The founding fathers were white, and many owned black slaves. The cast of āHamiltonā is mostly nonwhite. Can you tell me about your thinking as you wrote and cast the show?
Miranda This was a constant conversation between me and Tommy. Our goal was: This is a story about America then, told by America now, and we want to eliminate any distance ā our story should look the way our country looks. Then we found the best people to embody these parts. I think itās a very powerful statement without having to be a statement.
As for the question of slavery, which is the great original sin of this country, itās in the third line of the show. But itās this thing that keeps getting kicked down the field. Hamilton and Burr were part of the [abolitionist] New York Manumission Society, so they were actually very progressive. But thereās only so much time you can spend on it when thereās no end result to it.
Odom Jr. In the first two minutes of this show, Lin steps forward and introduces himself as Alexander Hamilton, and Chris steps forward and says heās George Washington, and you never question it again. When I think about what it would mean to me as a 13-, 14-year-old kid, to get this album or see this show ā it can make me very emotional. And I so look forward to the day I get to see an Asian-American Burr.
Miranda Thatāll be the note that goes with the school productions: If this show ends up looking like the actual founding fathers, you messed up.
āMiranda Not just young people but people. We have deified them so much; theyāre on rocks in South Dakota. But they were people, and the flaws they had creep into everything we have now. The fights Jefferson and Hamilton have in the show are the fights we are still having.ā
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