Seeing
Hamilton on Broadway in the fall of 2015 is and will always remain one of the most memorable theater experiences of my life. This was back before the Tonys, back before tickets were impossible to get, back before we listened to the cast recording obsessively and memorized every word (well, not every word, there are a lot of words), back before
Hamilton was the standard by which we measured everything, back before there was a we knew there was a
Hamilton quote appropriate to every situation. Going into the show that first time, I didn't know much about it, other than it was fantastic. But I wasn't expecting it to be so brilliant, so emotionally impactful, so relevant and revelatory. I was absolutely blown away. Seeing it again 14 months later, in Chicago, is different. The show is mostly the same, albeit with a new but just as talented cast, but the world is different than it was 14 months ago (one could say "the world's turned upside down"), I'm different than I was 14 months ago, my knowledge of the piece is different than it was 14 months ago. Seeing it a second time could never be as mind-blowing as the first time - I know what to expect now. But in a way it's a richer, deeper experience, precisely because I know what to expect. I was able to see and hear things in a way I couldn't that first time, because there's just so much to take in. So if you get a chance to see
Hamilton a first, second, or twenty-fifth time - take it. The national tour begins soon and
will come to Minneapolis sometime next season, and the New York and Chicago productions will likely not be going anywhere anytime soon.
