The wait is over. Hamilton, the groundbreaking musical, has arrived on the Disney streaming service. Eli Glasner explores whether the Broadway smash hit works on the small screen.
One of the most striking things about the newly released filmed version of the groundbreaking musical Hamilton is that the release almost didn’t happen.
As reported by the New York Times in March as the effects of the pandemic set in, Robert Iger, executive chairman of Disney, called Lin-Manuel Miranda, the star and artistic force behind the hip-hop musical, and Thomas Kail, Hamilton‘s director.
Iger thought the time was right to release the film to the Disney+ streaming service, instead of the original plan, an October 2021 big screen release. Kail and Miranda turned him down.
Now months later with the coronavirus rebounding in the United States, Hamilton has arrived just before America’s Independence Day. (Miranda said he was swayed by tales of people who had tickets for the musical about Alexander Hamilton, the founding father who created the modern American banking system, but couldn’t attend due to the virus.)
WATCH | Official trailer for the filmed version of Hamilton:
Whether streaming at home or live on stage, what sets Hamilton apart isn’t just its swagger but a revolutionary reimagining of America. Gone are the musty portraits of men in powdered wigs. Instead, the stage is filled with a multiracial cast that looks like it was plucked from a block in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The immigrants who get the job done sing about the young republic’s struggle for independence, battling first against England and then charting a path forward. With the now familiar cadence of Miranda’s lyrics, cabinet debates become ciphers with Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson trading lines back and forth.
There’s something so appropriate about using the irreverence of hip hop, an art form built on remixing and sampling, to tell the story of men writing their own rules.
This multiracial retelling of America’s origin story isn’t just