Copyright 2022 Lady in the Blue Box Publishing by Rachel Beth Ahrens. All Rights Reserved. Please don't plagiarize. Plagiarism stinks, it's sick, it's wrong, it don't make no sense. Please don't copy my writing without a Works Cited page, thanks, love you doll!
Trigger warning is still in effect. 14-16 years old and up. Please be kind and show some decorum, don't lose it. There are some heavy themes in this. Love you.
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Welp, you guessed it folks. Alexander and I caved and streamed on Disney + for a few months now. I'm so very sorry I did this.
And it all started one wintery and cold night a year after I started making these posts on WordPress. Actually, make that two years, because I think I started around 2020. Eh boy...
If you haven't read my last post already... The first thing we watched on Disney+ was indeed Hamilton. My sincerest apologies.
And thus, the madness has begun...
I've also been updated on the Oscars- I think Lin-Manuel Miranda was cheated again. They should have nominated him for Tick, Tick... Boom!, or at least given him the award for Encanto's "Dos Oruguitas" because it's a gorgeous song in Spanish about BUTTERFLIES in LOVE- and they gave it to James Bond instead! We already had Adele win for Skyfall! Why does Billie Eilish need one? I don't get it- maybe the Academy that handles the Oscars are all racist imbeciles... But that's for another time...
I'm now going to get off my soap box. I'm coming down off of that.
To recap, last time we talked about Long Live the King... we went into the importance of failure in Tick, Tick... Boom! and a little on the Disney+ version of Hamilton. Of course, the Chapter 5 episode took a little too much longer than I thought, so I had to end it a little bit earlier than I intended.
Here are the facts.
#1. I'm going to say this out of peace and kindness, Hamilton deserves the Tony win for the whole thing. I tried to undermine it with facts that I discovered, but yeah, it is very well written in music, lyrics, and libretto. I tried, I really tried to hate it, I can't hate it anymore. It's a little TOO good. But Waitress is still my favorite musical, Sara Bareilles is my favorite songwriter. But I just can't help it, Hamilton is probably... Just as good, I guess???
#2. The Twitter and social media following on Hamilton and Lin-Manuel Miranda is beyond impressive. I followed the @HamiltonMusical Twitter page at long last TODAY. They have millions of subscribers around the world, even as far as Asia and Europe. There is a London, England show of Hamilton on West End as well, which is the neighborhood of the UK devoted to plays and Broadway shows in Europe. Some people go as far as leaving the States or even leaving the damn country to see this show. I think it's on the fast track to making a huge fandom following, if my calculations are correct. If my costume of Eliza goes to Balticon this weekend and all goes well, I just might eventually get noticed on Twitter with maybe another 1,000 followers? I don't know??? I currently have over 2,300 followers right now, which is pretty good so far. Instagram, on the other hand, is being kind of slow with my crochet following on #crochetersofinstagram, however, I haven't been posting that much. So far, my top posts have 17 likes each. :)
#3. The musical in question had a very thorough background in lots and lots of research, backed by the Ron Chernow biography, but it's still considered historical fiction because some of the things in Hamilton were either fictional or left out of the musical completely. Like I said before, Chernow's biography is a huge BRICK- the spine is humongous, you can't fit every single page into a three hour or two and a half hour musical on the stage. Unless it's anything like the play that Andrew Garfield performed on the Broadway stage playing a man in the hospital who is dying of AIDS, and just before he stepped off stage to play Jonathan Larson in Miranda's directional debut of Tick, Tick... Boom!. I forgot what that 5 hour long play was called, but I think it was called Angels in America, I'd have to fact check that. Other than that, Hamilton is very well thought out and most of what you see in the show actually happened in our American history classes. Especially the radio trivia question in the Got Milk? commercial where a guy eating a huge peanut butter sandwich is the only guy who knows who murdered Alexander Hamilton, but he has to run to the store to buy milk and he's freaking out because he's on the phone and his mouth is full. (One of my favorite ads from my childhood in the 90s!) Miranda got it right this time.
