My Hamilton Story

It's been a minute since I told my Hamilton story. That was many social media and blog platforms ago. My apologies for those of you who have followed me through it all and already know the story, and also, thank you for your longevity.

Why am I retelling this now? Well, the current political climate has a lot of people thinking about the Hamilton story, as told by Senor Miranda.

My story starts with the 2008 Tonys, which I always watch even though at that time I had never been to Broadway to see a show there. We'll come back to this point later so keep it in mind.

So I'm watching the 2008 Tonys and the cast of In the Heights performs and I was BLOWN A WAY. Then it won for Best Musical and Lin Manuel Miranda spoke and I was like, 'This guy is a fucking musical genius!' which is a title I had, at this point in my life, only ever bestowed on Freddie Mercury.

(Freddie Mercury was a musical genius. I will not be taking questions on this topic. Long live the Queen.)

So what does a musical theater fan (who's never been to Broadway) do in 2008? She looks up this Lin-Manuel guy on Twitter and starts following him.

And I follow his journey. Because, for one brief shining moment, before the brands and PR people and influencers found it, early Twitter could be a direct connection to your idols back then. I learned that this guy was working on a mix-tape about Alexander Hamilton. Which would probably get a side-eye from a lot of people but I had put my full faith into this musical genius and I knew he was going somewhere with this.

2009: Lin-Manuel posts a video of himself performing at the White House. President Obama had invited him to perform something from In the Heights at a night of Poetry, Music and Spoken Word. To which Lin asked, 'Uhh...you cool if I do something from this new mix-tape I'm working on?' and Obama was like, 'Knock yourself out, dude.' And he performed the opening song from Hamilton. I became obsessed. I watched the video over and over until I knew all the words and could not wait for this new production from him to come to fruition.

It took a while. We had to...Wait For It.

2009-10: Lin has a guest appearance as Alvie on House, my favorite television show. It brings me crazy joy to see him and Hugh Laurie together. Chic-a-plow! Such a Lin line. Pretty sure we hear that a few times in the Hamilton war scenes.

2015: But word was getting out. Lin posted the now-famous tweet about a chance street encounter that led to the #YayHamlet hashtag among the show's early adopters.

March 2015: CBS Sunday morning does a story about the show. Shit's getting real now. Mainstream media is talking about it, not just theater nerds.

Around this same time, my husband is planning our 2015 vacations. He was a real planner that way. And he says to me, 'I was thinking for one of our vacations this year we could do a Broadway trip to New York.'

Okay, here's where I have to swing back for a minute. See, I've always been a musical theater nerd. Performed in them as a child and all through high school. When we moved to Louisiana I convinced my husband to get season tickets to Broadway in New Orleans - where touring companies visit the Saenger Theater. So I had been dragging my un-musical husband to muscials several times a year for a couple of years at this point. He gets it. He knows how much I love them. He knows I've never seen a show on Broadway. He wants to give me that.

So naturally...you can see where this is going...my response to his idea - other than of course being completely thrilled and excited - is to say, 'OMG HAMILTON!' and he's all 'Huh?' and I said (I swear these were the words I used...I probably stole them from CBS), 'It's the hip-hop retelling of the Founding Fathers.' And he said, 'Okay, whatever. Just give me a list of some shows you want to see.'

And friends, that is the story of how my first ever Broadway show experience was the original cast of Hamilton - including Jonathan Groff (Groffsauce*) - as the King - just one month after it opened on Broadway. It was an experience I'll never, ever forget. I remember specifically I was the only person in the audience who laughed at the line, 'Don't modulate the key and not debate with me.' I thought it was so smart and funny. Musical genius.

*Jonathan Groff was not on social media at the time. Lin called him #Groffsauce to help him follow along.

I bought a black t-shirt with the show logo on the sleeve and #yayhamlet on the front in gold letters. I told anyone who would listen that Leslie Odom Jr, Daveed Diggs and Renee Elise Goldsberry would win Tonys. (I was right.)

The story doesn't end there, of course. I came home and wrote a blog post about my experience. I tweeted a link to it, tagged Lin, #yayhamlet. He responded to my tweet: 'Yay @kalisah!"

I bought the OBCA when it came out. I bought the book Lin put out with all the show's easter eggs. My favorite was that when Lin was struggling with the King's songs, he met up with Hugh Laurie for a drink. Now for those who don't know, Hugh is also quite musically talented. (Check out his album of blues classics Let Them Talk.) And Hugh says to him, 'Make it a Brit pop break-up song.' And that became the massively popularYou'll Be Back.

July 2016: We plan another trip to NY. My husband is all-in on seeing celebrities on stage at this point. We decide to see Hamilton again, since it does not yet have a touring company. We get tickets for Friday, July 8. Between the time that we buy the tickets and make the trip, Lin announces that his last Hamilton performance would be...Saturday July 9. The rest of the original cast is still there, except for Groffsauce. We saw Rory O'Malley.

I saw a couple of touring companies of Hamilton in New Orleans before I started selling the tickets each season that it came so that others not as lucky as I had been could experience it.

I still have the t-shirt. And the memories of my Hamilton story.