WASHINGTON – “Hamilton,” the top-grossing musical on Broadway, is coming to Washington. The “room where it happens” is the Opera House at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
People may not have to “throw away their shot” because the show is slated for a 14-week stay this summer.
Tickets went on sale Monday to Kennedy Center members and will be available to the public next Monday. The production will run from June 16 to September 20.
Tickets range from $79 to $550, with 40 orchestra seats offered at $10 each for each performance. There is a maximum purchase limit of eight tickets per household, and the Kennedy Center has warned against buying counterfeit tickets from resellers.
“It’s tempting to get tickets any way you can,” said producer Jeffrey Seller. “There are many sites and people who are selling overpriced, and in some cases, fraudulent tickets.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s epic production has long been the most coveted ticket since it debuted on Broadway in 2015, pulling in more than $633 million in ticket sales during that time.
The two-act show tells the story of the rise of Alexander Hamilton and the creation of the United States in the vernacular of modern music and language. It is a reflection of a nation built by immigrants, and invites everyone to see themselves in the story, according to Aaron Rabinowitz, author of “Hamilton and Philosophy: Revolutionary Thinking.”
The upcoming tour will feature a company including Joseph Morales as Hamilton, Jared Dixon as Aaron Burr, Stephanie Jae Park as Eliza Hamilton and Marcus Choi as George Washington.
The cast – originally starring Miranda himself – is comprised of a diverse group of performers that tells the Founding Father’s tale from his emigration from the West Indies to the American colonies, his quick political rise and his fateful duel with Aaron Burr to a hip hop and R&B-style musical score.
Miranda told Broadway News two years ago he wanted to hire a diverse and inclusive group to challenge how theatergoers thought about his subject.
“You rob it of its inevitability, you rob it of its sort of plaster sainthood, and it’s just good storytelling,” he said. And given the genres of music he uses to tell the story, “if it had been an all-white cast, wouldn’t you think I messed up?” Miranda said.
Miranda first rose to prominence for “In the Heights,” which he wrote while he was majoring in theater studies at Wesleyan University. Both that work and “Hamilton” defy convention, infusing hip hop with classical musical theater styles.
At 40, Miranda has won three Tonys, two Grammys, an Emmy, a Pulitzer Prize and was awarded a “first of its kind” honor from the Kennedy Center.
The Kennedy Center typically honors artists for lifetime achievements, but in 2018 it celebrated Miranda, director Thomas Kail, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler and musical director Alex Lacamoire for the indelible mark they left on the historical narrative with “Hamilton.”
Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein said at the time: “The creators of ‘Hamilton’ have literally and figuratively changed the face of American culture with daringly original, breathtakingly relevant work.”
Some songs – the opener and recurring leitmotif, “Alexander Hamilton,” and “My Shot” – took Miranda an entire year to write; he spent seven years writing the entire show. It was an overnight hit, selling out to thousands and becoming a pop-culture phenomenon.
“Hamilton” tops long-running classics such as “The Lion King,” “Wicked” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” despite being fairly new to the stage. Tickets at theaters nationwide have to be purchased months in advance – and are still difficult to come by.
The original Broadway cast’s final curtain call on July 9, 2016 came with a surge of “Hamilfans” at the theater and a reselling of tickets as high as $9,975 for a second row seat in the orchestra, according to CNNMoney.
“Hamilton” is still playing at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway, while touring companies are crisscrossing the United States and Canada.
A film of the original production, assembled from three performances in New York in 2016, will be released by Disney on Oct. 15, 2021.