fergie L. Philippe saw “Hamilton” the night before the megahit musical officially opened. That preview performance changed the course of his life. Now, just a year out of college, he is starring in the national tour of the Broadway phenomenon, playing James Madison and Hercules Mulligan.
“I saved up all the money I made over the summer to buy one ticket and see the show,” recalls Philippe, who grew up in the Miami Lakes and Hialeah area. “I couldn’t believe that someone was able to immerse me into a story like that. Everything I wanted to see was in the show. The show is perfect.”
South Floridians will judge for themselves when “Hamilton” plays Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts for an unprecedented five-week run Dec. 18-Jan. 20.
“Hamilton” also will play both West Palm Beach and Miami in the 2019-2020 season.
Having won 11 Tonys, “Hamilton” hype is seemingly unceasing. The musical has stayed in the headlines since it took the entertainment world by storm, first off-Broadway in February 2015 and then on Broadway later that summer. The announcement of the road tours late last year sparked media interest again across the country, as the two national tour companies have played cities such as San Diego, Seattle, Dallas, Kansas City, Hartford, Conn., and Greenville, S.C.
Late last year “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda sent shock waves throughout the Caribbean when he announced that he will reprise his role as the title character for a run in Puerto Rico in January 2019, the first time he will have done so since he ended his Broadway run in July 2016. Miranda, who stars in the highly anticipated movie “Mary Poppins Returns” this Christmas season, announced there will be a film version of “Hamilton,” although no target release date was confirmed.
The show about Founding Father Alexander Hamilton first got major coverage when Miranda chose a multiracial cast to depict white historical figures. In New York and with subsequent productions in Los Angeles, Chicago and now London, many of the central characters — Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and even Hamilton’s killer, Aaron Burr — are portrayed by actors of color. As with his musical “In the Heights,”
Miranda filled his score for “Hamilton” with hip-hop rhythms and rap-infused musical numbers.
“I grew up listening to
‘In the Heights,’ ” Philippe says during a Friday afternoon telephone interview. “Everyone in Miami went insane with ‘In the
Heights,’ whether they were into theater or not.”
Philippe (who was born in New York City but moved with his family to Miami soon after) took classes at Miami’s African Heritage Cultural Arts Center and the New World School of the Arts before graduating from North Carolina’s Elon University in 2017. Here is more about the 23-year-old in excerpts from a Q&A.
What are some of your favorite places that you just can’t wait to revisit?
I’m really excited to go to Urban [Miami Cuisine] restaurant in Miami and Lecap, which is a Haitian restaurant in Little Haiti. I want to go to the New World School and the Afri- can Cultural Arts Center where I took classes. Those are some of my favorite places.
Where did you hang out here in SoFlo?
The house. I was not hanging out anywhere. Before high school I wasn’t the most sociable. I had a hard time making friends. My parents preferred I didn’t go out of the house too often. I was home watching TV or movies.
When did you first decide to be an actor?
There was never really a moment. I was always performing. When I was a kid I always wanted to be the center of attention.
You graduated in 2017, and you’re in the tour of the hottest musical in the world a year later. What’s that timeline exactly?
Yeah, I graduated in
May. I went to [St. Louis] to do “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and then right after that I did “Parade” in Auburn, [New York]. As soon as “Parade” was over I got a call-back for “Hamilton.” I will never discredit my hard work or my work ethic, but there is an element of luck that you can’t expect or predict. I booked my dream tour … It’s a very rare and crazy happenstance.
Do you remember what you were feeling that first time you saw “Hamilton” on Broadway?
It was so heartfelt, so exciting and kind of dangerous. And also beautifully staged. Everything about “Hamilton” is perfect. I thought it was a perfect show. I had never seen an experience on Broadway that moved me the way that show did that night. I felt in my spirit that this is what you are supposed to do. I didn’t expect it to be so soon. That’s the universe and God.
What do you think producers and the creative team saw in you that made them know you were right for the part?
I wish I knew. I think they saw someone who was passionate about the show — a person who understands its function in the world. They saw someone who is deeply connected with it and connected with it instantly, someone so young, someone with no credit beforehand.
This is your first tour, so how have you been surviving it?
You know … the biggest thing for me is the maintenance of health. This morning I just got an MRI for my shoulder because I injured it in the show. I just respect and listen to my body. And I need to understand to meet it where it’s at and not push it to do what it does not want to do. So I have to get enough sleep. Do stretching. And my mental health, giving myself the space to be able to function.
Is there something you do in the show that is maybe overlooked in all the spectacle and stagecraft that you would like to highlight for your hometown?
Mulligan is such a big character, so loud [that] I don’t think there’s much he can miss. But I talk to people who say they’ve seen the show two or three times and they say it’s a different show every time, there’s so much happening in this show.
You have to beat box and rap the song “York- town,” right? I read that you were thinking of the rap style of Busta Rhymes.
When I was growing up in Miami, rap is just a part of Miami culture, but I didn’t identify with that. I was more a punk rock kid and metal and things like that. After seeing the show, I thought … if [I’m] going to be in the show, I need to understand the culture. So I did a lot of research and fortunately by the time we started rehearsal I felt comfortable enough to fake it enough for the people listening to think that I had been listening to rap all my life. Specifically I looked at the Chris Brown song “Look At Me Now” and the Busta Rhymes part. It’s very fast. I spent two months in college just working on that in case that moment arrived where someone said, “Can you rap something for us?” Memorizing that rap was so hard. It was so crazy. There were so many days where I said, “What am I doing. No one is going to ask me to rap.”
I saw in some of your social media that there’s been some sort of issue at times when you come out of the stage door following a performance. What’s that about?
Yeah, I made a couple of posts. I think that in the excitement and hype of the show some people, unintentionally because I don’t think people have any ill will, cross some boundaries. They say something that is a little rude. I’ve seen people get pushed or kids get pushed. That’s one of the things about “Hamilton,” so many people have paid so much money for tickets and waited so long, it sometimes builds up and boils over. With love in my heart, I just ask them to respect and love each other.
“Hamilton” runs Dec. 18-Jan. 20 at the Broward Center, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Showtimes are 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 7 p.m. Sundays;
1 p.m. Sundays and 2 p.m. Wednesdays (starting Dec. 26) and Saturdays. Tickets cost $141-$650. To order, call 954-462-0222 or go to BrowardCenter.org.
rhagwood@southflorida .com