🎭 Hamilton: From Founding Father To Broadway Star | 38

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Nick, did I ever tell you about Mr.

Kip?

One of the great teachers of all time.

And he was a contact men's hockey player on the side.

Body checking by day, grid papers by night, kind of a thing.

His focus was the civil rights movement.

And taking this class honestly opened my eyes and made me like aware of politics and the world.

It was my political enlightening, as a great teacher does.

He highlighted this moment during a civil rights protest where a man simply held a sign that said, I am a man.

Wow.

I have never forgotten it.

Well, I dressed up as Paul Revere once for a history class, and I cried when someone thought I was a pirate.

So it wasn't quite as deep as what you were thinking, Jack.

I think both of our experiences next show the importance of a great story in making history come alive in our minds.

Absolutely, Jack.

And the importance of a great teacher to bring those stories to life.

But not all good teachers work in a classroom.

Some teachers need a slightly bigger stage.

What do you think?

Maybe a Broadway stage?

That's right, Nick, because today we're talking about.

My name is Alexander Hamilton.

Hamilton.

The hip-hop musical about the life and times of America's first Treasury Secretary.

It debuted on Broadway in 2015 and immediately started shattering records.

We're talking box office Tony nominations and the number of Thomas Paine references in one night on Broadway.

Everyone lined up to see this show.

From the Obamas to Oprah to Tom Hanks and Beyoncé.

This show redefined the modern theater-going experience and brought color to an entire generation's understanding of the American Revolution.

Plus, it made an international superstar of the man who wrote the script, the lyrics, the music, oh, and who played Hamilton himself, Lynn Manuel Miranda.

Actually, the reason I know the musical is because of you, Jack.

You got me the Hamilton tickets for a Christmas present.

And I've never even been to the show myself.

That's what a good friend I am.

When I gave you those tickets, I described the Hamilton musical as one of the greatest creative accomplishments of all time.

Hamilton also provides us with the perfect case study to understand the contradictory, counterintuitive business of Broadway.

Fun fact, Broadway shows have a higher failure rate than restaurants.

So step on into the room where it happened and learn how an impulse vacation purchase led to one of the highest grossing musicals of all time.

And how you can make the most of a sudden opportunity.

As Paul Revere the pirate once said, the profits are coming.

The profits are coming.

One if by balance sheet, two if by cash flow.

Here's why Hamilton, the musical, is the best idea yet.

From Wondery and T-Boy, I'm Nick Martell.

And I'm Jack Kravici Kramer.

And this is the best idea yet.

The untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bold risk takers who made them go viral.

I got that feeling of gay.

Something familiar but new.

We got it coming to you.

I got that feeling again.

They changed the game in one move.

Here's how they poke up the mouse.

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Vacation sun just hits different.

The rays feel warmer and the reflection sparkles more brilliantly off the rippling water than it does at home.

It's summer 2008 and 28-year-old Lynn Manuel Miranda is lounging on a pool floating in Mexico, bobbing gently as he reads a book.

This is the first time he's been able to fully relax in months.

Earlier this year, Lynn's first big musical in the Heights opened on Broadway.

He wrote the music and the lyrics and he plays the lead role.

He's been working on this since college.

But now, the show's not only up, it just won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Score.

This is a massive come up for this new Eurekan kid from Inwood, the neighborhood at the northern tip of Manhattan, mere blocks from where In the Heights the musical is set.

As a kid, Lynn used to commute from his mostly Dominican neighborhood to the mostly white Upper East Side for school.

He became a cross-cultural ambassador, loving both hip-hop and Broadway musicals.

I'm picturing him walking down Park Avenue, Jack, his walkman playing Naughty by Nature's OPP, followed by I Dream a Dream from Les Miserables.

But now, all grown up, Lynn has managed to translate his corner of New York City for the Broadway-going world in the form of song, dance, and rhymes.

And creating in the heights has been an exhilarating ride, but also a completely exhausting ride.

So here's what Lynn is thinking.

Let's tap the understudy to perform a week of shows instead of me.

Lynn and his girlfriend Vanessa, they're going to take a little downtime down in Mexico.

Lynn even has a vacation book to read.

He bought it on impulse, a biography of a semi-obscure figure from American history.

The kind of book you snag at the airport kiosk right as your flight is boarding.

If that flight is really long across multiple continents, because this book is the 800-page Alexander Hamilton by historian Ron Chernow.

This is an encyclopedic tome that covers thousands of letters, speeches, historical records of this lesser-known founding father.

