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Founding Fathers-inspired show opens to near capacity crowd at Orpheum
“Meet Me Inside.” “The Room Where It Happens.” “History Has Its Eyes on You.” Song titles took on special significance Tuesday night for the hundreds of fans who gathered at the Orpheum for the Memphis debut of “Hamilton,” the Founding Fathers-inspired, Broadway-launched cultural phenomenon Scattered “Hamilton” tickets remain available for most Orpheum shows. In addition, a lottery drawing will be held each day to make special $10 tickets available. For tickets, complete lottery rules and more information, visit orpheum-memphis.com. that uses hip-hop storytelling, diverse casting and expressive dancing to collapse the distance between the Revolutionary War and the 21st century.
Tuesday’s essentially sold-out show was the first of 24 performances of “Hamilton” that will take place through July 28 — an extended run that will be seen by close to 56,000 people by the time the Lin-manuel Miranda-penned musical leaves Memphis.
“We’re the first city to have it between Charlotte and Tulsa, and from St. Louis to New Orleans, so we have a wide geographical swath to draw from,” said Orpheum president Brett Batterson.
In fact, Memphis “Hamilton” firstnighters came from as far away as Calgary, Canada, a distance of 2,016 miles. But whatever their origin, they shared an obsessiveness and enthusiasm that was especially inspiring and charming coming from the teen and tween fans who swapped memorized song lyrics and testified that “Hamilton” had encouraged an overall interest in theater, writing and history.
Cocking a hip and pointing an index finger defiantly into the air, dozens of young people and even some adults struck “Hamilton” logo poses in front of the life-sized cast silhouettes that have transformed the Main Street facade of the Orpheum into a parade of historical figures. These figures include Alexander Hamilton, the contrarian statesman who is the musical’s namesake hero; Aaron Burr, Hamilton’s rival and eventual killer; and Angelica Schuyler, Hamilton’s self-sacrificing sister-in-law, to name a few.
Angelica in particular is a favorite of 12-year-old Ava Noe of tiny Paris, Mississippi, who arrived at the Orpheum in an impressive dress modeled after the costume worn by the older of the two Schuyler sisters in the play.
Created over three days by Ava’s great-grandmother for this trip to Memphis, the dress consisted of three layers. The outer garment was upholstery “like you put on furniture,” said Ava, who also wore a tiara, elegant earrings and a pendant featuring the letter “A,” which balanced her ahistorical eyeglasses and colored dental braces.
“If I were in an actual historical dress I would most likely have a temperature of about 500 degrees,” said Ava, standing near the Tim Conway star on the Orpheum “Sidewalk of Stars,” in the almost 90-degree heat.
The dress wasn’t Ava’s only original work of art: She also brought a watercolor-and-ink homemade “Hamilton” program to the show. She said she hoped to get cast members to autograph the oneof-a-kind playbill.
Ava’s mother, Jenny Noe, said the family bought season tickets to the Orpheum’s 2018-19 Broadway series of shows, to ensure they would be able to see “Hamilton.” They weren’t alone.
Thanks to Hamilton, a record 13,000 season tickets were sold — “almost double the previous record,” Batterson said. He said close to 10,000 season tickets have been sold for the 2019-2020 Broadway series, which begins Oct. 8 with another Tony Award-winning Best Musical, “Dear Evan Hansen,” which — like “Hamilton” — has been praised for its novel subject matter.
“‘Hamilton’ has changed musical theater in America,” Batterson said. “It has single-handedly allowed different styles and genres of music to be seen on the New York Broadway stage. It has thrown the doors wide open on casting, irregardless of traditional casting. And it has broken us away a little bit from that ‘play it safe, let’s take an old movie and make it into a Broadway musical’ mold, although there is still plenty of that.”
Several people at “Hamilton” said their relatively pricey theater tickets had been bought as a birthday or Christmas present. Others said they probably would never make it to “Hamilton” in New York, Chicago or San Francisco, so they were grateful to the Orpheum for bringing the show to Memphis.
“I’m here in Memphis, Tennessee, at ‘Hamilton’ because I’m obsessed with everything about ‘Hamilton,’” said Brooklyn Cobbige, 12, who lives in the Hickory Hill area.
Brooklyn said she has watched hours of videos online that delve into the origins of Miranda’s play and the true history of Alexander Hamilton, who, prior to the musical, was probably little known to most living Americans except as the face on the ten-dollar bill.
“I want to suck up all that information into my brain because I feel like it makes me love ‘Hamilton’ even more,” she said.
Another person who had the “Hamilton” soundtrack memorized is Brynn Griffiths, 14, a resident of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. She was visiting relatives in Muscle Shoals when she learned her parents had added a surprise to the vacation: a side trip to Memphis to see “Hamilton.” “When we found out ‘Hamilton’ was here and we were in Alabama, we decided to come,” said Brynn’s mother, Jennifer Griffiths.
Batterson said such anecdotes provide evidence that the economic impact of “Hamilton” will be tremendous for the Orpheum and Memphis.
He said the Broadway League — the national trade association that represents theater owners, operators, producers and others that host Broadway plays — estimates that a theatergoer on average spends 3.5 additional dollars on transportation, parking, food, drink and so on for every dollar spent on a theater ticket. Based on this “multiplier,” the economic impact of “Hamilton” on Memphis will be close to $25 million, Batterson said.
On the other hand, not every “Hamilton” attendee is planning a post-orpheum night on the town. Sisters Toni Fenske and Judy Sheppeard are Orpheum Broadway season ticket-holders, but they said they drive back home to North Mississippi after each show.
Said Fenske: “We go to the Waffle House.”