This. Is. Hamilton!

This. Is. Hamilton!
June 22, 2020 Tom Ito

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” Streams July 3 on Disney+, & The Hit House got to contribute by scoring the arrangement for the Official Trailer!

It all began with Lin-Manuel Miranda reading Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography of Alexander Hamilton. Miranda was then inspired to bring Hamilton’s story to life in the form of a musical. On January 20, 2015 Hamilton previewed off-Broadway to a sold-out audience & officially opened on February 17 to critical acclaim. The rest is history as it rocketed to a record-setting 16 nominations in the 2016 Tony Awards, winning 11, including Best Musical, as well as the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, & a multitude of other prestigious awards. To state that it was an privilege for The Hit House & composer William August Hunt to score the arrangement for the Disney+ Hamilton Official Trailer would be an understatement. As if that wasn’t enough of an honor, Alex Lacamoire, the Music Director, Orchestrator, & Conductor for the Broadway production, as well as co-arranger of the score, graciously tweeted out, “The task of arranging the music bed for our #HamilFilm trailer was left to the specialists. Massive shoutout to @HitHouseMusic c/o @yebomustang [Sally House] and #WilliamAugustHunt for their epic scoring! (That key change, tho!) ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿผ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿผ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿผ.@disneyplus @HamiltonMusical.” Subsequently, Lin-Manuel Miranda himself retweeted Alex’s tweet with, “#ThatKeyChangeTho“. Sure, it may seem innocuous for some, but for us fangirls & fanboys at The Hit House, well we’re not admitting to tears of gratitude & joy being shed… but tissues were definitively damp.

Hamilton, for the uninitiated, is a two act musical with the music, lyrics, & book created by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Its music is inspired by hip hop, R&B, pop, soul, & traditional show tunes to tell the story of America’s founding father, Alexander Hamilton, along with other historical figures such as U.S. Presidents George Washington, James Madison, & Thomas Jefferson, as well as Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, Aaron Burr, John Laurens, Hercules Mulligan, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, Angelica Schuyler, Peggy Schuyler, & Philip Hamilton. The cast of the show are predominantly non-white actors portraying the Founding Fathers. The show which will stream July 3, 2020 on Disney+ was filmed in June 2016 at The Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway. It features Tony Award winners Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton, Daveed Diggs as Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson, Renรฉe Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler, Leslie Odom, Jr. as Aaron Burr, Tony Award nominees Christopher Jackson as George Washington, Jonathan Groff as King George, Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton, Jasmine Cephas Jones as Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds, Okieriete Onaodowan as Hercules Mulligan/James Madison, & Anthony Ramos as John Laurens/Philip Hamilton. The cast also includes Carleigh Bettiol, Ariana DeBose, Hope Easterbrook, Sydney James Harcourt, Sasha Hutchings, Thayne Jasperson, Elizabeth Judd, Jon Rua, Austin Smith, Seth Stewart, & Ephraim Sykes.

In these fraught times, Hamilton the musical gives us hope that passion will spark action & a brighter more just future. The Hit House is beyond grateful for the opportunity to have contributed to this incredible event & we can’t wait to stream it on Disney+ on July 3! Hamilton will doubtlessly inspire future leaders, feed conversations, & hopefully foment real-world change in the present & not just as a beautiful musical legacy.