This book is dense, but it also tells the story of a young Caribbean immigrant born to a single mother who rises from poverty to become America's first Treasury Secretary.

Alexander Hamilton survives hardship, illness, and the death of his mom to earn a scholarship to King's College, later renamed Columbia University.

So he emigrates to New York while it's still a British colony.

Later, he joins the American Revolution as Washington's right-hand man and together, spoiler, they beat back the British to help win America its independence.

Hamilton becomes the intellectual architect of our system of governance that we still have today because he wrote most of the Federalist papers, the writings that convince people to get on board with the new U.S.

Constitution.

Oh, also, there's a little T involved here too.

He withstands a sex scandal, loses his eldest son in a duel, and is shot and killed himself in his own duel with Vice President Aaron Burr, all before his 50th birthday.

Chernow's biography reads like a cross between Johnny Tremaine and Tupac's Only God Can Judge Me.

Because Hamilton wasn't just a founding father.

This man was a G.

He beefed with everyone.

Not just Aaron Burr, but a couple future presidents and a literal bishop.

Lynn is sitting in that floaty and he can't shake the idea that Hamilton and Burr are the Enlightenment era Tupac and Biggie.

Tragic ending and all.

He cannot put this book down.

Think about this.

How much one impulsive reading choice from like a Hudson newsstand at the airport, Terminal 3, is going to alter the theater and entertainment landscape forever.

Jack, what if you picked up a Dan Brown mystery instead?

When he gets back from vacation, Lynn tracks down Ron Chernow's personal email address, the historian who wrote this incredible story.

And Lynn offers Ron tickets to In the Heights and even asks Ron out for coffee.

Ron, to his delight, says yes.

And this one coffee together will kick off a series of events that will transform both of their lives.

Picture cascading verses jotted into a notebook between stops on the southbound A-Train.

Lynn is dreaming up ideas for his first rap song about Alexander Hamilton.

And that's all it is at first.

Just one song.

He thinks it might be the start of a concept album.

A Hamilton mixtape, if you will.

But Lynn's day job is performing the lead role in In the Heights, a two and a half hour per show, eight shows a week commitment at the Richard Rogers Theater on Broadway and West 46th Street.

And that takes a whole ton of focus, and it also takes even more physical exertion.

So he's going to leave this Alexander Hamilton pot to simmer.

Maybe he scribbles a few lyrics on his commute or hums a melody line into his phone's voice memo app.

Either way, it's his subway side hustle.

Then, in the spring of 2009, Lynn gets a call from an unlisted number.

But instead of a fake bill collector, it's the White House.

Call accepted.

Newly elected President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are hosting a night of poetry and music at the White House.

Spike Lee will be there.

James Earl Jones is going to be there.

The White House staffer on the phone wants to know: would Lynn be interested in performing?

Uh, was Martin Van Buren the eighth president of the United States?

The answer is yes, we'll take it.

They invite Lynn to perform something from In the Heights, you know, the one that won all the Tony Awards.

Makes sense.

But Lynn is ambitious, like the founding father he's recently become obsessed with.

He sees a window of opportunity here, and Lynn shoots his shot.

He asks, Could I try a rap about Alexander Hamilton instead?

There is a slight pause on the line.

That poetry doesn't sound very deaf jam at all.

But hey, the 44th president campaigned on change, so the staffer says yes.

And before he knows it, Lynn is on his way down to D.C.

Cut to the White House East Room.

The ceiling drips with low-hanging crystal chandeliers.

In this room, some of the most powerful people in the American government are gathering, all decked out in black tie, including the president and first lady.

Joining Lynn at the piano is his musician friend and collaborator, Alex Lackamore.

Alex did the orchestral arrangements for In the Heights, and Lynn trusts him completely, even if his guts say, What the heck are we doing?

When Lynn gets the microphone, he starts talking a little too quickly.

His voice sounds confident, but underneath, this guy is bubbling with nerves.

I'm thrilled the White House called me tonight because I'm actually working on a hip-hop album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.

You laugh, but it's true.

You know, a lot of ums in there, a little awkward.

This isn't his cleanest work.

This audience is clearly expecting a few rhyming jokes about taxation without representation, like an S and L spoof or something.

But then Alex lets rip with the opening chords.

How does a bastard orphan son of a whore and a Scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the middle.

As the song progresses, the laughs die down.

The energy shifts.

Chuckles become nods as Lynn finds his flow.

Forget the nerdy satire.

