The most important musical of the decade turns 10: it won the Pulitzer Prize and you can watch it on Disney+.

The United States has its classic superheroes: there's Superman , Batman, and even the most patriotic of all, Captain America. But for the past ten years, it could be said that a flawed little man has entered the league, without superpowers and with a brilliant mind for political and economic strategy. The legend of Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), lawyer, politician, and economist, one of the country's Founding Fathers, signer of the Constitution, and founder of the financial system, hardly needed to be further mythologized. But after reading his biography, written by Ron Chernow, playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda (New York, 1980) reasoned that few Americans really knew the work of one of our most important national figures. So why not fill that space in textbooks by explaining his soap-opera-worthy life through songs that fused hip-hop with rap, R&B, and pop?

The musical Hamilton debuted at New York's Public Theater in February 2015, but a few months later it began its run at the Richard Rodgers Theater, one of the temples that crown the Broadway mile. The rest is history: it won 11 Tony Awards , a Grammy, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. To this day, it continues to perform at the same venue, and only had to stop its performances in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At that time, a filmed version of the play was scheduled to be released in theaters, but given the circumstances of the international quarantine, the film, directed by Thomas Khail, was made available to Disney+ . From that moment on, another kind of fever was unleashed: that of spectators chanting the "Da da da da da" of the character of King George III. Streaming made it possible for half the world to learn the catchy songs that populate a play that lasts more than two and a half hours... and of which none are superfluous.

The story tells of the rise, but also the unpopular fall of the sitter: a Caribbean orphan of humble origins who studied law and participated in the 1775 War of Independence against the British. He became the right-hand man of General Washington, who would later become the first president of the United States. He was appointed treasurer, founded the Bank of the United States , and at the height of his career, a controversial extramarital affair led to a duel that resulted in the death of one of his sons.

Hamilton 's true breakthrough was in telling a story about the nation's origins, in which the main protagonists were Caucasian, with racialized performers, mostly Latino or African American . Miranda himself, Renée Elise-Goldberry, Anthony Ramos, Daveed Diggs, Philipa Soo, Ariana DeBose and Leslie Odom Jr. are some of the names that made up the original cast, and who reunited at the last Tony Awards gala, where the musical's tenth anniversary was honored.

Gifted student

Miranda, committed to his roots in practically every one of his works (he is also the author of soundtracks such as Vaiana, Encanto or Vivo ), was supported by glories such as Stephen Sondheim , who supervised each of the work's progress by email. Previously, Miranda was known for In the Heights , the story of the Latino neighborhood of Washington Heights, in New York, and its fight against gentrification and the extinction of the identity of its streets. The play was adapted to film in 2021 by Jon M. Chu, now known for his adaptation of another Broadway jewel, Wicked , and in Spain it was known as En un barrio de Nueva York .

Miranda defines himself as an apprentice of the great masters of musical theatre: from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Jonathan Larson, whom he particularly paid homage to in his film debut, Tick Tick... Boom! He has absorbed influences from all of them, and, once digested, the lyricist and composer's unique style is recognizable by the distribution of different musical styles throughout a single work, as well as within his songs. The characters sing what defines them, and end up uniting their voices in a melody that shelters them in choral refrains. Hamilton is no exception: songs like Alexander Hamilton, My Shot, The Room Where It Happens, Helpless , and Satisfied become leitmotifs that are repeated throughout the work, until they converge.

Ten years later, the creator is pleased to continue to be one of the cheapest plays on Broadway, with special discounts. With a strong social and class consciousness, the project was born under the auspices of Barack Obama . The White House was one of the first settings for Hamilton , where Miranda presented its main theme in 2015, at a poetry night organized by the President. Throughout his career, he has also ruthlessly attacked some of the initiatives of Trump's administration, and is currently raising funds for immigrants affected by his latest measures. It's yet another way to connect with his potential audience and remind us that theater, however highly praised, must continue to be by and for the people. Although Miranda has taken off with an acting career, repeated appearances on Jimmy Fallon's show, or with more insubstantial soundtracks for Disney ( Mufasa: The Lion King ), his latest studio work, Warriors , an adaptation of the novel by Sol Yurick, remains consistent with his line of work, vindicating the fusion of the globalized world, from the perspective of immigrant representation.