Tuesday, May 10, 2016

My Favorite Thing About Hamilton Today: These Glorious People!

I wish to god I'd been able to see the show in NY, with the original cast.  I have no idea who's touring, but the chances that I'm going to see Daveed Diggs and Leslie Odom, Jr. and Lin-Manuel Miranda and Renee Elise Goldsberry when Hamilton comes to Boston next year is really slim.  But everything I learn about these people is amazing--the shows they do for people waiting on line, their excitement and enthusiasm whenever any of them talk about the phenomenon that they're living right now.  The amount of sheer fun they all seem to be having.

Then I saw this, and it made me literally tear up with joy.



Not because I particularly care about Sweeney Todd (I've never seen it, though I have watching this awesome comparison of various Mrs. Lovett performances), but because there is something so unbelievably compelling about a group of incredibly talented people at the top of their game doing what they're amazing at, as a team.  It's like the ultimate heist movie, only instead of imaginary characters stealing diamonds, it's really actors having fun with something they love.  And I love it, too!  It's like a tiny glimpse inside of this incredible team, and it's absolutely moving.

I also got the Hamiltome for Mother's Day, and as I'm starting to dip into it, so many wonderful details about the actors and their performances and how the show came together, and it's just making me love them all more and more. 

More on this book as I get further in, but after owning it for a few hours, my reaction is that these annotations are amazing and I wish they had annotated every damned word in the whole thing.  I knew this was a work of genius, and it gets better the deeper you get.  The bits that were cut, the rap allusions I wouldn't have gotten, the snippets that the actors brought to their characters--it's freaking amazing.  I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT.

Ahem.  Thank you, Mike and Adam, for my Mother's Day gift.  Good show.

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