This is an epic poem about the man who made the most of every opportunity achieving the impossible until finally Lynn gets to the song's dark punchline.

I'm the damn fool that shot Alexander Hamilton.

Lynn and Alex leave the stage in a blur of applause.

Lynn starts questioning everything.

I saw Obama whispering something to Michelle.

What was he saying?

Turns out Obama was saying that his Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, needs to hear this.

The song, first conceived in 10-second snippets between 190th Street and Times Square, it is a hit.

Video from the performance is posted to whitehouse.gov and then to YouTube.

Views start pinging around the world.

This White House debut is more than just an incredible night.

It's one of the great product demos of all time.

And he nailed it.

Okay, Jack, so four minutes down.

Only two and a half hours of musical to go.

After White House Poetry Night, Lynn starts working slowly.

Slow by Lynn Manuel Miranda Standards is still pretty fast because Lynn shares quite a few traits with Alexander Hamilton.

They both work non-stop.

Lynn is still performing in the Heights eight shows a week.

So he's actually creating his second creative baby while he's taking care of his first.

And during all this, Lynn also gets hired to help write the score for another musical, Bring It On.

He guest stars on network TV shows, oh, and he and his girlfriend Vanessa get married.

So Lynn is basically going full founder mode on his life and career.

But two and a half years after that legendary White House poetry jam, Lynn has a grand total of three songs.

Now, three songs is more than I've ever written, but at this rate, Lynn is in danger of losing momentum from his big night.

However, Nick, Lynn has a secret weapon.

You see, when he gets excited about something, he doesn't keep it to himself.

He likes to knock ideas around with trusted collaborators, basically open sourcing his vision.

Kind of reminds us of that proverb, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.

We already know he's been working things out with his arranger, Alex Lackamore.

But the next next person Lynn turns to is his In the Heights director, a man named Thomas Kale, or Tommy, to his friends.

Tommy helped Lynn develop In the Heights from a tiny workshop production all the way to Broadway.

And one thing he knows about Tommy, Tommy is a great collaborator.

And one thing Tommy knows about Lynn, he needs a deadline.

So, Tommy gently suggests that Lynn set a more ambitious goal for the Hamilton mixtape than one song a year.

They're going to need to set some benchmarks here.

Graph some internal deadlines.

And honestly, it's a good lesson for all of us.

Creativity thrives on constraints.

Otherwise, you'd still be writing your sophomore year thesis.

But just as they're working all that out, a natural deadline falls in their lap.

Lynn is offered a slot in Lincoln Center's American Songbook Series, an artsy annual tribute to American music on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

The date Lynn is offered is January 11th.

January 11th?

I know what you're thinking, man.

Hamilton's birthday.

What are the odds?

How can Lynn say no?

In a matter of months, the Hamilton song count goes from three to 12, with each one telling a piece of Hamilton's rise.

On January 11th, 2012, the first version of the Hamilton mixtape plays before a cozy audience of about 450 people in Lincoln Center's Allen Room.

The performers are lit in deep royal blue.

The drum kit sprawls across the stage.

Everyone in this ensemble wears suits.

Like after the performance, they're going to pop next door to watch the Philharmonic.

The performers are mostly friends and collaborators Lynn and Tommy have worked with before.

For example, a tall, straight-backed actor who never skips bicep day.

I'm talking about Christopher Jackson.

Now, Lynn and Tommy know Chris from In the Heights and from a freestyle rap group they formed years earlier.

And they trust him with one of the mixtapes' most critical roles: George Washington.

Can I be real a second for just a millisecond?

Let out

He is so instrumental to developing George Washington.

Chris will never have to audition for future productions.

Chris's casting represents more than just a talented actor winning a juicy part because this choice will actually come to define one of Hamilton's greatest impacts as a piece of theater.

In real life, George Washington was a lifelong slaveholder.

But in Hamilton, that slaveholder is played by a black American actor.

In fact, every major character will be played by a non-white actor, with the exception of King George, played by a series of smirking white male tenors.

This non-traditional casting, it is very intentional.

Lynn and Tommy want the Hamilton mixtape to bring history into modern terms.

The heroes of Hamilton's story are young.

They're idealistic.

They want to change the world.

And in an era when America has just elected its first black president, what better time to give the dead presidents an update?

This way, everyone in the audience, citizen or immigrant, can see themselves in the American story.

So George Washington is black, and so is Aaron Burt and Thomas Jefferson.

Oh, and playing Alexander Hamilton, the orphaned illegitimate Scotsman from the West Indies, is a Puerto Rican Pulitzer Prize finalist from Inwood, Lynn himself.

