Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda (PDF)

Description

A backstage pass to the groundbreaking, hit musical Hamilton, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Eleven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, including the award-winning libretto, behind-the-scenes photos and interviews, and exclusive footnotes from composer-lyricist-star Lin-Manuel Miranda, now streaming on Disney+ with the original cast.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s groundbreaking musical Hamilton is as revolutionary as its subject, the poor kid from the Caribbean who fought the British, defended the Constitution, and helped to found the United States. Fusing hip-hop, pop, R&B, and the best traditions of theater, this once-in-a-generation show broadens the sound of Broadway, reveals the storytelling power of rap, and claims our country’s origins for a diverse new generation.

Hamilton: The Revolution gives readers an unprecedented view of both revolutions, from the only two writers able to provide it. Miranda, along with Jeremy McCarter, a cultural critic and theater artist who was involved in the project from its earliest stages — “since before this was even a show,” according to Miranda — traces its development from an improbable performance at the White House to its landmark opening night on Broadway six years later. In addition, Miranda has written more than 200 funny, revealing footnotes for his award-winning libretto, the full text of which is published here.

Their account features photos by the renowned Frank Ockenfels and veteran Broadway photographer, Joan Marcus; exclusive looks at notebooks and emails; interviews with Questlove, Stephen Sondheim, leading political commentators, and more than 50 people involved with the production; and multiple appearances by President Obama himself. The book does more than tell the surprising story of how a Broadway musical became a national phenomenon: It demonstrates that America has always been renewed by the brash upstarts and brilliant outsiders, the men and women who don’t throw away their shot.

User’s Reviews

Lin-Manuel Miranda (Book, Music, and Lyrics/Alexander Hamilton) is the Tony and Grammy award-winning composer-lyricist-star of Broadway’s In the Heights — winner of four 2008 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Orchestrations, and Best Choreography with Miranda receiving the award for Best Score. Additionally, he is the co-composer and co-lyricist of Broadway’s Tony-nominated Bring It On: The Musical and provided Spanish translations for the 2009 Broadway revival of West Side Story. Miranda, along with Tom Kitt, won the 2014 Creative Arts Emmy for Best Original Music and Lyrics for their work on the 67th Annual Tony Awards. In 2015, Miranda was named as a Fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He lives with his family in New York City.Jeremy McCarter wrote cultural criticism for New York magazine and Newsweek before spending five years on the artistic staff of the Public Theater, where he created, directed, and produced the Public Forum series. He served on the jury of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and is writing a book about young American radicals during World War One. He lives in Chicago.

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ Bought the eBook a while ago but hadn’t tried to read it until now since it won’t open on the Kindle desktop app.Unfortunately, the Kindle version is impossible to read. Lookslike a scanned copy of the physical book. Zooming in doesn’t help, the text is still super blurry.

⭐ Let’s just accept it…when Lin-Manuel Miranda does something, he does it right, all the way, and maybe better than anyone else.I’m fortunate enough to have seen “Hamilton” twice. I’ve read the Chernow biography, listened to the cast recording non-stop (ha) since September, and been an avid follower of Lin’s tweets, Facebook posts, interviews, #Ham4Ham shows, and Genius annotations. I’ve been a musical theatre geek for five decades and have never felt this excitement about any show (with the possible exception of A Chorus Line). So when I heard months ago that Lin and former New York magazine drama critic Jeremy McCarter were putting together a book about the creation of “Hamilton,” I pre-ordered my copy and started counting the days. Now it’s here, and…. wow. Just wow.Given the show’s deserved status as a cultural phenomenon that will be playing to sold-out houses for years, it would have been easy to just throw together a “behind-the-scenes” book with a few interviews, toss in some publicity stills, and have a guaranteed best-seller. This “Hamiltome” couldn’t be further from that. Among other delights, it includes: the full libretto of this sung-through (and rapped-through) show, with extensive annotations from LMM that give new insights, meaning, and historical context to the words that you might already know by heart; more than 30 essays about the cast members, the production team, the creative process, and the facts of Hamilton’s life; copies of relevant historical documents referenced in the show; pages from LMM’s notebooks with early drafts and outlines; and a stunningly beautiful array of production photographs, cast portraits, and backstage candids. And all of this is thoughtfully organized and packaged in a beautifully bound volume with ivory deckle-edged paper – a book like books used to be. (Trust me, this is one book you don’t want to read on Kindle; it’s actually a sensory experience to hold it and turn the pages.)As McCarter notes in the Introduction, the title “Hamilton – The Revolution” has two meanings. There is the American Revolution that is brought to life in this show, and there is the revolution of the show itself – “a musical that changes the way that Broadway sounds, that alters who gets to tell the story of our founding, that lets us glimpse the new, more diverse America rushing our way.” Do what you can to see “Hamilton,” either on Broadway or when it comes to your town. It’s unlike anything else. Until then, this book and the original cast recording will get you as close as possible to an orchestra seat at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

