#bam4ham

Okieriete Onaodowan, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Christopher Jackson perform at the White House in March 2016

by Alessandra Codinha Vogue December 12, 2016

Would it surprise you to learn that Lin-Manuel Miranda first premiered a song from Hamilton at the White House? It shouldn’t. It’s been said that every presidential administration gets the cultural movement that it deserves… and so it follows that… it was May 2009 at the White House’s first-ever Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word where Hamilton had its first public airing.

Already a Tony- and Grammy-award winner for In The Heights when he arrived at the Presidential poetry slam, Miranda addressed the audience directly (the Obamas, snapping their fingers and grooving in their seats, front and center) to explain the project. “I’m actually working on a hip-hop album,” he said, performing what would become the musical’s opening number. “It’s a concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop: Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.”

The musical would go on to become the biggest thing to hit Broadway since Cats, or Rent, or any other theater experience, with ticket prices in the four digits and middle-schoolers who’d never seen it crooning the score to each other in homerooms across the country. In some senses—like when the scene of last month’s Mike Pence kerfuffle, when [Lin-Manuel Miranda, director Thomas Kail, producer Jeffrey Seller, and] the actors took it upon themselves to urge the incoming administration to uphold American values and work for all Americans, also became the message—it is even bigger than that.

Vogue’s theater critic Adam Green wrote of the White House performance, “I dare you to watch … and not get a chill from the sight of a son of an immigrant rapping about the son of an immigrant to a son of an immigrant who became America’s first African-American president.” Is it any surprise that the cast returned earlier this year for an encore?

[full “Alexander Hamilton”]

Obama came into office with a message of hope, and with the assumption that Americans—regardless of party—believed in the principles of freedom and equality that their country was founded on, and that they would overcome their own biases to carry them out. (It should go without saying that this did not prove to be the case.)

Despite seemingly endless opposition, Obama became a president who made supporting the arts a pivotal part of his administration, from the $50 million earmarked in 2009’s economic stimulus package, to the launch of the Turnaround Arts program, an initiative which will continue to support arts programs in schools across the country even after he leaves office.

Inclusivity mattered to this administration, who, as Michelle Obama told Playbill last May, made it their mission to “open the doors of the White House as wide as possible and showcase a variety of American art forms … country, jazz, modern dance, Broadway show tunes… just about any genre you can imagine, we’ve had it at the White House.”

With the Obama administration’s exit goes one of our culture’s strongest allies. This is a president who was a frequent Broadwaygoer; who bestowed Cicely Tyson, Diana Ross, and Ellen DeGeneres with the Presidential Medal of Freedom; who partied with Prince at a secret show in the East Room; who sang Al Green at the Apollo. This is a president who could perceive the very real importance of the role of art in American life, and who made it a vital part of his legacy.

So here’s some comfort, as little as it may be: while President-elect Trump spits out his peculiar promises to dissolve policies, revoke rights, and otherwise do his damnedest to trample the legacy of his predecessor, what cannot be erased or undone is the fact that for the past eight years our country has had a president untouched by pettiness, or scandal; one who defied naysayers and bias and who tried, against all odds, to make America a fairer, more generous, and yes, a more art-filled place.

You know, it’s the type of thing they write musicals about.

[More videos from Hamilton at the White House, March 14, 2016:] -Rose Garden Freestyle feat. Lin-Manuel Miranda -The First Lady Delivers Remarks at “Hamilton at the White House” Workshop -President Obama Welcomes the Broadway Cast of “Hamilton” -“The Schuyler Sisters” -“One Last Time” Hamilton At The White House #ObamaLegacy