Hey, when you're writing the show, you get to shoot your shot.

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Let's start with the good news.

The Hamilton Mixtapes 2012 debut at Lincoln Center gets rave reviews from everyone, including the New York Times.

Their critic writes, Is the Hamilton mixtape a future Broadway musical?

A concept album?

Does it even matter?

What it is is hot.

Killer review.

But in practical terms, yeah, it does matter what form Hamilton takes next.

The difference between a song cycle with a jazz ensemble and a full Broadway production is hundreds of artists and millions of dollars.

By Broadway production, we mean one of the 41 official Broadway venues in New York City, the top rung of American theater.

These ornate 100-year-old theaters are stuffed into a few blocks of Midtown Manhattan where Broadway intersects with Times Square.

In fact, that's one of the shockingly practical reasons the business of Broadway is so complicated.

The real estate is so limited.

There are just those 41 theaters owned by just three companies who have monopolistic power over the producers of the shows.

This is why musicals often follow up their Broadway runs with a national tour.

The touring touring model helps productions recoup the expenses of Broadway by literally taking the show on the road.

But in the meantime, Jack, turn off your ringer and pass me the playbill.

Let's dive a little bit deeper into the business engine of Broadway.

Fun fact, Broadway generates nearly $15 billion annually and supports 96,000 jobs.

It is both a tourism driver and a cultural institution.

But Broadway shows are expensive to produce, especially musicals.

In the mid-20 teens, when Lynn is trying to mount Hamilton, straight plays, as in no singing and dancing, cost between $3 and $6 million to mount on Broadway, plus a half a million per week to operate.

Oh, and for musicals, double it.

$8 to $12 million in fixed costs just to launch.

And then after that, $1 million per week to operate the thing.

Because musicals have big chorus numbers and a full orchestra, orchestra, which means even bigger weekly payrolls.

You got to pay for all those obos.

Now, Broadway shows, they're not only expensive, they're also really risky.

In fact, the Broadway world and the venture capital world, they actually have a lot in common.

Only one in five Broadway shows are profitable.

That's right.

80% of what you see, enjoy, and clap to on Broadway is losing money faster than they can make it.

Like VCs hoping for a unicorn IPO, you're betting on a few big hits out of the bunch, which is why they say, yeah, you can make a killing on Broadway, you just can't make a living.

Nobody is safe from flopping.

And the ghosts of those flops haunt every Broadway producer.

And it is to this landscape that Lynn Manuel Miranda and his team find themselves navigating.

Of the 46 shows on Broadway in 2012, only about a third of them are original pieces.

Everything else is either a revival of film adaptation or both.

Elf, the musical.

A Christmas story, the musical.

Ghost, the musical.

You get the idea.

So what this means is that a musical about a guy best known from your eighth grade history textbook, eh, kind of a long shot.

Another risk factor for Hamilton, it's a hip-hop musical.

At a time when Broadway audiences skew over 40 and white, almost 80% of all tickets sold in the 2014 season are going to white ticket buyers.

Leaving alone whether these audiences will embrace the diverse casting plan, what are the chances your Aunt Muriel gets Lynn's Biggie Smalls references?

So, even with its Tony Award-winning creative team and the buzz in the press, a Hamilton musical is facing an uptail climb.

Wrong topic, wrong music, wrong audience.

This thing is going to need a backing producer who believes in the show despite all of those risks.

Enter a mild-mannered, understated producer who will pull off the unimaginable.

Jeffree Seller doesn't look like a fortune teller.

He's got a slight build, curly hair, and shows up to work in a bicycle helmet.

But make no mistake, Nick, Jeffree Seller can see the future because Jeffree Seller was one of the lead producers for In the Heights.

Right away, he recognized Lynn Manuel Miranda as a generational talent.

But back up a second, Nick.

Before Jeffree was a big shot producer, he was a young showbooker in New York, just hoping for a chance to produce and direct.

One day, by chance, he attended a tiny workshop by a little-known composer.

It was so bare-bones that the actors held their scripts on music stands.

But in that small space, Jeffree saw the next runaway hit and the talent of its creator, Jonathan Larson.

Three years later, Jeffrey was co-lead producer and financier on the Smash hit, Rent.

Rent is a perfect case study in taking risky material mainstream.

It's a 1990s take on the 1890s opera, La Boheme, about a poor seamstress in Paris and her artsy bohemian friends.

