By Garry Maddox
Six months after ending a tour of Australia, producers of the smash hit musical Hamilton are preparing to bring it back for another season.
Producer Jeffrey Seller has announced that the show, which has won 11 Tony awards as well as a Pulitzer Prize for drama, will return to open again in Sydney next year.
Jason Arrow (centre) and members of the Australian cast of Hamilton during rehearsals in Sydney in 2021.Credit: Lisa Maree Williams
A show that redefined the stage musical – telling the story of an unlikely American political figure with a diverse cast through vibrant hip-hop and R&B songs – had successful seasons in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane before the production moved to New Zealand in May. But its Australian tour was heavily disrupted by pandemic shutdowns.
“We’re coming back because we lost 133 performances,” Seller said from New York. “We’re coming back for the new audiences that might not have been old enough to see Hamilton when we were there.
“We’re coming back for audiences who never got the chance to see it. And, of course, we’re coming back for our fans who need and want Hamilton again.”
Jason Arrow played American founding father Alexander Hamilton through all these seasons, then continued on to a production in Manila in the Philippines.
“We’re coming back for audiences who never got the chance to see it”: Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller.Credit: Cassel
Seller said it was too early to say whether Arrow would return for the new season, with casting underway now. The original Australian cast included Lyndon Watts as Aaron Burr and Chloe Zuel as Eliza Hamilton.
The show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, visited Brisbane in March to watch the Australian cast perform, and to meet them.
“I love this cast,” the American singer, songwriter, actor and director said at the time. “I loved casting this cast and I wanted to get the opportunity to see them before they head to Auckland and this was the soonest I could arrive.”
Hamilton will run at Sydney Lyric Theatre, where it first opened in March 2021, from July 30 next year.
Hamilton in Australia the first time around.Credit: Daniel Boud
Australian producer Michael Cassel said he knew that many fans missed seeing Hamilton during its previous season. “We couldn’t resist the opportunity to return to Sydney one last time,” he said.
When he came to Brisbane, Miranda was not surprised that a show about a little-known American historical figure had resonated strongly with Australian audiences.
He confessed he also knew very little about Hamilton when he bought a biography by Ron Chernow for a Mexican holiday with now-wife Vanessa Nadal and was swept up by his story.
“All I knew about Hamilton when I picked up that book was he was the dude on the ten-dollar bill,” he said.
“I knew his son died in a duel ... and he died in a duel in near the same spot three years later. I think the curiosity that got it off the shelf and into my hands was, ‘How [does that happen]? This feels like the most avoidable mistake in history’.”
Miranda said the reaction to the musical was similar whenever it played around the world.
You go in thinking, ‘I’m going to get an American history lesson’ and you leave thinking, ‘What am I doing with my life? What is the legacy I’m leaving behind? How will I be remembered ... by the people who love me?’” he said.
Email Garry Maddox at gmaddox@smh.com.au and follow him on Twitter at @gmaddox.
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