Theater History and Mysteries
The deepest dives you can find anywhere into the history and backstory of the great musical productions. Dense content...for people who aren't. And, I’ll never miss an opportunity to pursue any mystery, bizarre coincidence, improbable event, or supernatural suggestion along the way because, in the words of Dirk Gentley, it is all connected.
You can contact me directly at theaterhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Released every other Tuesday.
Music by Jon Bruschke and Andrew Howat, arranged, performed, and recorded by Andrew Howat.
Check out the interview on Musical Theater Radio, episode 404: https://www.musicaltheatreradio.com/podcast
Theater History and Mysteries
Hamilton -- Is it cool for actors of color to play old white guys? The case against multiracial casting. (Hamilton 7 of 12, episode 44)
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Hamilton, the musical, is a show about the founders of the United States, who were mostly white men, and to a much lesser extent white women, and it is played by people who are definitely not matched to the race of the historical figures. Like, that is the most conspicuous part of the show. The one thing that you can’t miss about Hamilton is that the cast is predominantly are actors of color playing historical figures who were undeniably white. Chris Jackson, Leslie Odom Jr., and Daveed Diggs, all Black men, play Washington, Burr and Lafayette, all white men. Lin Manual Miranda plays the title role of Alexander Hamilton, and according to wikipeida “He is of predominantly Puerto Rican descent and also has distant Mexican, English, and African American ancestry.“
Once it became clear this show was going into syndication, Miranda quipped: “That’ll be the note that goes with the school productions: If this show ends up looking like the actual founding fathers, you messed up.”
LMM has claimed, “This is a story about America then, told by America now, and we want to eliminate any distance—our story should look the way our country looks.“
There are people who love this approach, there are people who really do not, and there are, strangely, a number of people who almost don’t seem to notice. We’ll do a deep dive into all these points of view, and explore the nature of history, the nature of art, and figure out what the race options are in Broadway.com’s open casting drop-down menu, in this episode of THM.