Rent updates the story though to New York with a multiracial cast playing gay and trans characters, drug addicts, and gasp performance artists.

Several of the characters have HIV or AIDS, a hot button issue back in the late 90s.

So when the show opens, Jeffrey watches older audience members actually walk out of the theater.

To some producers, that real-time feedback might be a cue to retool the show.

But Jeffrey recognizes that Rent is in a classic five-star, one-star situation, as in the only kind of reviews you want for a new product.

Collecting five-star and one-star reviews helps you hone in on your core audience.

The same thing as making grandpa walk out or making young people fall in love with and embrace the show.

So, Rent runs on Broadway for 12 years, earning almost 275 million bucks and lands in the top 20 list of all-time earners.

With this experience under his belt, you can understand why Jeffree might be excited to take a chance on Hamilton.

From the moment he sees the Lincoln Center concert, he's nudging Lynn and Tommy about mounting a full production.

And Jeffree turns out to be the perfect addition to the team.

He's not just a wallet, he gives critical artistic feedback that they can trust.

Because Lynn and Tommy, they know Jeffrey isn't going to ask for changes just to make the show more profitable.

He wants them to make the best show, period.

What comes next is an intensive period of research, writing, and workshops.

Call it theatrical hour dig.

Lynn spends months burying himself in Alexander's voluminous letters.

He consults with the biographer Ron Chernau to make sure his facts are all straight.

Lynn and Tommy even make a research pilgrimage across the Hudson River to the site of Hamilton's final duel so they can conjure the scene on stage.

While Lynn is covering the content, Jeffrey Seller is CFOing the whole financial side.

He's raising money, creating budgets, wrangling partnerships to workshop the show, meaning putting it on its feet with actors and musicians.

They call this taking a play from page to stage.

And it often happens far away from New York's theater district.

So Lynn and his crew, they start workshop in the show upstate and later down in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan.

collecting essential cast members along the way.

Like speed rapper David Diggs as Thomas Jefferson, the crooner Leslie Odom Jr.

as Aaron Burr, Renee Elise Goldsbury as Hamilton's sister-in-law that he's maybe in love with, Angelica, and each actor they find bring another key piece of the story to life.

And in March of 2014, it's announced that the show is heading off Broadway to the historic public theater in the East Village of New York.

Not as the Hamilton mixtape, but simply as Hamilton.

It's cleaner.

The AC is blasting inside the Richard Rogers Theater because outside it's a scorcher.

Two hours before showtime, Lynn is already backstage, trying not to be nervous.

This is the very same theater on West 46th Street where Lynn's last show, In the Heights, ran for 1,100 performances.

So he knows this plays backwards and forwards, but right now, it feels foreign.

The catwalk above his head seems a little too high, the lights feel a little too bright.

It's July 13th, 2015, the day of Hamilton's first Broadway performance.

And man,

what a trip it has been.

Remember the public theater downtown?

That off-Broadway space with just 300 seats?

Hamilton sold out all 119 performances there.

Hamilton is riding a wave of PR buzz unseen in the industry in decades.

But here we are on Broadway.

And from the Lincoln Center show to the developmental workshops, Everyone in the New York theater scene has been buzzing about this Hamilton production.

Even the technical crew, the veteran stage folk who build sets and hang lights for hundreds of productions, were whispering that Hamilton is something special.

So, after a brief hiatus to fine-tune the show, Hamilton moves from the East Village up to its new home at the Richard Rogers Theater on Broadway.

And expectations could not be higher.

Even as Lynn paces backstage before the first preview, the show has already brought in more than $27 million in advance ticket sales.

The show's basically sold out for months before the curtain even rises.

It's among the biggest pre-opening totals in Broadway history.

The hype was real.

That $27 million in pre-sales, that's over double the initial $12.5 million investment.

Not too shabby.

But it's exactly in moments like these that doubts start to creep in.

What if the show just doesn't translate to Broadway?

What if the tourists don't love us the way public theater subscribers do?

What if this whole time, Lynn and his crew have been in their own hype bubble?

But just then, someone points Lynn towards the stage door because outside on 46th Street, people have started to gather for the lottery.

Wait, is this like the mega millions drawing tonight?

What's going on?

No, it is not, Nick.

This is Hamilton's ticket lottery for same-day rush tickets.

Here's the deal.

A small number of front row seats are held back each performance until right before showtime.

Broadway shows actually done this for years, the cheapest rush tickets usually going for about 20 bucks a piece, a discount to make theater more accessible for folks with a lot of love, but very little money.

