In The Room Where It Happens

I am feeling extremely grateful and fortunate that Miles and I got to see Hamilton on Broadway, and with this cast, led by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Exuberant, inspiring, exciting as hell.

I feel like we have been a part of something big, and unforgettable. A moment in time never to be repeated in the same way, captured in our minds and hearts and our shared experience of that night.

Miles whispered to me after three or four songs "My mouth is moving involuntarily!" It can't be helped!

The last time I was an uber fan was in the summer of 1994 when Melisa Lasell, Laurie Bramel and I, with a rotation of other Chico State friends, obsessed over Prince's newly released Purple Rain album. That winter, I was tasked to get 4 tickets to the concert and Judy Stalker and I spent the night outside Record Factory in Walnut Creek. Sometimes you just have to do it! That night was eventful and fun, and that concert remains the most memorable one of my life, and all the more precious in my memory now with Prince's early death. I feel extremely grateful and fortunate that I saw him during the Purple Rain tour, in all his strutting, sexy, purple glory. 

Hamilton: the show, the music, the choreography is so layered and active, of course, that immediately I wished I could see it again. And again! To see how they do it, to hear the songs live and hear the audience fill the great room with applause and cheers after every number. 

It would be enough. This will have to be enough.

 (Until it comes to San Francisco!)

TONIGHT!

After (intermittently) loitering like crazy people outside the Richard Rogers the last few days, tonight is the night!

Best Wedding Toast Ever

A couple years ago I fell in love with the video of a father and son-in-law surprising the bride with a terrific rendition of To Life from Fiddler on the Roof. The whole thing tickled me: the idea, the execution, the vibrancy, the sheer fun of a great creative collaboration! 

"He's in theater" I was told by whoever had shared the video. I didn't know who he was. I shared that video with a lot of people.

A couple months ago I put two and two together. That's Lin-Manuel Miranda!

I have a feeling you'll love to too.

(Oh and keep your eye out for Chris Jackson, the tall, bald African-American man who plays George Washington in Hamilton. He's in the ensemble here...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgZ4ZTTfKO8 

Fraunces Tavern

Recently, hearing we were off on a sort of Hamilton pilgrimage, a friend mentioned that we should go to Fraunces Tavern, which I had never heard of. A working tavern dating back to the American Revolution it was the site where Washington bid farewell to his officers in 1783.

We went to Fraunces Tavern yesterday 

as part of our outing to Trinity Church where Hamilton is buried.

Miles reading the Federalist Papers on his phone (ha ha).

Pub fare: stout and fish and chips with smashed peas.

This morning, reading some of Hamilton, The Revolution, about how the stage show came to be, I saw a stage direction at the bottom of the song Aaron Burr, Sir. It said "They enter Fraunces Tavern..."(!!!)

See below in the second photo, as well as the footnote at bottom right on the page.

Cheers to that.

In The Greatest City In The World, Wherein We Become Groupies (or Stalkers), Part 1

After the first night in front of the stage door where only two main actors came out, we loitered near the main theater doors last night.  After a series of limos/ black livery cars left, a single black car remained in front and I assumed it was for Lin. WIth only a few people in front (and over 100 near the stage door) nearly every actor exited from the main and immediately adjacent doors. Lin-Manuel Miranda literally ran out the theater doors and leapt into the car.  We got looks and waves from him as if to say "I'm sorry I have to do this.  I would have no life if I didn't do this!"

 

Daveed Diggs arriving for Friday night's performance.

Alex Lacamoire, the musical director, diving for the open door.

Leslie Odom Jr, who plays Aaron Burr. Odom is nominated for Best Actor in a Musical against Lin-Manuel Miranda, and may well win. 

Okieriete Onaidowan (Oak) who plays Mulligan the revolutionary in Act I and James Madison in Act II.

The incredibly handsome Christopher Jackson who plays George Washington.  He is signing Miles' one dollar bill here. It is very hard for me not to think of Washington as looking like this now.

Phillippa Soo who plays Hamilton's wife, Eliza. She has a chance to win the best actress in a musical Tony Award because her part has so much breadth (life, love, loss.)

