Hamilton’s Curtain Call: A Final Act of Genius
- Andrew Harmon
- //
- September 30, 2020
- Andrew Harmon
- //
- September 30, 2020
On July 3rd of 2020, it was going down whether I wanted it to or not.
Hamilton: An American Musical was getting released on Disney+. And it would be premiering, full-screen, full-blast on the TV in my living room that night. My wife made this unmistakably clear to me. This was happening.
But initially, I wasn’t sure I’d be in attendance.
Now don’t get me wrong. This is not because I am one of those folks who is mysteriously put off by musical theatre. Or that I somehow missed the “Beatle-mania-esque” fervor that accompanied Hamilton’s 2015 ascension as Broadway’s most unattainable ticket.
No. In fact, the opposite is true. From the day Hamilton’s cast recording was quietly pre-launched for streaming on NPR.com (a full week prior to its official iTunes release), I became an instant super fan. I listened to the tracks non-stop for over a year. I consumed every interview and news piece I could get my hands on. To this day, I can still rap every lyric of “My Shot” without missing a beat.
But instead of thrilling me, the Disney+ announcement actually gave me considerable pause. Anyone who has worked in theatre knows just how much is lost when trying to transfer the live experience of a show to a living-room screen. Through all five years of my fandom, I had religiously strayed away from watching any video clips from the show. There was even a full bootlegged recording of the show on a hard drive in my home that a student of my wife’s had slipped her one day. But I wouldn’t watch it. I wanted my first Hamilton experience to be live. I wanted to feel the full force of the atmosphere in the room where it was happening.
But despite all this… I caved.
And for almost three hours on the evening of July 3rd I had the pleasure of having my mind blown, scene after scene, by the unimaginable depth of creativity that is this show. When at the 2016 Tonys, Common introduced it as “one of the greatest piece of art ever made”… he wasn’t wrong.
But as the lights dimmed on the final note of the show, Hamilton was about to blow my mind with one final revolutionary move. When the cast took the stage for the curtain call… the whole company just bowed together—and only together.
Hamilton's Final Indelible Image
Seriously, Harmon?! That’s what this whole unnecessarily wordy preamble was leading to? Hamilton had a simple curtain call?
Relax. Just give me a second. Because it’s cool.
The Curtain Call
At the end of any night of theatre, we are all used to watching the cast filter out on stage to bow as we applaud. It’s a ritual baked into the theatre experience. It lets the audience show their appreciation while also participating in a form of catharsis after taking in the story quietly for the better part of two hours.
The ensemble dancers come out first. Then the minor speaking roles bow as a group. The supporting cast comes next and finally the leads, ending with the shows’s biggest star. The crowd goes wild as the final few actors enter the stage and then the full cast comes together for one more bow to put a nice little period on the sentence.
Like the billing order in a film’s credits sequence but reversed, the order of bows denotate a sort of hierarchy in the theatre. The order is a sign of respect. It’s a way for the audience and the production itself, to honor those whose “role contributed the most significantly” to the evening.
But not in Hamilton.
As the lights come up, instead of revealing an empty stage for the players to systematically rush back onto, every actor is simply revealed exactly where they were before. After a moment, they all bow.
Then they all come forward into the traditional downstage line to take another full company bow. The thunderous applause washes over them as they all bow together—and then the curtain falls.
Unmistakable Unity
Bowing in groups is not necessarily new or revolutionary for the theatre. But the production’s choice for Hamilton’s incomparable cast to receive the audience applause as a team, is clearly not an accident. A majority of the cast is dressed uniformly in white, including nearly all of the major characters. Jonathon Groff, whose iconic King George has only ever appeared on stage in the most ostentatious velvet robes, is practically unrecognizable as he takes his bows alongside his castmates in his now matching cream suit.
Even the traditional middle-out hierarchy is disrupted with ensemble members sprinkled amongst the leads at the center. Daveed Diggs whose performance seemed predestined to win him a Tony, stands nowhere near the center, with only his signature hair distinguishing him amongst the line of radiant cream costumes.
The only exception to this is the show’s composer and lyricist, Lin Manuel Miranda, who pulls triple duty by also originating the titular role. As the cast forms the final company line, there is a brief moment where he is singled out and bows for the crowd. At this point, Hamilton is so inextricably linked to Miranda’s creative germinations, that it would probably feel like sacrilege to an audience not give him this moment. But he is the only actor to receive this treatment and the honor doesn’t extend to other actors who have played the role.
When the cast of Hamilton bows, they bow as one.
Changing the Game
But why do this?
It isn’t as if there aren’t any notable performances in the bunch. Seven of the ten actors in the cast who qualified for a Tony nomination in acting, were nominated. Nearly every performer on the stage created memorable moments and the audience would have been more than willing to cheer for each one of them individually. So why deviate from this long-running theatrical tradition?
