An Analysis of Hamilton: An American Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Studying Lin-Manuel Miranda's masterpiece, Hamilton: An American Musical, this semester was quite beneficial to my ever-developing and changing understanding of what theatre means as a whole, and it furthered my belief in the largely collaborative nature it puts to use. Even at the beginning of the semester when we watched a series of YouTube videos about certain designers, I started to realize just how much goes into theatrical design.

I was always merely an actor until my senior year of high school when I tried my hand at directing and playwriting, but even then, I had not gotten the opportunity to fully grasp a complete comprehension of design until this class.

In high school, design was done largely by one person the faculty director who likely didn't have much experience nor resources to produce a higher-quality design—with some help on the side, but in the professional world (and even in a university setting), theatrical design is a business in and of itself, with specialists for various aspects of design each applying their specific skill sets to use, resulting often in a creative blend of ideas.

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Lighting, sound, set, props, and costume design, for instance, are all very separate tasks and each require an individual designer to put his/her two cents into a production, bolstering the claim that theatre is mainly a collaborative art form.

Specifically, for Hamilton, it was a wonder to me how so many people with differing belief systems, genders, orientations, and personalities could all come together to create something so beautiful and influential.

I was never a big fan of the show when it first started being popular, dismissing it as simply a fad without basis that would fade eventually (like so many fads do), but watching the PBS documentary and listening to the soundtrack for class made me realize just how much passion and talent were put into this project.

When a guy spends an entire year writing a single song for a musical, for instance, you can tell he cares a lot about how it will turn out. The documentary also went into areas of the musical that I'd never think to research on my own, such as the slew of designers who helped put it all together. It also gave insightful perspectives into how the entire process went, such as following Miranda throughout the entire several-year process (writing, composing, and performing). While it didn't discuss the design as much as the actors, the PBS documentary was fascinating and what piqued my interest the most.

Hamilton: The Revolution was also a useful tool in getting a grasp on who the different people and what their jobs were. After reading all four assigned sections from the book— sections about prop design, set design, lighting design, and costume design—it was stunning to me how many people were involved. The little details got to me, like how each prop letter or piece of paper in the play was a hand-written replica of the real historical document.

Another example would be how they did their best to include both historical and modern components, most noticeably in the actors' costumes. From the beginning, I was intrigued and maybe a little confused why most of their costumes were period-style, but their heads were left modernized. Their facial hair and hairdos, for instance, were left unadorned.

George Washington's head was bald, and Alexander Hamilton's face had a goatee. This wasn't touched upon in the reading, but I can assume it was an effort to bring together the present and the past— much like the lyrics of the songs themselves did to remind the audience that the problems these seventeenth-century historical figures faced are not so different from our own in 2016, and how a celebration of the actors' individuality is equally important as a celebration of the characters'.

The attention to detail in terms of set design was also admirable, as they used the same wood used to build ships of the time period, and how the set literally gets built as the play progresses, to symbolize the new country being built as well. This play is an inspiration particularly to me, because when I learned how Miranda started Hamilton—with a single song perfumed to President Obama—and how far he progressed since then, it serves as proof that you can make it places with nothing but yourself and your talent. I have had similar experiences with my own writing, and now I know that similar success is always challenging, but never impossible.

Working in our small groups during class on our project of designing Hamilton gave me insight into what it's like to involve yourself in a hands-on design experience, however limited we were in terms of resources. While some of us were theatre majors and more knowledgeable than others who were non-majors and weren't as well-versed in design, I feel that we all worked together and each contributed equally, albeit in different areas.

But even if it was more of a comical idea than a serious one, our consistent application of the space theme it seemed to prove that even if you have ludicrous concepts, you persist with them and they have the potential to be meaningful and effective. Theatre is, after all, a place for new ideas and abstract thought, so an adaptation of a play in a different setting is not all that unheard-of, in fact. What mattered more than the strange idea we came up with was how we presented it and implemented it, and in that respect, I think our group managed to go above and beyond and serve as the example that theatre is all about putting your own two cents into a preexisting show or idea, which simultaneously emphasizes the importance of design and collaboration.