My Hopeful Prediction for Daveed Diggs As He Departs Hamilton in NYC

Today is Daveed Diggs' last day with the cast of Hamilton in the New York production. Here's my hopeful prediction:

Daveed will take several months off, and then join the cast for Hamilton's run in San Francisco and LA next Spring and Summer.

Daveed is Miles' favorite person in the show. Daveed's dual parts (General Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson) have captivated Miles he listens for the nuances in each of Daveed's lines: the funny ways Daveed pronounces certain words (like whiskey), the way he punctuates his line to the State of Virginia by blowing a kiss, and his dazzling raps among other distinctly Diggsian touches. When Miles and his friend Ari audiotaped themselves doing the first Hamilton and Jefferson rap battle from the show, Miles played Jefferson.

It turns out we have a connection with Daveed Diggs through James Lick Middle School. Until 2012 or so, Daveed was teaching a Spoken Word afterschool program at the school, and although he and Miles didn't overlap, we knew that the teacher who had been Daveed's main contact at the school, had also been a favorite teacher of Miles. (Miss Hacker had sent me a picture of herself backstage with Daveed taken last summer - with Vice President Joe Biden in the background!)

On our second night hanging at the stage door at the Richard Rogers, Daveed Diggs came out and proceeded to make his way through the gauntlet of fans, signing several hundred autographs. Miles had left his $2 bill in the hotel room so we weren't seeking an autograph but he inched through the crowd and as Daveed got close Miles said  "I'm from James Lick Middle School!" Daveed stopped.  He looked at Miles, smiled his giant smile, and running his hand through his bushy locks, said "You're from James Lick? Shiiit!"

"I graduated Tuesday," Miles told him. "Miss Hacker was my 7th grade English teacher."

The interaction seemed to connect Daveed back to the Bay Area for a moment bringing in a sense of familiarity, a kid from James Lick? "What? you know Miss Hacker?  Say hi to her for me! Where are you going to High School?" Daveed took a break from the intensity of signing and chatted with Miles while the throngs of people around us waited and wondered.

Later that week we remembered the $2 bill and inched through the crowd again for the signature.

See Daveed Diggs, as super Dapper Dude in this Esquire article from May.  http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a45240/daveed-diggs-profile-hamilton/

No Words Needed during Final Bow of Hamilton Leads

In a musical production lauded for its masterful use of words, lead actors Lin-Manuel Miranda, Philippa Soo and Leslie Odom Jr. gave a heartfelt nonverbal goodbye last night in New York as each departs Hamilton the Musical.

The following article describes the final curtain call of Miranda, Odom and Soo.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/theater/2016/07/10/hamilton-lin-manuel-miranda-final-performance-leslie-odom-jr-phillipa-soo/86914592/

Lin-Manuel waved to fans from the balcony of the Richard Rogers Theater July 9th following his final (official) performance.

Here is the video of the curtain call.  Listen closely for when the theme from The West Wing starts playing.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OER_9NEXo_c

Hamilteens - It's A Thing

Miles was included in this Guardian article about teen fans of Hamilton.  He's in the paragraph toward the bottom, after the video Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jimmy Fallon.



Hamilton's teenage superfans - "This is like crazy cool."
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/jun/22/hamilton-teenage-superfans-this-is-like-crazy-cool

I refer you to this piece on the Tonys, and the beautiful words of Lin-Manuel related to the Orlando crisis.



http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2016/06/13/481471389/on-a-dark-day-the-tonys-double-down-on-joy-and-pride

Make It Bigger!

Tonight is the Tony Awards, being called by some the Hamiltony's because of the record breaking 16 nominations Hamilton received. If it wins in every category it was nominated in the show could break the record of 12 Tonys held by The Producers, however the most they can win is 13 because of multiple Hamilton nominees in the male lead and featured male categories. Predicting Leslie Odom Jr for best lead actor in a musical over Lin-Manuel Miranda - as I think voters will want to spread the love and Lin will already win for best musical, book and music, and Daveed Diggs for best featured actor. 

To get in the mood, and for the sheer, bighearted glee of it, see the link below for the 2013 Tony opener. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=danBaPWT09A

In 2011, Lin-Manuel Miranda sat backstage at the Tonys working on a rap for Neil Patrick Harris to deliver at the close of the show.  Here working on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CR-sAit8LE

And then performed here where their creative collaboration and excellence gives way to a rocking show stopping close!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ocht_vicpc

There Is No Not Smiling When You Watch This

I only peripherally know who James Corden is.  He has a late night show which I have never seen. I don't know where James Corden came from. I mean, I don't know how he came to have a late night show. In any case, he is hosting the Tony Awards on Sunday night, and he apparently loves to sing and has a regular feature called Carpool Karaoke where he invites famous people to sing in the car with him (there are lots of these if you search them on YouTube.)

Here is a pre-Tony edition with some of the nominated stars from the Great White Way.

