‘Hamilton’ is back at The Bushnell: Everything to know for its second CT showing

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s massive hit musical “Hamilton” visits The Bushnell for a second time Wednesday through July 10. It’s only been four years since it was in Hartford, but a lot has happened since.

Seven years since its Broadway debut, “Hamilton” remains the biggest musical in the land. It is still playing on Broadway, with multiple tours still crisscrossing North America and standing companies in England, Germany and Australia.

The show chronicles the revolutionary rise and abrupt fall of Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury who helped shape the early years of American self-government. Using hip-hop, modern dance and traditional theater styles, Miranda crafted the show from Ron Chernow’s scholarly biography of Hamilton.

Here are the big changes in “Hamilton” consciousness since the show last hit Hartford:

This should be its third visit

“Hamilton” was scheduled to come to Hartford again in December 2020. The excitement was so great for such a speedy return that the announcement was made in April 2019. The “Hamilton” rebooking was part of The Bushnell’s 2020-21 season but was used to goose ticket sales for its 2019-20 season, pushing the idea that existing subscribers would have first dibs on “Hamilton” seats when they renewed their subscriptions. Then COVID-19 struck. The Bushnell held onto the date as long as it could, but both the theater and the tour ended up on hiatus. As Bushnell executive director David Fay put it at the time, “We had to go to the back of the line” in terms of the “Hamilton” touring schedule, adding 18 months before the show could return.

Live stage recording released in 2020

A live stage recording of the Broadway production of “Hamilton,” starring Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Phillipa Soo, Daveed Diggs and the rest of the show’s original cast, was aired with great fanfare on Disney+ starting in July 2020. Up to that point, if you hadn’t seen “Hamilton” in a theater, you hadn’t seen it. A few numbers from the show were used in a 2016 PBS documentary, “Hamilton’s America,” and the cast performed “History Has Its Eyes on You” and “Yorktown” on the 2016 Tony Awards broadcast, but that was the first taste many people got of the show, which was completely sold out for years.

If you’ve heard the “Hamilton” Broadway soundtrack, you’ve heard the entire show. But experiencing the entire show, even on video, was difficult until Disney+ streamed it.

A separate film version of “Hamilton” is in the works.

Lin-Manuel Miranda moves on

Around the time “Hamilton” first visited Hartford, the movie “Mary Poppins Returns” was released, co-starring Miranda as Jack the lamplighter. Having previously worked with Disney as a songwriter on “Moana” and as the voice of Gizmoduck on “DuckTales,” Miranda has continued to work with the company, doing songs for “Encanto” and writing new songs for an upcoming live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid.”

Miranda’s pre-”Hamilton” hit, “In the Heights,” which won the Tony for Best Musical in 2008, became a major motion picture in 2021. Connecticut played a role in the show’s development. Miranda worked on it as a student at Wesleyan University in Middletown and later workshopped it at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford.

More recently, Miranda directed the film musical “Tick, Tick ... Boom!,” adapted from the autobiographical theater show by “Rent” creator Jonathan Larson.

Onstage, Miranda and his longtime collaborator (and fellow Wesleyan alum) Thomas Kail reworked an improv project “Freestyle Love Supreme” as a Broadway show. The first national tour of the show was just announced.

New faces, new visions

Unlike a lot of Broadway shows, when new performers join “Hamilton” they are encouraged to find their own way in their role. When Lin-Manuel Miranda left the Broadway cast, others who took on the role of Alexander Hamilton put their own stamp on it. This goes for the ethnicity of the actors as well. “Hamilton” famously uses non-white actors to play white male historical figures, with the exception of King George III, the British monarch the incipient Americans are fighting against. While Manuel and his first Broadway replacement Javier Muñoz are Latino, several Black actors have also played the role.

This sense of independence had been established when Austin Scott played “Hamilton” on the 2018 tour that came to Hartford. Just a few months later, Scott was playing the title role in the Broadway production. He had an imposing physical stature that set him apart from Manuel and other Hamiltons and portrayed the character so strongly that comparisons with others were irrelevant.

In a review of the 2018 Bushnell stop, The Courant wrote, “You can find louder, faster, more bombastic ‘Hamilton’ companies out there. What this national tour may lack in urgency and reckless energy, it makes up for with grace and clarity. The ensemble moves smoothly as a single unit, accenting the action rather than overwhelming it.”

The tour coming to Hartford this month stars Pierre John Gonzalez as Hamilton, Jared Dixon as his friend-turned-assassin Aaron Burr, Warren Egypt Franklin as the speed-rapping Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson, Stephanie Jae Park as Hamilton’s wife Eliza, Ta’Rea Campbell and Paige Smallwood as Eliza’s sisters, Angelica and Peggy, Neil Haskell as King George III, Desmond Sean Ellington as Hercules Mulligan and James Madison and Elijah Malcolm as John Laurens and Philip Hamilton. Some, like Choi, are longtime veterans of the show, while others, like Malcomb, are new to it. Haskell was in the original Broadway company.

The tours are named for characters in the musical, and luckily there are lots of characters because there have been lots of tours. Hartford is getting the “Philip” tour.

Connecticut is ready for it

Connecticut was involved in the American Revolution “Hamilton” so excitingly dramatizes. A minor character in the musical, Samuel Seabury, was the first American Episcopal Bishop and the first Bishop of Connecticut. He’s buried in New London. There’s a large statue of Lafayette, a wartime ally of Hamilton’s, that has been outside The Bushnell since 1913.

While the musical is in town, there are special exhibits at major Connecticut museums providing local historical context for the show. “Hamilton Heroes and Villains” has been on display at the Connecticut Historical Society at 1 Elizabeth Street in Hartford since early May and will remain there through Aug. 28.

“Hamilton: The Art of Remaking History” is on view at the Wadsworth Atheneum and Museum, 600 Main Street, Hartford, from June 24 through Sept. 11. The exhibit demonstrates how artifacts from the 18th century inspired the fanciful costume and set designs for “Hamilton.” Many of the objects in the exhibit are from the Wadsworth’s permanent collection.

“Hamilton” runs Wednesday through July 10 at The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford. Performances are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 1 and 7 p.m., with an added matinee Thursday at 1 p.m. $69-$266. There is also an online lottery for $10 tickets. bushnell.org.

Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com.