How ‘Hamilton’ struck such a chord with audiences

The “$10 Founding Father,” that is — the inspiration for the Broadway-and-beyond musical phenomenon “Hamilton,” which opens a monthlong Smith Center run Tuesday night.

Those who read Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography already knew about Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant from the West Indies whom the author describes as a “messenger from America’s future,” one who envisioned “a large, bustling country with big cities, a strong federal government and an economy dominated by trade, industry, banks, and stock exchanges.”

Those who didn’t know about Hamilton — including actor Joseph Morales — certainly know now.

Morales, who plays Hamilton at The Smith Center, says he was unfamiliar with his character before being cast. “I don’t think many people did,” says Morales, who read Chernow’s biography to help with his portrayal. “It’s shocking we didn’t know more,” because Hamilton “was responsible for a lot of systems” that helped the fledgling federal government operate, including the budget and tax systems, a central bank, a customs service and what became the Coast Guard.

Hamilton and his fellow Founding Fathers “started this thing from nothing, which is insane,” Morales says of the American Revolution and the subsequent creation of the new United States. “It could have gone in either direction.”

The same could be said of “Hamilton’s” creators — especially Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote “Hamilton’s” book and score and played the title character in the show’s initial off-Broadway and Broadway productions.

Vacationing after his first Tony-winning show, “In the Heights,” Miranda picked up Chernow’s biography in an airport bookstore and was “swept up by the story,” he told CNBC before “Hamilton’s” London debut. “I thought it ‘out-Dickens’ Dickens in the unlikeliness of this man’s rise from his humble beginnings … to changing, helping shape our young nation.”

While developing “Hamilton,” Miranda turned to a master of translating the seemingly untranslatable for the stage: legendary Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim, whose musicals have focused on, among other things, a murderous barber (“Sweeney Todd”), pointillist painter George Seurat (“Sunday in the Park With George”), Japan’s 19th-century westernization (“Pacific Overtures”) and fractured fairy tales (“Into the Woods”).

As Miranda recounted in the New York Times style magazine T, when Miranda told Sondheim of his “Hamilton” plans, Sondheim “threw back his head in laughter and clapped his hands,” telling Miranda, “ ‘That is exactly what you should be doing. No one will expect that from you. How fantastic.’ … I sent him early drafts of songs over the seven-year development of ‘Hamilton,’ and his email response was always the same. ‘Variety, variety, variety, Lin. Don’t let up for a second. Surprise us.’ ”

Beyond its historical subject matter, “Hamilton’s” rap-flavored score sets it apart.

So does the show’s pointedly multicultural casting, which reflects contemporary America even as the performers re-create the nation’s contentious birth.

Actor Nik Walker, the current tour’s Burr, says that when he saw African-American actor Michael Luwoye portray Hamilton, he understood that “I actually do fit in this world. I had never imagined a role like that would be available to someone who looks like me. I can’t tell you how much that meant.”

In Walker’s view, “by all means, this show shouldn’t work. Founding Fathers told through rap?” But, from the beginning, “everyone knew it was a special piece,” he says. “But I don’t think everyone knew how wide the impact would be.”

Contact Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.