Whether you committed to savoring every second, or just stopped by to sob during Leslie Odom Jr.’s “Wait for It,†the Disney+ debut of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton offered all the thrills of the musical’s original Broadway staging, with the added bonus of running commentary from Miranda; his wife, Vanessa Nadal; and the show’s cast via their Watch Party over on Twitter Friday evening, before, in a truly inexplicable move, LMM made all his tweets private. Are we just going to have to … wait for it?
Now, if you’re a diehard Hamilton stan, you might already know all the behind-the-scenes tidbits they dropped Friday night, but for the rest of us, it was an education in live theater, cast synergy, and where that occasional loud “Boooo!†came from.
For example, LMM revealed the show’s Macbeth reference to “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow†was an entirely different, less easily recognizable Bard quote, until he got the advice to sub it out for something more popular.
Daveed Diggs improvised a punchline as Thomas Jefferson in the song “What’d I Miss?,†and the rest is (a Broadway musical adaptation of U.S.) history.
Miranda says he composed “Non-Stop†in Hamilton’s own hometown in the West Indies.
Hamilton’s music director and orchestrator Alex Lacamoire unearthed Miranda’s scribbled lyrics to “Right Hand Man,†written on the fly during tech rehearsals. “There wasn’t time to type it. Thank you @LacketyLac,†LMM tweeted in response.
When Phillipa Soo’s Eliza Hamilton burned Alexander’s love letters, she literally burned his love letters, presumably written out by an extremely detail-oriented props master.
If you heard someone loudly booing during “Say No to This,†it was most likely was Miranda’s wife, Vanessa Nadal.
Nadal also tweeted an anecdote about Miranda excitedly coming home after seeing Renée Elise Goldsberry’s audition for Angelica Schuyler, a story even Goldberry herself didn’t know.
And finally, Disney+’s Hamilton film ends with a geographical nod to New York itself, and the many other places Lin-Manuel Miranda created in Hamilton, piece by loving piece.