‘Hamilton’ makes its long-awaited return to Pittsburgh
Alexander Hamilton is immeasurably more popular in Southwestern Pennsylvania today than he was 230 years ago.
Back in the 1790s, when the United States government was in its infancy and weighed down by debts from its Revolutionary War, Hamilton beat the drums for an excise tax on whiskey in his capacity as the country’s first Treasury Secretary. Hamilton saw the drink as an expendable luxury. To farmers in the region, however, it was their livelihood.
As the Whiskey Rebellion swept up Washington and Fayette counties and other parts of the region, Hamilton would not have been a popular presence. The eyes of the rebellious farmers were almost certainly as dry as sandpaper when Hamilton was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr a decade later.
More than two centuries ago, all the of Hamilton’s detractors had no way of imagining how he could one day become the most popular founding father by a long shot. It’s all thanks to a musical that has a multicultural cast and is dominated by musical forms about 200 years removed from Hamilton’s time.
In the seven years since it’s Broadway debut, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton: An American Musical” has become a phenomenon unlike any other musical at least since the days of “The Sound of Music,” “West Side Story” or “Oklahoma!” It has won a raft of awards, including a Pulitzer Prize, remains one of Broadway’s hottest tickets after being shut down for more than a year due to COVID-19, its soundtrack album is one of the best-selling Broadway cast albums of all time, and a filmed version of a performance garnered more than 2 million viewers in 10 days after it debuted on Disney+ in 2020 — far more than had it seen it live at that point.
Based on a door-stopping biography by historian Ron Chernow, “Hamilton” has also made that book into an unlikely bestseller — it has moved more than 1 million copies, and given the royalties he receives from the musical has bestowed Chernow with an unexpected windfall.
“I never dreamed that I would be autographing Playbills,” Chernow told The Wall Street Journal in 2015. “I always look over my shoulder to watch the audience to see the immediate pleasure that story is giving people, which is not an experience a writer has.”
“Hamilton” first landed in Pittsburgh in January 2019, for a monthlong, sold-out run at the Benedum Center. Almost from the time the last notes rang out, area theatergoers were wondering when it would be back.
It was originally scheduled to make its return in 2021, but was postponed due to COVID-19. It opened Feb. 22 at the Benedum and will be there through March 13.
A handful of tickets remain for some of the performances, and the popular Hamilton lottery will offer 40 orchestra-level tickets, sold at $10 each, for every performance.
The digital lottery is run through the official “Hamilton” app, available on Apple or Android devices. Users can enter for a chance at the tickets by selecting the “lottery” section and going to the area for the Pittsburgh shows.
Lucky winners chosen at random will be notified and have two hours to claim and pay for up to two $10 seats.
There is no purchase necessary to enter, and winning tickets can be picked up at the box office two hours prior to the performance.
“Hamilton” will be in Pittsburgh as it is making its debut in some of America’s theatrical markets, such as Richmond, Va., Toledo, Ohio, Fayetteville, Ark., and Greenville, S.C. Despite its uniquely American character and settings, “Hamilton” has also found audiences in Europe and Australia.
And it seems likely that “Hamilton” will keep going and going, and keep drawing audiences, for decades to come.
On the NPR program “Fresh Air” in 2020, Miranda said, “When you write a musical that brushes up against sort of the origins of this country, it’s always going to be relevant.”
For information, go online to trustarts.org, or call 412-456-6666.