HAMILTON Goes Off Broadway
The hip hop musical Hamilton is sweeping the box office and every award it encounters. Yesterday, the Broadway sensation headed off-Broadway, all the way to the White House.
It was actually a return performance. Seven years ago, rapper and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda gave the president a taste of a “concept album based on the life of I someone I think embodies hip hop: Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton.” Yesterday, the full cast performed songs from the resulting musical.
In this first clip, the President talks about the musical and then the cast performs the opening number, “Alexander Hamilton.”
Here the cast performs “My Shot.”
There was a even a Rose Garden rap session, which, fulfilling POTUS’s prediction, immediately went viral.
Miranda’s preview of the work in progress seven years ago brought the President to his feet.