Hamilton
ulent lobby, with Julius Thomas III as Alexander Hamilton and Donald Webber Jr. as his nemesis, Aaron Burr, leading the third national touring company of the musical created by Lin-Manuel Miranda that debuted on Broadway in 2015.
The full cast includes a few returning members from the 2017 Bay Area run — Isaiah Johnson (George Washington), who was on board with Miranda at the show’s inception, and Rubén J. Carbajal (John Laurens/Philip Hamilton), who has performed on a different “Hamilton” tour the past two years and has 700 shows under his doublet. Plus, there are two members from the Bay Area, San Francisco native Brendan Chan and Richmond’s Camden Gonzales. And one performer, Darilyn Castillo (Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds), grew up in New York across the street from the home of Alexander Hamilton.
“So I knew a little bit about the history to begin with, but now I’ve learned so much — about these characters as real people, real nuanced human beings,” Castillo says.
The performers are all supercharged from a whirlwind three-week run of the show in Puerto Rico in January, working with Miranda himself, who reprised his titular role — the “10-dollah founding fathah” — for that special series. It was organized by Miranda — whose family is from the island — as a fundraiser for the arts in the U.S. territory as it still struggles from the effects of Hurricane Maria.
And while it’s not unusual for the casts of blockbuster musicals to form special bonds, the Puerto Rico experience linked them in a deeper, more meaningful way.
“Getting to know the island, what the people there have been through, yet they do not consider themselves victims,” Carbajal says. “They were so welcoming. So appreciative. They received us better than any place I’ve ever been, and to see Lin with tears in his eyes on opening night as the audience gave him standing ovations — we will all carry that with us wherever we go.”
Now Thomas will step into Miranda’s formidable leggings, still overwhelmed he got the role in the first place. Originally from Gary, Indiana, Thomas made his Broadway debut in 2010 in “The Scottsboro Boys” and has performed in “Porgy and Bess” and “Motown: The Musical.” He was most recently a standby for Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and King George on a different “Hamilton” tour and was with the company in Minneapolis when he got the news.
“Someone from New York actually came to the theater to talk to me and said we think you’d be great to take on the role in this next company,” Thomas says. “It still makes my eyes tear up, I can’t even express … I’d been a career understudy. And here to get the chance to play the most important role in the world in the most popular show in the world … I can’t express it.”
And he’s making the role his own. “The wonderful thing about this company — no one ever asked me to do an impersonation of Lin,” he says. “It would have been Julius impersonating Lin impersonating Hamilton — hat on hat on hat. Instead I’m encouraged to bring my own spirit to it, my own energy. I think there’s a fire I share with the character that I’m able to tap into.”
The musical, directed by Thomas Kail with choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler, follows Hamilton from immigrant to George Washington’s right-hand man, to the first U.S. treasury secretary. He dies in a famous duel with Aaron Burr in 1804.
But the thing is, this play has turned the traditional musical on its sometimes culturally tone-deaf ears, with a multicultural cast as the white-wigged founding fathers and hiphop, jazz and R&B blending with Broadway-style show tunes in a luminary and decidedly revolutionary social commentary.
And it shows no signs of slowing. In December, “Hamilton” became the first Broadway show in history to make more than $4 million in one week. So far during its run, it has totaled more than $476 million in box office revenue. The cast album has been on Billboard’s Top 200 albums chart for 174 weeks. And an immersive museum-style exhibit launches in April in Chicago, aptly titled “Hamilton: The Exhibition,” with an audio tour narrated by Miranda. More information is at hamiltonexhibition.com.
The actors can’t begin to explain the allure, because everyone takes away something different, Thomas says. “Not only does it give us a swath of history, but it helps us understand these historic figures as humans, with lives, with relationships. And as it relates to today, it’s all about the representation — for people of all colors to look at art and see beautiful representations of themselves.”