It's a great tradition of Broadway.

It is.

Instead of $20 for these same-day rush tickets, Hamilton's rush tickets are just $10.

And why is that, Nick?

Well, because that's the bill with Mr.

Alex Hamilton's face on it.

It's hand for ham.

Yeah.

You pay a Hamilton to see Hamilton.

So, here in the chatter outside, Lynn pops out to see the the Ham for Ham Hopefuls just as the lottery is about to be drawn.

So he steps out onto 46th Street hours before his first show and finds himself face to face with 700 people.

700 people.

That is 14 New York City buses worth of humans, all of them waiting for the chance to win one of just 21 tickets to tonight's opening preview.

Lynn feels this rush of gratitude towards the crowd at this moment.

Everyone clamoring to experience this show he's been working on for seven years.

So he gives them a word of encouragement.

So thanks to you, we're probably going to be here a while.

So don't be disappointed if you don't win today.

I love you very much, guys.

When Lynn goes on stage that night, sure enough, the front row section is filled with young people hanging on every word.

It is exactly the energy you want on your first night.

For Hamilton's signature song, My Shot, the front row is nodding and mouthing along already because they know every word well before the song enters the cultural zeitgeist.

Now at the next performance, Lynn says hi to the rush crowd again.

Only this time, instead of a quick hello, he creates an original three-minute sidewalk performance just for this crowd.

Even those who don't win tickets, which is most of the people there, come away having seen something totally one of a a kind.

This kicks off a totally new Broadway tradition, the ham-for-ham performances.

Most Wednesdays and Saturdays, Lynn, plus rotating cast members, special guests, even actors from other Broadway shows, they burst out of the stage door and perform something special for that lottery crowd.

These performances are short and silly, but they're also one of a kind, and they make everyone standing there hoping to get their hands on a ticket they probably won't get.

It makes them all feel really special.

Plus, let's talk a little strategy here.

These ham-for-hand mini concerts are basically a musical growth hack.

The sidewalk lottery tickets are already attractive to customers, but the lottery itself isn't new.

Most Broadway shows, they have done this since rent.

But these random live performances, that's totally innovative.

Yes, they become a reason to keep trying to get into Hamilton six, seven, 12 times.

All while posting about it on social to drive even more demand for the show.

And from a financial perspective, the ham for ham shows are also a way to democratize the experience a little.

Because ironically, Hamilton, a musical about the rise of a penniless orphan, is getting more expensive by the day.

Ticket prices continued to soar through the start of 2016, going from about $350 on average to more than $500 if you can find a ticket at all.

And once online scalpers get involved, we're talking up to $11,000 a ticket on the secondary market.

It has become the Louis Vuitton of Live Shows, the Maseratia musicals.

It is now a luxury product.

Even when the original cast starts departing, ticket prices stay high because Hamilton dominates the 2016 Tony Awards, a record 16 nominations in 13 categories with 11 wins.

That's the second most in Tony history.

Lynn wins a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Genius Grant.

It becomes so hard to get these tickets, Lynn will make fun of it later when he hosts Saturday Night Live.

But the luxurification of Hamilton Neck, it gets Lynn and his team thinking.

What's the legacy of this musical going to be?

Is it about a sense of belonging?

How immigrants, poor people, people of color all deserve a place in the American story?

Or is this the story of creating the most exclusive show in town like an Air Maze Birkenbag?

It's a complicated question with no easy answer.

Until they score one of the biggest content acquisition deals of all time, this production is about to go from a Hamilton to a billion.

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It's just past midnight, July 3rd, 2020.

You're likely not planning your Independence Day party because it's the thick of COVID lockdowns.

Broadway has been shuttered since March 12th.

The lights are dark.

The pause was supposed to be just one month, but it's going to last for more than a year.

Billions in tourism dollars lost, not to mention those 96,000 jobs.

We're talking actors, dancers, designers, box office staff, all in limbo.

Hamilton has gone dark too.

Not just on Broadway, but its robust touring productions that have been taking the show all over the U.S., Canada, Australia, even the UK.

Yeah, King George's Backyard.

The original Broadway cast had long since gone on to other gigs.

And Lynn Manuel Miranda, he's busy adapting in the heights to the big screen and writing songs for Disney's Moana.

You're welcome.

But now, as you sit on your couch thinking about how to keep the kids six feet apart when you bust out the 4th of July sparklers, you notice a new icon on your Disney Plus app.

Gold background, black star, and the silhouette of a man pointing up to the sky.

