The US is going through an identity crisis. With its demographics changing radically, with an outside world where non-state actors are rapidly emerging and changing old geopolitical rules, with America’s own self-image increasingly criticized and distrusted, Americans are grappling for a (new) sense of identity (and hence future). The musical ‘Hamilton’ is one of the many rising voices that offer their own visions on the identity and future of the US. Returning to the narrative of the Founding Fathers, until now used by conservative groups, it updates this narrative to include racial minorities, women and immigrants and projects an image of the future. In other words, it (ab)uses the past in a contemporary framework to project an image of the future. As such, it becomes political. What is this image of (a future) America the musical creates, and how is it perceived? These questions will form the guidelines through this thesis.

Review essay

When Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton opened on Broadway in 2015, Democrats and Republicans embraced this racially diverse musical historicization of the founding fathers of the United States. Hamilton indexes the tenure of Barack Obama, the first black president whose election symbolized antiracist progress. Embodying the political project of nationalist neoliberal multicultural inclusion, the musical suggests that all U.S. Americans can gain entrance to “the room where it happens,” the political arena, within the parameters of celebrating the nation as a place where people can rise up through entrepreneurship. By using a multiracial cast to tell a great white man’s bootstraps story, Hamilton obscures and justifies the underlying uneven distribution of capital along racial lines. Miranda and Obama share rhetoric and policies in welcoming immigrants at the cost of their labor and disavowing the depths of structural racism to call for centrist, national unity. Finally, within this political project that dematerializes histories, Hamilton necessarily downplays the founding of the United States upon slavery and genocide. Post-Obama, the musical has become part of the resistance to the xenophobic administration of Donald Trump, even as Miranda has commodified the resistance.

The musical "Hamilton" appears more as a picture of how we, a 21st-century audience view history, rather than history itself. In this form, the narrative becomes a product of the self-aware characters. This dissertation explores how Alexander, Eliza, and Lin-Manuel Miranda himself battle for narrative power.

Abstract Over the past two years, something odd has happened on Broadway, which can be accredited to one man, or rather two. A new musical known as Hamilton, based on the genius and life of Alexander Hamilton, is striving to become one of the most beloved, most viewed and widely appreciated Broadway shows of all time, and it is all the creation of Lin Manuel Miranda. This paper aims to address the issues of changing the conventional Broadway music by introducing hip-hop, which seemingly focuses on rapping about relevant issues over edgy beats. In line with relevant literature, the dissertation attempts to explore the role of the introduction of modern hip-hop music and diverse cast playing the protagonist parts of the Founding Fathers in achieving to convey the message of Hamilton while changing the face of orthodox Broadway plays. The paper departs from the question of whether these elements are successful in attracting diverse ethnicities and a younger audience, while simultaneously managing to gross higher ticket sales. KeyWords: Broadway, hip-hop, Hamilton, audience members, diversity.

This reflexión pedagógica discusses the lessons scholars and teachers of Latinx history can learn from the historical vision put forward in Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2015 Broadway musical Hamilton. Following a discussion of the origins of Miranda's Latinx-inflected view of the life and times of Alexander Hamilton, the article places his approach within the context of the existing historiography on US-Latinx history, and assesses the pros and cons, both pedagogical and rhetorical, of taking such a Hamiltonian approach. Keywords Historiography · Alexander Hamilton · Latinx history · Identity · Pedagogy Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury and the leading author of The Federalist Papers, was a Nuyorican. Or so he is portrayed in Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2015 Broadway musical Hamilton. Born "a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman" in "a forgotten Spot in the Caribbean," purposely reminiscent of Puerto Rico, he sailed to the "mainland,"

Tony winning musical In the Heights defied box office odds when it recouped its $10 million investment only ten months after opening on 9 March 2008 on Broadway. The marketing campaign of this unlikely ‘hit’, which blends musical theatre, Latin and hip hop styles to portray a group historically underrepresented onstage – namely, the Hispanic community of Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighbourhood – was as innovative as its subject and style. Close examination of the musical’s savvy marketing campaign reveals how it carefully negotiates the show’s hip hop and Latino identities and uses a range of media to attract new audiences while also cultivating the traditional Broadway fan base. Drawing upon ethnography and multimedia analysis, this case study provides a glimpse into the rapidly changing theatrical marketplace of the early twenty-first century.

The life and works of William Shakespeare have long been a fascination and source of inspiration for scholars and audience members alike, with the very name ‘Shakespeare’ connoting images of cultural importance and literary greatness. In contrast, American musical theatre is largely unstudied by academics, possibly due to it being disregarded as a piece of popular culture with little societal importance. However, the influence of William Shakespeare upon popular culture is just as significant today as it’s ever been, and this thesis shall explore just how Shakespeare’s themes, literary techniques and own personal brand of ‘celebrity’ have contributed (individually and collectively) to shape the face of American musical theatre since the turn of the millennium. Using the Romeo and Juliet inspired Bare: a pop opera (2000), Something Rotten! (2015) (in which a fictitious embodiment of Shakespeare himself makes an appearance) and Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton (2015) as key case studies, this investigation shall explore the ways in which Shakespeare can be found within modern musical theatre in some form, and how this compares with his original writings and other contemporary musicals. The study will conclude with an assessment of how Shakespeare’s somewhat iconic status continues to outlive him in the afterlife of his plays, and that this is prevalent in the case studies of Hamilton, Bare: a pop opera and Something Rotten!. It will also assess the ways in which Shakespeare’s themes and how the identity of the playwright is viewed through contemporary musical theatre has altered over time in order to adapt to the modern world.