HOMEGROWN HAMILTON
Time for Canada’s historical musical
When we heard about Wexford Collegiate School in Scarborough receiving a cease-anddesist letter for its unlicensed production of Hamilton, we got to wondering. First, about heartless intellectual property lawyers. Second, why would a group of Canadian students risk a takedown notice to perform an American history musical?
What about Canada’s own history?
Don’t get us wrong — we dig Hamiltonmania. The hip-hop musical recounts the American Revolutionary War with a diverse cast playing America’s founding fathers as they deliver rapid-fire verses about politics, love, war and social justice.
The show won a Grammy and 11 Tony Awards this year, and is constantly sold out (unless you’re willing to sell a kidney to pay for resale tickets). Craig found this out during an unsuccessful attempt to secure seats on his last trip to New York.
We also discovered that kids can’t get enough of Hamilton. They connect with the language of rap and hip-hop. They see themselves in the diverse cast. A new generation is finding themselves hooked on a version of American history that also reflects the present.
Canada may have beaten America to the stage in releasing a smash-hit history musical. Billy Bishop Goes to War, released in 1978, recounts the life of First World War pilot Billy Bishop, and is one of Canada’s most widely produced pieces of theatre.
But there are a few elements in Hamilton that Billy Bishop is missing.
“Hamilton goes beyond American history,” says Albert Schultz, creative director of Torontobased theatre company Soulpepper. “It’s a cultural revolution of new voices on the Broadway stage, which has been so dominated by mainstream white culture.”
Schultz, like many Canadians, wants to see diversity on the Canadian stage and screen. Soulpepper just helped CBC launch Kim’s Convenience, the first Canadian sitcom led by Asian actors. The show, which premiered Oct. 11, is based on a play Soulpepper first ran in 2012.
“We have to make sure that the faces on our stage represent the faces in our community,” says Schultz.
Diversity could be the key to helping more Canadians see themselves in their own history.
The next big musical might come from an indigenous artist, portraying the resurgence of indigenous culture in the horrible aftermath of residential schools, suggests Schultz.
Canada has so many stories worth telling. Imagine a hip-hop remix of the coded gospel songs used to plan escapes and share directions on the Underground Railroad to Canada. Or a memoir musical (memoirsical?) about Nellie McClung and the Famous Five updated with Adele-style power ballads about the rights — and voices — of women.
And let’s not be afraid to show the darker moments in our history.
The racism endured by former slaves in Canada. The exploitation of indigenous Canadians. The internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.
This is our history, and it’s our duty to learn from and re-tell it. Let’s re-imagine these narratives to show all the diversity and creativity of Canada today. Because these stories belong to all of us, and every one of us has a part in telling them.