Donald Trump’s outrage at how the cast and audience of Broadway’s Hamilton treated his right-hand man, Mike Pence, last Friday, spurred many of Trump’s followers to join his social-media tirade using the hashtag #BoycottHamilton. With the Vice-President-elect’s reputation on the line (even if Pence didn’t agree with that characterization of the incident), many American citizens hurled nasty remarks and demanded @Hamiltontheater to stop and apologize. Unfortunately, neither Trump: The Art of the Deal nor Hamilton’s “Ten Duel Commandments,†the two foremost American documents explaining how we should conduct ourselves when conflicts arise, includes the rule “Check to make sure you got the right Twitter handle.†The Tony-sweeping musical phenomenon is @HamiltonMusical; the @HamiltonTheatre handle is the official account of a theater in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where they are currently in the middle of a production of The Toxic Avenger. (To our knowledge, the show has not yet been seen by Mike Pence or any prominent American politician.)
The theater treated the angry tweets directed at them with humor. Riane Leonard, who managers the theater’s social-media account, told BuzzFeed, “Some said they’d stage a protest outside the theater, and my thought was like, ‘Sure if you want to come all the way up here. We have a great show going on.’â€