Synopsis
Hamilton is a musical that tells the story of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton through a bold mix of hip-hop, R&B, and traditional show tunes. Set against the backdrop of the American Revolution, it traces Hamilton’s rise from an impoverished immigrant in the Caribbean to George Washington’s trusted aide, influential statesman, and architect of the nation’s financial system. The show explores themes of ambition, legacy, and the cost of greatness, presenting history through a modern lens with a diverse cast and contemporary rhythms.
Reviews (Off-Broadway)
“Hamilton is neither a challenge nor a chore. It’s just great.”
Vulture
“This exuberant and original new musical mashes up genres from rap to operetta, creating a flawed but glorious portrait of the face on the $10 bill.”
The Guardian
“Hamilton is not just a show, it is an experience… This is not a show that you sit and watch. It is a show that takes you by the hand and pulls you into its embrace.”
New York Theatre Guide
“There’s rarely been a history lesson as entertaining as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s new hip hop-infused musical about Alexander Hamilton, or, as the opening number puts it, “The ten-dollar founding father without a father.””
The Hollywood Reporter
Playbill’s My Life in the Theatre
On 2 December 2025 Playbill released an interview with Brian on Youtube under their My Life in the Theatre playlist. Below is a transcript from the video about his time with Hamilton – you can watch it here.
“Hamilton, at The Public Theatre. It’s interesting that this is the, uh, I love that it’s The Public Playbill. Talk about being on the ground floor of something extraordinary.
Oh, boy. I’m so proud and so lucky to be a part of this story, who lives, who dies, who tells your story? I loved, I loved this whole experience, and I always felt like I had kind of won the lottery in a way. I know everyone says that probably in the cast, probably feels the same way. But in a way, coming into it, I was a bit of a satellite, you know, at the beginning, as is the character. So I had this sense of always kind of watching this show develop and evolve and just looking at it like, what the hell is this? I mean, what, I don’t, I don’t even get it. I mean, I was drawn to it, like a huge magnet, of course, but I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. So that was an interesting, that’s the first thing that comes to my mind in terms of being on the periphery and watching it take shape.
I suppose my colonoscopy story is probably warranted here. What? Um, So I had just done the, uh, the workshop of this. And I had my first colonoscopy, and apparently after I was coming out of my propofol haze, all the nurses were coming up to me and saying, we can’t wait to see the show. Thanks for, thanks for telling us about the show. What are you talking about? Well, you got us all tickets to this show. And apparently, I was in this, I have no memory of this, but apparently I was saying, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta come see this show, and you gotta, you gotta come see Alexander Hamilton. He raps. He does, he raps, and it’s about government, and it’s, I mean, it’s probably the weirdest… I’m sure they hear a lot of weird things, but apparently I promised the whole nursing staff at St. Luke’s that they could come see the show at The Public Theatre. I mean, I guess that speaks to the kind of subconscious level of my of my, um, appreciation for this show.
I have a very distinct memory of the first night, the first public performance at The Public Theatre, there was a fire, or the fire alarm went off. There wasn’t a fire, but the fire alarm went off, and so the show was delayed. And I would get dressed in my king regalia and my white tights and my red satin pants, and my whole king get up, and I would get dressed early so I could go and watch in the voms, the aisles leading under the stage where you could see on the stage of The Public. And I had done that during the dress rehearsals et cetera so I kind of positioned myself in the vom to watch Leslie Odom Jr. begin this show and that extraordinary cast oh my god.
But this night, the show didn’t start because everyone had to file out because there was a fire alarm. So Thomas Kail and I, Thomas, wandered into the vom, and we sat there for 20 minutes, just kind of reflecting on the fact that this thing was just about to happen, and just talking about, you know, I don’t remember what we talked about, but I’ll never, ever forget that moment because it was kind of like the before and after line of Hamilton, for me in the world, really. But to have shared that moment with Tommy, kind of felt like, you know, two astronauts, like this, locked in their chairs, just waiting for the countdown, you know, because that’s, I imagine, I think that’s what astronauts do, right? Just waiting, and you’re kind of locked in this position, and, you know, everyone knows what happened after that.
But, okay, so that’s that’s all one part of this story, the second part is, what’s interesting about this show, for me, was that I was going to do Something Rotten!, which was a show that I’d also been working on in development. Something Rotten! was especially, uh, funny and a totally different vibe, obviously, than Hamilton, everything else is. We were supposed to go out of town. And that part of the equation was then eliminated. So all of a sudden Something Rotten! was going to happen on Broadway about a year and a half earlier than I had imagined. So in my mind, I was going to say, oh, I’ll do this Hamilton thing see how it goes. And then Something Rotten! came about in a very realistic way. So I had to make this Sophie’s choice of kind of, do I go down this road? Do I stay on this road? Um, you know, people can make what they want of that decision. But I’ve always contended that I am the luckiest because I was able to do both.
And it was a generous thing for Tommy and for Lin and Andy and Alex Lacamoire, and, you know, everyone at The Public to kind of field that curveball that I, because I, I presented this before I was going to leave. And they said, oh, well, just we’ll have a chat and see if it’s something we feel is tenable. Thank God they did. I mean, I’m so grateful that I was there at all. And of course, Jonathan Groff came in and just was perfection and just amazing as he always is.
The Hamilton experience was, I joke that I’m the Pete Best of the Beatles Hamilton story. Um, I told this joke to a drummer and, uh, and he said, he didn’t laugh. He said, no, that’s not true because you didn’t get fired. So I gotta take some solace in that.”