Come on - how.fun.is.this?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YshgmStEZh0


Watch the Tonys this Sunday night, June 12 at 8pm/7c, or I think you can watch it live online http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/live/

My Dad, My Son, and the Parade of Musicals Between The Music Man and Hamilton

There was a time when it was embarrassing to say I loved musicals. In fact, it may have never before truly been cool to admit a love of musicals, until this moment right now. I have run in circles cooler than that. It was cool to travel around the world, not to vacation at Club Med (which I super happily did twice in my early 30s). It was cool to see U2, not Elton John and Billy Joel. (Actually, I saw Neil Diamond too, at age 27. Talk about uncool! But I sang along to every song.)

I love musicals, even when I don't even really like them (like Wicked. It just felt to me like it was trying too hard.) I love Guys and Dolls, and She Loves Me and Dream Girls.

I love old school musicals like Fiddler on the Roof, Camelot, West Side Story and My Fair Lady that I know from singing along to the original cast albums as a kid. (We sang along to a lot of Neil Diamond in my house too.) 

Last year, for my mom's birthday, Miles and I took her to see The Music Man at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. At intermission, Mom made an admission I had never heard before. She said that my father had courted her with The Music Man soundtrack. What?! Leaning over to check on her when the lights came up - was she enjoying the high school production? - I found my mother unexpectedly happy and wistful. I had no idea there was history there.

While my parents were dating in the summer of 1959, my dad invited my mom up to a friend's apartment to listen to the original Broadway cast album from The Music Man. My father wooed my mother with Lida Rose!  Well, that's the song she specifically remembers him sharing, but when she mentioned it I immediately remembered that Lida Rose slips into the beautiful love song, Will I Ever Tell You, and ultimately ends in a lovely layered duet. There are some serious love songs on this album!  

From Till There Was You: 
There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No, I never heard it at all
Till there was you!

I never knew this about my father - and yet it makes so much sense. Of course he loved this album! The Music Man is a story of optimism and hope and dreaming big. It's about love and family, community and Irish immigrants, pool halls and marching bands! I have no doubt my dad was head over heels in love in the summer of 1959, and as he was not easily demonstrative with words, The Music Man gave him the sentiments and the instrumentation he lacked.

Here from the original Broadway Cast Album are the Buffalo Bills and Barbara Cook singing Lida Rose and Will I Ever Tell You by Meridith Wilson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fbbB2gCStg&list=PLUSRfoOcUe4ZhcxS2yRNDmbpYR04K696T&index=15

Lida Rose 
Lida Rose, I'm home again, Rose
To get the sun back in the sky.
Lida Rose, I'm home again, Rose
About a thousand kisses shy.
Ding dong ding
I can hear the chapel bell chime.
Ding dong ding
At the least suggestion I'll pop the question.
Lida Rose, I'm home again, Rose
Without a sweetheart to my name.
Lida Rose, now everyone knows
That I am hoping you're the same
So here is my love song, not fancy or fine
Lida Rose, oh won't you be mine
Lida Rose, oh Lida Rose oh Lida Rose.

Will I Ever Tell You 
Dream of now, dream of then.
Dream of a love song that might have been.
Do I love you?
Oh, yes, I love you.
And I'll bravely tell you
But only when we dream again.
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
How sweet that mem'ry how long ago
Forever?
Oh, yes forever.
Will I ever tell you?
Ah-- no.

Having both Wikipedia and YouTube at my fingertips I learned that in 1958 The Music Man was a "whopping hit" winning five Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Actor. Its original cast album won the very first Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Hamilton won the most recent Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album, and with 16 Tony nominations, is sure to win Best Musical and a slew of other Tonys on June 12th.

How wonderful it would be if my dad could see that his grandson is also swept away by the music in musical theater. Who knew that my love of musicals stretches forward and back in time through my father and my son.

Miles has a personal tradition of wearing costumes and wacky clothes the last week of school. As I dropped him off at school the day before he graduated, dressed as a doughnut, with a grey felt top hat, I thought of how remarkably brave he was. A 14 year old boy, wearing a doughnut costume and top hat to his big city public middle school. 

"Oh Miles! The doughnut!" I heard kids yell smiling as he climbed the front steps of the school. This kid must know who he is, I thought. This kid is trusting his instinct.

It turns out I have a love of marching bands and, thinking about my dad and The Music Man, I wonder if that's how it came about. When we wrote our "senior quotes" to be included under our formal portraits in our final high school yearbook, one of my "likes" was marching bands. I was Senior Class Vice President, a carefree, constantly smiling, non-instrument-playing teenager, saying in print that I liked marching bands. This was not cool, but it was true and it was me.  

I am looking at the threads of connection here, from my dad, to me, to Miles; threads of exuberant optimism that so typify the man my dad was, moments of goofiness, or not really giving (that much of) a damn. From a young Irish-American man wooing a pretty Italian-American girl with songs from a Broadway show they would never see, to his grandson almost 60 years later dressed as a doughnut as he walks into school. And me too, at 17 publicly acknowledging my love of marching bands, and choosing a cheesy, yet resonating Styx lyric in my senior yearbook quote! Oh I was so aware of how uncool that was at the time!

I don't think any of us always acts on our truest impulses and desires, but at best we are most of the time marching to the beat of our own drum. And ideally, it's a snare.

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