Hamilton the Movie Musical is available for anyone with a Disney Plus account.

Or anyone still borrowing their ex-roommate Timmy's password.

But wait, sorry, Jack.

How did we get here exactly?

Can we please rewind the tape a bit?

Turns out, back in June 2016, the Hamilton team did something really smart.

They captured a live performance of the original cast on film.

And now they didn't know what they would use this for yet, but they didn't just stick a camera at the back of the house during a performance.

They invested in spending three days filming, capturing two live performances, plus another day when the house was empty.

This allows them to capture all the big close-ups and set up complex shots using cranes and a dolly track.

The end result was a theatrical recording unlike any other.

It puts the viewer right up close to the action, just like you would see if you got one of those rush seats.

You can see Thomas Jefferson saliva as he's spitting lyrics at a Kendrick Lamar pace.

Tommy Kale directs, the cash shines, and the project goes stealthily into post-production until February 2020.

That's when Disney buys the worldwide film rights to this high-budget musical for $75 million.

It's one of the biggest acquisition deals ever for a live performance.

Disney will match this deal in 2024 for the rights to Taylor Swift's era's concert movie.

Hamilton sets the price for Taylor Swift.

Disney originally planned to give the film a theatrical release, but when the pandemic hits, people stop going to the movies and both streamers and viewers get desperate for new content.

Plus, Disney Plus wanted to get some new subscribers signed up.

So boom, Disney pivots and releases Hamilton on Disney Plus just in time for Independence Day.

So bringing Hamilton to streaming gives regular folks, especially families, a chance to reach back in time and get their own front row seat to the most exclusive ticket in the world.

And it gave us all a patriotic way to celebrate America's birthday during the lockdown.

For context, about 1,300 people per show watched Hamilton Live, which means about 2.6 million people saw Hamilton live during its first five years on Broadway.

But for contrast, in the first 10 days on Disney Plus, roughly 2.7 million households streamed Hamilton.

You're telling me in 10 days on streaming, more people saw Hamilton than saw it in five years on Broadway?

That's exactly what I'm saying, Jack.

This Disney deal, combined with the Broadway ticket revenue, the touring, and the music streaming, it pushes Hamilton to the billion-dollar mark by 2025.

Only the fourth Broadway musical ever to achieve this feat.

And based on the ticket prices, amazingly, it appears that the Disney Plus streaming version did not cannibalize the Broadway elite luxury version that still continued.

I could attest because I bought you those tickets to Hamilton.

I did, I did.

I appreciate you going into debt for me on that one, Jack.

For a nice gift.

But add it all up, Nick.

And this founding father has officially reached unicorn status.

Stick that on the back of the $10 bill.

And after 18 months of COVID-induced shutdown, the show reopens on Broadway, September 2021, where it is still running today.

In fact, this year marks Hamilton's 10th anniversary.

Hashtag Hamilton.

We don't know where it would go next, but I think we got a couple of guesses, right?

You saw how well Wicked did as a film adaptation of a Broadway show.

Good point, man.

Over $700 million in global box office revenue and counting.

What do you think a full-scale film adaptation of Hamilton can't be far behind?

Our prediction?

Michael B.

Jordan plays Washington.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays King George.

Oh, and then Jack, knowing how Hollywood works, are they going to find a way to turn Hamilton into a trilogy?

Ben Franklin Freestyle is about discovering electricity.

Let's make it happen.

So Nick, now that we've heard the story of Hamilton, what's your takeaway?

My takeaway, Jack, is straight from the musical.

Do not throw away your shot.

Alexander Hamilton took his shot every time he was given the chance, even if he didn't totally feel ready.

In fact, the only time he did throw away his shot, it was during that duel that ended his life.

Pretty meta, right?

But as the creative force behind Hamilton the musical, Lynn Manuel Miranda also had to shoot his shot and make the most of every opportunity, even if it was a total gamble.

Like when he decided to perform a brand new song at the White House Poetry Jam, that was a huge risk, but he took it because he saw the upside and it changed his life.

Yeah, if you like sit down and actually weigh the pros and cons of that decision, the risk was he embarrasses himself, okay?

The upside is that he ends up disrupting the entire theater industry.

Do not throw away your shot.

But Jack, what about you?

What is your takeaway?

Well, I'm using another line from Hamilton.

Customers want to be in the room where it happens.

When you have an exclusive product like Hamilton tickets, you face a key decision.

Embrace that exclusivity or find ways to let more people in.

And both approaches work, like we learned in our Ferrari episode.

