Hamilton's America Page #3

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What's the state

of our nation?

I'm past patiently waitin'

I'm passionately smashin'

every expectation

Every action's

an act of creation

I'm laughin' in the face

of casualties and sorrow

For the first time,

I'm thinkin' past tomorrow

And I am not

throwin' away my shot

I am not throwin' away

my shot

Hey, yo, I'm just like...

I write everywhere.

I write on trains.

I write --

I write wherever I can.

And sometimes, a couple of days,

I've written

in Aaron Burr's bedroom.

It's pretty amazing

to be in the space

where he was

in the later part of his life.

Talk about artist

in residence -- literally.

This is my "Hamilton"

writing desk.

I sit here.

I sit on the floor.

I don't sit

on the Colonial furniture.

You keep shootin' off

at the mouth

[ Chuckles ]

There's a song in the show

called "My Shot,"

and it's Hamilton's big

sort of "I want" song.

It's the second song

in the show.

We see him make

his group of friends --

the Marquis de Lafayette,

John Laurens,

Hercules Mulligan,

and Aaron Burr,

who is a colleague and a friend.

And I'm sort of putting him

into the song --

'cause these are guys

who are oil and water,

but they come up together.

They're

revolutionaries together.

They're soldiers together.

They're lawyers together.

They're elected officials

together.

And at some point,

one shoots the other.

-Yeah, I-I come out in the first

three minutes of the show,

and I say, "I'm the damn fool

that shot him."

And so what that tells me

as an actor is that,

that is not a secret

that we're keeping.

That's not a piece of the puzzle

that we are hiding

behind our back.

So, then what

it's about is about --

it's about the fracture.

It's about watching

where exactly the moment is

that it all changes.

-Whereas Alexander Hamilton

was an illegitimate

orphan kid from the Caribbean

who was born into shame

and misery,

Aaron Burr was really born

into American aristocracy.

It looks like he's going to

have this very luxurious life.

By the time Aaron Burr

is 2 years old,

his mother's died,

his father's died.

He's farmed out to relatives

who bring him up.

He then goes

to Princeton college,

graduates by the time he was 16,

so that Burr was as much

of a prodigy as Hamilton was.

And so it's the first

of many strange parallels

in the lives

of Alexander Hamilton

and Aaron Burr.

-A lot of the revising process

is continuing to check in

on that relationship.

It is the most important

relationship in the show.

So, right now,

I'm working on lyrics,

working Burr into

the second song in the show.

[ Singing indistinctly ]

There's a section

where they're doing shots

and saying what they would do

with their shot.

So, Lafayette,

whose command of English

is not so great, goes...

With my shot, I dream

of life without monarchy

The something stress

in France

will lead to "onarchy"

-"Onarchy?" How you say?

Oh, "anarchy."

When I fight, I make the

other side panicky with my

Shot

- Shot

-And then Hercules Mulligan,

who was a tailor's apprentice,

says...

My shot

Yo, I'm

a tailor's apprentice

And I got

y'all knuckleheads

In loco parentis

- I'm joining the rebellion

'Cause I know it's my chance

to socially advance

Instead of sewin' some pants

I'm gonna take a

Shot

- Shot

-And then Laurens, who is

a fierce abolitionist, goes...

But we'll never

be truly free

Until those in bondage

Have the same rights

as you and me

- You and I, do or die

Wait till I sally in

on a stallion

With the first

black battalion

Have another

Shot

- Shot

-And so now

I'm working on Burr

sort of jumping in on this,

going...

Geniuses, lower your voices

If you keep out of trouble,

then you double your choices

Shooting off at the mouth,

shooting from the hip

Shooting the...

Or, "Something, shooty, shooty,

shooty, shooty,

shooty, shooty, shot."

I haven't figured out

how it works yet.

- Geniuses, lower your voices

You keep out of trouble,

and you double your choices

I'm with you,

but the situation is fraught

You've got to be

carefully taught

If you talk,

you're gonna get shot

-And the Hamilton comes in

and, as was his genius,

synthesizes it all.

- Burr, check what we got

Mr. Lafayette,

hard rock like Lancelot

I think your pants

look hot

Laurens, I like you a lot,

let's hatch a plot

Blacker than the kettle

callin' the pot

What are the odds the gods

would put us all in one spot?

Poppin' a squat

on conventional wisdom

Like it or not

A bunch of revolutionary

manumission abolitionists

- Give me a position

Show me where

the ammunition is

And then I want him to sort of

stun his friends into silence.

- Oh, am I talkin' too loud?

Sometimes I get overexcited,

shoot off at the mouth

I never had

a group of friends before

I promise

that I'll make y'all proud

-Little beat of silence,

and Laurens goes,

"Let's get this guy

in front of a crowd."

And then we go

into the chorus.

- And I'm not

throwin' away my shot

I am not

throwin' away my shot

Hey, yo,

I'm just like my country

I'm young, scrappy,

and hungry

And I'm not

throwin' away my shot

We gonna rise up

- Not throwin' away my shot

- Time to take a shot

We gonna rise up

- Not throwin' away my shot

- Time to take a shot

- We gonna rise up, rise up

- It's time to take a shot

- Rise up, rise up

- It's time to take a shot

- Rise up

- It's time to take a shot

Rise up

It's time to take a shot

- Oh-oh, oh

- Take a shot, shot, shot

It's time to take a shot,

time to take a shot

And I am not

throwin' away my

- Not throwin' away my shot

[ Final chord plays ]

-Hamilton didn't really

meet Lafayette, Laurens,

and Mulligan all at once

in the same bar,

but we're gonna meet them all

at once because we got to go.

We've got

a lot of story to tell,

and we want to get you out

before "Les Mis"

gets out next door.

I'm a big fan of musicals

that attempt to wrestle

history to the stage,

and everyone writing

a musical about history

is standing

in the shadow of Sondheim,

standing in the shadow

of John Weidman.

Why do we go to history?

Why is real life more

interesting than whole cloth?

-It's interesting

because what happens is,

when you live through history,

you don't know it's history,

you know?

-Yeah.

-And you so you

have to talk to John.

John's a historian.

I only write historical

shows with John

because I love going to school

and learning, but history --

I couldn't get into it,

as we say.

And I think maybe

John was the person

who got me interested

in history very late in life.

-In all the shows that Steve

and I have written together,

including "Assassins,"

you reach a point, I think,

where the research is over and

you then invent the character

who actually existed

in history and --

-But they're still partly

defined by what they did.

That's the event.

-Absolutely,

and that's what the audience

will bring into the theater

with them,

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