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Lin-Manuel Miranda on Hamilton Resonating Amid "Incredible" Black Lives Matter Movement

By Allison Crist Jun 25, 2020 9:18 PMTags
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A musical for the masses. 

Disney previously announced its plan to bump up the release of the highly-anticipated Hamilton stage film, and as Lin-Manuel Miranda—the Tony-winning creator of the hit Broadway show—explained on E! News, the musical is still extremely relevant today, especially in light of the ongoing nationwide protests against systemic racism. 

"I think what's interesting about the show is that different things within it pop out depending where we are as a country, because the only really political element to it is that every problem, every flaw, everything that was present at the founding, is present now," Miranda told E!'s Lilliana Vazquez. "And that's good and bad."

He continued, "Because the show brushes against the roots of that systemic racism, against the roots of the original sin of slavery [and] against the roots of gun violence in this country, different things hit differently. And now that we are having this incredible movement which uses the language of revolution to remake the country closer to the ideals from which we've fallen short since the moment those ideals were written down, it's gonna hit different...and I'm very excited and curious as to what that's gonna be."

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Black Lives Matter: In Stars' Own Words

Even the "language of revolution" being used at protests, as Miranda mentioned, is sometimes connected to Hamilton: "I've been so overwhelmed and humbled at seeing language from the show itself showing up at Black Lives Matter protests on signs all over the country; from fans who write 'History Has Its Eyes on You,' and 'Past patiently waiting...' I'm very proud of that."

Miranda went on to reveal more details about the release, which was pushed up for "a couple" of reasons, with "number one [being], the world just turned upside down."

"And right now, there's no live theater anywhere," Miranda explained. "And we found ourselves in the incredible position of being able to provide not just live theater, but this movie that [Thomas] Kail has taken three years editing, that is this snapshot of the company of Hamilton in June of 2016 performing after nearly a year."

"I mean, it's literally the week before I left the show that we filmed these performances," he added. 

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As for Miranda's motivation to create a Hamilton stage film in the first place, the answer's pretty obvious when you recall how tough it was to score tickets.

"It's so hard to access Hamilton," Miranda said. "And we struggled with that. We continue to struggle with it. But one of the best ways we could do that is capture that company and give it to the world..."

Hamilton, filmed at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York City featuring the original cast—including Leslie Odom, Jr., Jonathan Groff, Anthony Ramos, Renée Elise Goldsberry and more—will be available to stream exclusively through Disney+ starting July 3, 2020.