{"id":32763,"date":"2016-05-05T23:57:58","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T03:57:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=32763"},"modified":"2016-05-06T15:16:52","modified_gmt":"2016-05-06T19:16:52","slug":"throwback-thursday-hamilton-and-rent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/throwback-thursday-hamilton-and-rent\/","title":{"rendered":"Throwback Thursday: “Hamilton” and “Rent”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m excited that Hamilton<\/em> got a record 16 Tony nominations<\/a> this week. The hip-hop Broadway musical and its creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda<\/a>, deserve every damn award they get: the Pulitzer Prize<\/a>, the Grammy<\/a>, the MacArthur Foundation grant<\/a>, and all the others<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Click here to watch the Hamilton<\/em> Grammy performance.<\/a><\/p>\n

If you haven’t seen Hamilton<\/em> yet and consoling yourself by thinking, “It can’t live up to the hype!” … well, some of the most jaded New Yorkers I know have gone and come out saying they need to see it again. That was exactly my reaction<\/a> when I saw it last September. I also walked out of the theater feeling obsessed, once again, with another hugely popular, Pulitzer-Prize-winning musical — Rent<\/em>, which opened on Broadway 20 years ago last week. April 29, to be exact. Rent<\/em>‘s opening at the Nederlander Theatre came three months after the play’s January 26, 1996, off-Broadway preview<\/a>, an event that was marred by the death the night before of 35-year-old Rent<\/em> creator Jonathan Larson. Larson had gone to two different emergency rooms, complaining of extreme chest pains and shortness of breath. One hospital diagnosed food poisoning and sent him home. The second one said he had a virus and sent him home. Later, both hospitals were fined for missing the potentially treatable aortic dissection that killed him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lin-Manuel Miranda is forever linked to Jonathan Larson in my mind, because I first saw him in 2014 playing the main role<\/a> in Larson’s autobiographical, pre-Rent<\/em> work, tick tick \u2026 BOOM!<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 <\/em>And Lin-Manuel wasn’t playing any old character, but stepping into the shoes of the man who he says made his career possible. In a moving tribute to Larson that he wrote for the New York Times, Miranda\u00a0 described how he saw Rent<\/em> on his 17th birthday<\/a>: “The house lights go down, and from this moment on, nothing is ever the same again.” He continued:<\/p>\n

“More than anything, it gave me permission to write about my community. I grew up in a predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood in Upper Manhattan that burst with music and characters, and \u201cRent\u201d whispered to me, \u201cYour stories are just as valid as the ones in the shows you\u2019ve seen.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Miranda’s first musical, In the Heights<\/em><\/a>, came out of that epiphany … and, of course, that successful work led to Hamilton<\/em>. I love that Lin-Manuel — in the midst of his great success, for a work that in most ways surpasses Rent —<\/em> is still showing so much respect for Jonathan Larson. On Rent<\/em>‘s 20th anniversary, the cast of Hamilton<\/em> paid tribute<\/a>. I got a little teary over this tweet …<\/p>\n

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"When you're living in America at the end of the millennium, you're not alone." Tonight, we honor Rent after 20 yrs. pic.twitter.com\/1hYUxei6jP<\/a><\/p>\n

— Hamilton (@HamiltonMusical) April 29, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n