Wait For It - In Which Miles Learns We'll See Hamilton In NYC

I was very excited to tell Miles I had bought the tickets for us to see Hamilton in New York. At 7:30 the next morning, I sat on his bed to wake him up. 

"Miles. Wake up now," I murmured exactly as I had when he was a wee laddie. As he began to stir, he suddenly sat up and told me, "I had two dreams last night that I saw Hamilton!" 

(Wow.)

"In both dreams I was with Dad, and we were sitting close to the stage. In the second one, Ari and Darius were in the show, in the ensemble. At one point they motioned to me to come on stage, so I put my top hat on the empty chair beside me. Like there would be an empty chair beside me!" he said laughing. "And I joined in with the ensemble."

"I bought tickets." I said.

He let this register for a minute and then said in a measured tone, "You bought tickets?"

"Yeah."

"We're going to New York?"

"Yeah."

Miles is not a jump up and down, scream and run through the house kind of kid. So he didn't jump up and down, scream and run through the house. His fixed brow and darting eyes told me his mind was at work...we were going to New York, we were going to see Hamilton, we were going to see (nearly) the entire original cast.

"When?" he asked.

"Right after graduation," I said. "You graduate on Tuesday, May 24th, and we'll fly that Thursday and see it on the 31st."

"Cool," he said.

Super Cool.

Lin at the White House, and Making the Decision To Go to New York

For any non initiates, I think the following video, shot at a Spoken Word performance at the White House in 2009, is an excellent place to start. This clip shows an early version of Hamilton, the opening song, an early version of the vision - at this point just planned to be a set of songs making up a "mixtape".

Just like the Obamas and others in the audience watching, you can witness for yourself that there is something incredibly unique and bizarre and compelling going on here. it is evident that Lin-Manuel Miranda is a force to be reckoned with. Like Alexander Hamilton himself apparently was.

Lin-Manuel Miranda performs at the White House 2009.

http://youtu.be/WNFf7nMIGnE

When Miles and I returned home from my niece's birthday party in April, we once again sat side by side at the computer. Miles held his iPhone playing the soundtrack while we looked for articles or videos we hadn't yet seen. 

Suddenly he paused the playing song and said "It makes me really sad to think that next year when Hamilton comes to San Francisco, Lin-Manuel won't be with them. None of them will." His head was bent looking down at the iPhone in his hand, his voice sounded as if he might begin to cry.

"That's right," I said softly. "The original cast does not tour with the show." 

We sat there for a minute, in silence, as Miles got used to this newly realized reality, and I began to create a different one.  It was this cast Miles knew, this cast that was making history on Broadway. It was this cast that drove Miles to choose "singing" as his first choice elective next year ("These guys have so much range. When I sing along I can't reach the same notes.  I want to be a better singer.")

We had to go to New York.

One can rationalize a lot of different things. This was a moment in time, I told myself, a musical captivating my musical son, a moment on the cusp of Miles becoming a surly teenager where he might not want to go on vacation with his mom. Miles was about to graduate from 8th grade so the trip and the show could be a graduation present. It could be a pat on the back for getting into the fine High School he was selected to for the Fall. A neighbor family had just started having Miles babysit so he could earn some of the money to contribute. He and Frank were planning a sidewalk sale where he could sell old toys and games. He might get some money for graduating as well. Could Miles be talked into a crowd funding plea to friends and family?! (The answer there was no. When the question was posed to him he said "why would anyone want to give me money to see Hamilton?") 

I had been trying to get back to New York for six years - this would be a great reason to do it!

Question: If one blows nearly the whole vacation budget on theater tickets, how cheaply can one "do" New York? We'd have to see.

After Miles went to bed I looked again at the date I had considered, Tuesday May 31st, 2016. Miles would graduate on May 24th and we could fly to New York on the 26th. I had an airline credit that had to be used by August - that would help.

I selected the least expensive (ha!) tickets that weren't all the way in the nosebleed section, in the last row in the mezzanine, stage right (equivalent to about row Q, but up a level.) Feeling a moment of panic at this extremely extravagant move, I bought two tickets. 

One can rationalize a lot of different things.