Ferrari manufactures scarcity by making, as Enzo Ferrari put it, one car less than the market desires.

But Hamilton's exclusivity wasn't manufactured like Ferrari's was.

Theaters have physical limits of size and actors' capacities to do only so many shows a week.

So unlike Ferrari, the Hamilton creative team wanted everyone who wanted to see the show to be able to do it.

Hence the lottery tickets, the Broadway cast album, the national tours, multiple cities, and finally, the Disney Plus streaming deal.

Kind of the rare case where they had both a luxury product and an accessible product because customers want to be in the room where it happens.

It's up to you to decide whether you let them in.

Before we go, it is time for our absolute favorite part of the show, the best facts yet.

These are the hero stats, the facts, and the surprises we discovered in our research, but couldn't fit into the story.

All right, Jack, let's go.

And a five, and a six, and a seven, and eight.

Today, it may seem obvious that Lynn Manuel Miranda would play Alexander Hamilton.

But early in the development process, Lynn actually couldn't decide whether he should play Hamilton, the impulsive genius in a hurry who can't keep his mouth shut, or Burr, the other main character of the play whose whole thing is waiting and waiting for the right opportunity.

Lynn identifies with both, but decides to go for Ham, of course, because he rarely gets the chance to play someone so cocky and so cocky.

The role of Burr, by the way, went to the great Leslie Odom Jr., who won a Tony Award for Best Actor.

Oh, and breaking news, he happens to be returning to the role for 10 weeks this September.

Might want to hop on that ticket app right now if you want to see Leslie Odom Jr.

as Aaron Burr.

Yeah, pause the pod.

One sec, Jack.

All right, Nick, last fact.

Several scenes in Hamilton take place in a tavern where Alexander and his revolutionary friends literally raise a glass to freedom.

This is because historically, the founding fathers spent most of the revolution pretty tipsy.

Clean water in the colonies was hard to come by, so the founding fathers mostly drank ale, except Hamilton, who preferred wine.

America didn't run on Duncan.

It ran on Sam Adams.

Yeah, I did.

But Jack, before we go, I got to ask, considering Mr.

Kip is absolutely listening to today's episode, what grade do you think he's giving us on this analysis of Hamilton?

Mr.

Kip, drop a comment and let us know.

And that is why Hamilton is the best idea yet.

Coming up on the next episode of the best idea yet, put on your best sweatpant and limber up that throwing elbow because we're talking about the frisbee.

Hey, if you have a product you're obsessed with but you wish you knew the backstory, drop us a comment.

We'll look into it for you.

And don't forget to rate and review the pod.

Five stars helps us grow the show.

Follow the best idea yet on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to every episode of The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

The best idea yet is a production of Wondery, hosted by me, Nick Martel, and me, Jack Kurvici-Kramer.

Our senior producers are Matt Beagle and Chris Gauthier.

Peter Arcuni is our additional senior producer.

Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan, and Taylor Sniffin is our managing producer.

Our producer is H.

Conley.

Researched by Brent Corson.

This episode was written and produced by Katie Clark Gray.

We'll use many sources in our research, including All About the Hamiltons by Rebecca Mead for The New Yorker.

And The CEO of Hamilton Inc.

by Michael Sokolov for The New York Times magazine.

Sound design and mixing by C.J.

Drummeler.

Fact-checking by Molly Artwick.

Music supervision by Scott Velazquez and Jolena Garcia for Freesan Sing.

Our theme song is Got That Feeling Again by Blackalack.

Executive producers for Nick and Jack Studios are me, Nick Martel, and me, Jack Ravici-Kramer.

Executive producers for Wondery are Dave Easton, Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Aaron O'Flaherty, and Marshall Louie.

It's your man, Nick Cannon, and I'm here to bring you my new podcast, Nick Cannon at Night.

I've heard y'all been needing some advice in the love department.

So, who better to help than yours, truly?

Nah, I'm serious.

Every week, I'm bringing out some of my celebrity friends and the best experts in the business to answer your most intimate relationship questions.

Having problems with your man?

We got you.

Catching feelings for your sneaky link?

Let's make sure it's the real deal first.

Ready to bring toys into the bedroom?

Let's talk about it.

Consider this a non-judgment zone to ask your questions when it comes to sex and modern dating in relationships, friendships, situationships, and everything in between.

It's going to be sexy, freaky, messy, and you know what?

You'll just have to watch the show.

So don't be shy.

Join the conversation and head over to YouTube to watch Nick Cannon at night night or subscribe on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

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