While no one from the creative team behind Hamilton seems to be on record answering this question, the reasoning seems obvious when you look at both the heart of Hamilton’s story and the process that went into making it.
A Story of Inclusion
In a special video appearance at the 2016 Tonys, Barack and Michelle Obama summoned up the heart of Hamilton’s story like this:
“It is a musical about the miracle that is America. A place of citizenship… A place of inclusiveness, where we value our boisterous diversity as a great gift. A place of opportunity where no matter our origins, we can make it if we try. That’s the story of America. An experiment that is not yet finished. A project that belongs to all of us.”
Put simply, this show is not just about the towering leaders who history venerates. It’s about the little guys who surround those leaders. The people who work their tails off, and then, like so many of us, are overlooked.
Alexander Hamilton’s rivals nearly wrote him out of history. While 4 of his most notorious critics ascended to the Presidency and took that center-stage bow, Hamilton’s hard work and financial genius were sequestered to the wings. No one in America remembered the name Eliza Schuyler before Lin Manuel turned her into Alicia Keys and smacked us in the face with the intensity of her contribution to early America.
The story of Hamilton is an anthem for celebrating the ambition and hard work of what everyone is bringing to the table.
The Power of Collaboration
Beyond this, it is impossible to miss how important collaboration was to the artists who created Hamilton.
In every interview, the bevy of creatives who contributed to this production can’t seem to stop themselves from gushing about the artists they were working with. Miranda’s genuine admiration for everyone on his team was so visually palpable the night they made Tony’s history that he literally became a meme.
But don’t just take their word for it, the depth of the collaboration in the soul of Hamilton is evident at even a cursor glance. While Miranda’s lyrics and melodies are nothing short of genius, his early demos prove just how forgettable they might have been without Alex Lacamoire’s heart-pounding hip-hop orchestrations.
The collaboration between director Tommy Kail and choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, is so intensely intertwined that I would dare you to tell me where the directorial contributions to the staging end and the dance choreography begins.
Perhaps the best distillation of this profound collaboration occurred at the 2018 Kennedy Center Honors. The KCH is an award usually reserved for individuals whose life work has had a lasting impact on American art. But the center’s decision to award Hamilton the honor could not be meaningfully distributed to one person and so it was awarded jointed to all four creators mentioned above.
The work was the success. And when the result of such unquantifiable collaboration is a triumph, it becomes a bit garish to try and delineate whose contribution matters the most. And so they all bow together. Because the answer to whose “role contributed the most significantly” to Hamilton is irrelevant. The thing they made together is magnificent and so we get applaud them as a team.
Who Tells Your Story?
The whole subject may seem a bit tedious.
But as I’ve thought about this beautiful creative choice, it led me to think about how many of the traditions and institutions of the entertainment world subtly reinforce our belief in a creative hierarchy. There will always be leading and supporting roles for actors—the nature of good story structure demands this. There will always be creative directors and lead designers—without them the creative process would be chaos. But a structural hierarchy is not necessarily an indicator of a contributor’s worth or even of that contributor’s skill.
For instance, the nature of modern musicals often place the best singers and actors in the leading roles. But in most cases, every member of the nameless ensemble can dance circles around them. Take a look at exactly how much dancing Jermey Jordan does in the dance marathon that is Newsies, if you want to fact check that.
Sometimes an artist’s incredible skill places them in positions of obscurity where they will never see their name in lights. But this does not dictate the value of their artistic ability or the impact of their contribution. Being at the top of your game does not necessarily equate to being at the “top of the ladder.” We tend to reward or recognize the team leaders for a full team’s success, because it’s cleaner. But remember, director Jennifer Lee didn’t animate a single frame of Frozen. And when the helmet closes, Robert Downey Jr. hands the Ironman reins over to an amazing team of stuntmen and master animators.
Wanting to have the last bow or be number one on the call sheet is such a natural desire for those of us with artistic ambitions. But I think we can falsely conflate these top jobs with a sense of “having arrived” or being successful. Beautiful ground-breaking art requires master artists collaborating from every position. Not just in the leadership (or management) roles they give awards to.
It’s not always possible, but it’s a beautiful thing to watch a team of masters all revel at the joy of their collective success. And it takes absolutely nothing away from their personal contributions when they link arms… and bow together.
Having never seen it or even listened to the music, I look forward to the DVD release in early October! I don’t know what I’ve missed and look forward to finding out. Thanks, Andrew, for the super-nudge.
Agreed! The synergy from the team almost always makes each individual better. And taking the bow together is a beautiful nod to the collective energies that have produced the piece. Love your writing! More! More!