⭐ A few days back, I wrote a piece on my blog to try to explain how much I love Lin-Manuel Miranda’s astonishing musical Hamilton, despite the fact that I’ve never seen it, and only enjoyed the amazing soundtrack. It’s not a love that’s died down over the past few weeks – indeed, it’s only continued to grow – so it’s no surprise that I picked up Hamilton: A Revolution, which tells the story of the writing of the musical, as well as providing Miranda’s annotations for all of the show’s songs and lyrics.Hamilton: A Revolution is unabashedly a book that’s written to capitalize on the show’s popularity, as well as the difficulty in seeing it. Filled with pictures of the production, the cast, the props, and more, the book provides a bit of soothing balm for those of us out in the rest of America who probably won’t ever get to see the show on Broadway, and definitely not while Miranda is still playing the lead role. The fact that the book alternates between short essays and songs from the show allows the pictures to nicely complement the text at all times, giving the reader a sense of how the show might play out, and giving us the chance to pair images with the songs that so many of us already know by heart. More than that, though, they give you a sense of the care that went into the staging of the show; from the set to the costuming, from the insanely detailed props to the intricate stage layout, the book conveys the fact that the show is every bit as carefully crafted and intricately constructed as the album and the songs.The essays only serve to back this up, too. By and large, the essays serve as a chronological tracking of the birth of the show, beginning with Miranda’s initial songs, moving through the famous White House performance, and following the story all the way through the premiere and beyond. Meanwhile, the book’s structure – the aforementioned alternating between songs and essays – allows some essays to pair more directly with certain songs, focusing on key roles, casting decisions, historical craft, and more. It all comes together to make something more than your usual “behind the scenes” book, instead giving you a rich portrait of the show, the history, the key players, and more.But let’s be clear: the main draw for many people (myself included) are the lyrics and annotations by Miranda. Even with all the time I’ve spent on Genius reading the show’s annotations can’t replace the glee of reading the lyrics in a beautifully made book, and getting to savor all of Miranda’s wonderful prose – the wordplay, the historical allusions, the shout-outs to old school rap and Broadway staples, all of it. And better still are Miranda’s annotations, which eschew the things I already knew in favor of personal commentary, silly asides, mentions of his favorite parts of the show, and more. Rather than just being a director’s commentary sort of thing, the annotations feel more personal and engaging, giving me the sense once again that Miranda isn’t just unfairly brilliant; he’s also funny, engaging, thoughtful, and incredibly personable.I could also mention how beautiful the book is – not just the pictures, but the beautiful cover, the intentionally “ancient” feel that makes it feel like a Revolutionary War tome – but really, here’s the thing. Do you love Hamilton? If the answer is “yes,” then you’ll really love this. If the answer is “no”…well, what’s wrong with you, then? (Acceptable answers include “I haven’t heard it” and…well, that’s about it.)

⭐ Don’t buy the Kindle version. It is not in Kindle format; it’s just photocopies of double columned pages that doesn’t fit the screen and is very hard to read. You have to manually enlarge each page separately if you want to read it.

⭐ Possibly the most BEAUTIFUL piece of art (uh, I mean book), (NO ART!!), that I’ve ever seen! WOW. For those of us who LOVED the musical and LOVED the CDs and are waiting (IMPATIENTLY) for the “Hamilton an American Musical” to appear on DVD, THIS is the missing link. It give us great background on how this work of art was created and it, in and of itself (a “mere” book), is also art. When I opened the amazon.com box, it took my breath away. BUY this “book”. You will not regret it if you are a fan of “Hamilton An American Musical” WOW. “Awesome, WOW”

⭐ This book is a thing of beauty! I ordered it early and it – literally – just arrived at my front door. Giddy with excitement, I pulled back the packaging tab and inside was this glorious tome. The design is exquisite, the words flow as beautifully as the pictures from page to page: lyrics, insights and anecdotes galore – nothing has been overlooked. To be truthful, I came back to Amazon to order another as a gift, but there don’t seem to be any available. So glad I ordered early! Looking forward to enveloping myself in this Hamilton word and pictures story, that is until I actually get to see the show… A girl can dream :-)Edited to add: and the dream is almost a reality… Used this gorgeous book to deliver surprise tickets to my niece who turned 18 today. I’m in New York and tonight’s the night! AND, Miranda wins the Pulitzer on the same day. It’s been a bit of a day!!!

⭐ I bought this as a gift, along with the cd and a shirt. I was secretly curious what the inside pages looked like, and found myself looking through every single one of them. Beautiful! The sketches, the notes, the history, the cast photos, the lyrics…it’s all beautifully placed. Great price and definitely worth having a copy for myself!

⭐ Wonderfully alive and vibrant musical, incorporating not just rap and hip hop but jazz, R&B, ballads, British Pop, and probably more musical genres I’m not aware of! I think Lin Manuel Miranda is a genius, not only to have written the book, lyrics, and music for those various genres, but to have put together a show which tells the (mostly) true story of one of our more neglected Founding Fathers in a way universally loved by all ages – my teacher-daughter tells me her 7th and 8th grade students know the cast album by heart! That’s quite a feat – to make the life and death of a person dead for 213 years hip to middle schoolers! This book is a fascinating insight into the creative processes behind the development of a cultural phenomenon!

⭐ My 11 year old daughter recently became obsessed with Hamilton (and yes, we just watched the performance on Disney Plus and loved it but she was singing the songs nonstop well before this). Anyway, I thought this might be the perfect gift for her because she was endlessly Googling the lyrics and facts about the show – this has all of that and more! She has spent hours looking through it (and she is not an avid reader, so I was excited that she was finally so excited about a book!). She says she highly recommends this for any other Hamilton fanatics out there 🙂

⭐ I wish I could say that I’ve seen Hamilton in person, but alas. However, this beautiful tome is alllllmost as good as being there. The craftsmanship is beautiful. I assume that Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter were allowed artistic input as to how the book would look because it shows that someone who really loves this musical crafted a beautiful valentine to the production. So exciting to see how this game changer came together! I own a lot of books, especially art books, but this seriously may be the most beautiful book that I own.

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