Hamilton: The Revolution

“[T]he narrative of the show’s creation amplifies the show’s themes, like the one about how stories harden into history.”

Miranda and his collaborators acknowledge that they take liberties with history in the musical to tell the story that they came to the table to tell. The essays in the chapters form a historical narrative of the musical’s creation, demonstrating that narratives of history are necessarily curated.

“If we can’t keep our own histories straight, then the process of legacy formation that obsessed Hamilton and his contemporaries is even more fraught than we think, and the results are even more suspect.”

McCarter and Miranda realized that they were been spreading stories about the musical’s genesis, but their stories weren’t consistent. They managed to review their own paper trail to determine what happened, but this drove the point home that historical narratives aren’t fact. They’re interpretation of documentation combined with subjective accounts.

“For all its variety of style and subject, rap is, at bottom, the music of ambition, the soundtrack of defiance, whether the force that must be defied is poverty, cops, racism, rival rappers, or all of the above.”

Amid the questions as to whether hip-hop could be used as a dramatic form in musical theater, Miranda exploits its potential successfully. McCarter describes “My Shot” as a classic musical theater “I want” song, identifying the inherent suitability of the genre because rap is about expressing want and defiance, both of which are dramatic and actionable.