#timeout chicago

Lin-Manuel Miranda on recreating Hamilton’s success for Chicago (TimeOut Chicago):

People would say the same thing about Hamilton’s election-year resonance in 2012 as they would in 2020, Miranda thinks. “Because the things we fight about as a country, they’re just our things. It’s like when you fight with members of your family; you’re not having a new fight with your brother or sister. You’re having variations on the same fight you’ve been having since you were 8 and 10 years old, right?”

Those fights, as Miranda enumerates them, do sound like never-ending ones: federalism versus states’ rights; the legacy of slavery versus how it reverberates. “The notion of finances, of who pays your taxes, of how involved are we in the affairs of other countries—for them the French Revolution, for us: Name a country.

“And the notion of immigrant having both incredibly positive and negative connotations in American society,” he continues. Hamilton, the show, was famously inspired by Miranda’s reading of Ron Chernow’s hefty biography of the man who became the country’s first Secretary of the Treasury but began life as an impoverished kid propelled from the Caribbean to New York City on the strength of his striving and smarts; Miranda saw a hip-hop narrative.

As the Burr character asks in the show’s opening lines, “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a / Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a / Forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence / Impoverished, in squalor/ Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?” But the show also depicts another side to the idea that Hamilton “Got a lot farther by working a lot harder / By being a lot smarter / By being a self-starter.”

“We love the up-from-the-bootstraps narrative, but there’s always a point in which it will be used against us, to arouse suspicion,” says Miranda. “Those are all things that happened to Hamilton before they happened to anyone who’s alive today.”

[. . .]

Hamilton has developed a community of deeply invested fans who’ve yet to set foot in the theater. “What’s wonderful about most Hamilton fans is they fall in love with the show the same way I used to fall in love with shows; it’s the cast album,” says Miranda, recalling rifling through his parents’ collection of Broadway records as a kid. “I can’t tell you how many hilarious Tumblr posts I’ve seen of, like, ‘Hamilton as I picture it in my head since I haven’t seen the show.’ People imagine the show, and I love that because I thinkHamilton is gonna be around hopefully long enough for most people to get a chance to see it. But also, I’ve never seen a production of Camelot, but I can tell you the version in my head, and it’s incredible.”

Those who do get in to Hamilton in Chicago will see a cast that includes Tony winner Karen Olivo and two-time Tony nominee Joshua Henry, alongside a raft of lesser-known actors, such as Miguel Cervantes in the title role.

I had the craziest day yesterday. Between all of the rain at Pitchfork and capturing the pageant, making an attempt to maintain monitor of all the things and hold it dry, I felt much more scatterbrained than traditional.

I have been listening to Nootropics fairly steadily these previous couple of weeks and photographed Lower Dens earlier on within the day for Timeout Chicago

(photoset right here:

Posted by kirstiecat on 2012-07-14 15:06:11

Navigate the eight-day Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival with these 20 must-see comedy troupes from around the country.

Thanks to everyone who came out this year to Tomorrow Never Knows! Take a look back at what you saw (or what you missed) with these recaps from Chicago Tribune, Consequence of Sound, Gapers Block, and Timeout Chicago.

Full Fest Recap

Cayucas Recap

Oneohtrix Point Never & Tim Hecker Recap

Weekend Recap

The Rural Alberta Advantage Recap

The Lone Bellow Recap

Superchunk Recap