Best History Class Ever: Students Are Getting Special Tickets to Hamilton
We all know history is important. We all know we should know things about people like our country’s Founding Fathers. We all dutifully go to history class, and read our textbooks, and take our tests.
But it’s hard to get legitimately EXCITED about events that happened hundreds of years ago.
Unless you’re watching those events unfold on a Broadway stage. Unless you’re seeing the Founding Fathers’ stories as told through Lin-Manuel Miranda’s inimitable blend of rap and old-school musical theater goodness. Unless you’re inhabiting a world in which 18th-century characters do amazing 21st-century choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler.
Unless, in other words, you’re at a performance of Hamilton—the most exciting history lesson in the history of history lessons.
The problem is that, because the show is so stupid good, Hamilton tickets are really, really hard to come by, especially for students. But the show’s producers have teamed up with The Rockefeller Foundation to create a brilliant program: They’re bringing 20,000 NYC high school juniors to see Hamilton, beginning in the spring of 2016.
Best. History class. Ever.
Lin-Manuel Miranda (center), world’s coolest history teacher. (Photo by Joan Marcus)
The program will also include a classroom-based curriculum, featuring copies of the primary documents on which Hamilton‘s book and lyrics are based. At some schools, students will also get to create their own artistic interpretations of Alexander Hamilton’s life. (An all-dance version, anyone?)
And non-NYC people: No need to start yelling about New Yorkers getting All the Things. There are plans to expand the Hamilton school program all over the country once the show begins touring. Yay!