#4. The costumes in Hamilton are SPOT-ON perfection- it's a LOT like the movie and musical of 1776, only everybody is singing rap and hip hop musical numbers. 1776 is more of a classic musical show from the late 60s and early 70s, with songs like "Sit Down, John", "Momma, Look Sharp" and "But, Mr. Adams", and I truly love them all! But, I'm pretty sure that Miranda has seen that movie at least once because he was able to fit in the "Sit Down, John" line into his musical, but only for a split second before he cusses him out. There is actually a John Adams rap song that was completely cut from the show, and Miranda performed it in a Q&A talk back show after opening night on Broadway with the original cast in 2016. He even says the classic line "Bitch, please!" in the middle of the rap, which makes it even funnier, where he is totally dissing President John Adams! But he mentioned in the YouTube video of the talk back that the rap song ended up on the cutting room floor, and he was only allowed to say the line, "Sit down, John, you FAT MOTHER F-!!!" Still, it's pretty clever, and funny, because it's true- President Adams was kind of an ass.
Still, the costumes are completely period cosplays from the Colonial into the early Regency Eras. This was around the time Jane Austen was born and growing up as a young English writer and author, even though she died long after the passing of Alexander Hamilton. She died at the age of 41 in 1817. Hamilton was most likely in his late 40s when Aaron Burr killed him in a duel in New Jersey.
#5. Which leads us to- Eliza's costume. I simply can't get enough of it. She's gorgeous in the empire waisted gown similar to that of Miss Austen.
#6. Also to add- Eliza is the entire heartbeat and soul of the show, especially when she makes the final epilogue of the show. I'm still, slowly, reading her biography, even though I took a long break from reading the textbook because I've been so focused on making the crochet cosplay for Balticon. Still, "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" is the real heartbeat and soul of the show, the full centerpiece that comes full circle to the end of the show, in showing the entire audience: If you die, who will tell your story and live in your legacy? If you die, and you have no next of kin, no one will remember you, so who is going to tell your story? This entire song is important to this show, you can't skip over it no matter how much it makes you want to cry. It's imperative to have an Eliza in this show. She was the one who told her children to encourage them to write about their dad in a biography, and one day, one of them did, but not until after Eliza had died at the age of 90, which was unheard of in the 1800s. Most women either died in childbirth or died of terrible infections and diseases in the 19th century because medicine was just terrible. But she had a legacy that is still around today: she practically invented the American foster care system with her first private orphanage that became Graham Windham, and she started a school in Hamilton's name because she wanted to keep raising children and educating them so that they didn't have to live the horrible conditions her husband did. And the Washington Monument in D.C. wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her raising money to build it. She was truly an activist and a brave powerhouse woman at that. Eliza was as much a feminist as Jenna Hunterson in Waitress.
#7. Sadly, it is true in both the Chernow biography and the Eliza Hamilton biography by Tilar Mazzeo that Eliza burned her letters. Jane Austen did the same thing, she burned most of them, until her brother Henry Austen found some of them and published them, especially since her sister Cassandra Austen, who also never married, kept her sister's letters she wrote to her. It was common during the Regency Era that women had to burn or destroy their letters in some way because it was not feminine at all for women to write in those days. It was a very cruel world in those days because it was more common that men should make money and men should be authors, not women- women were only allowed to cook, clean, and make babies in the 1800s, and there was no gender equality in those times, which was exceptionally evil. It took until the 1920s when women were finally allowed to work with the same pay grade as men, and women had the right to vote. However, women are still fighting for equal rights and equal pay all over the world, and that includes the United States as well, yes, we're still fighting for equality with men.
Also, that includes LGBTQ+ rights too, because gender equality also includes the fight for gender neutral bathrooms because of transgender and nonbinary rights, which in this case, this is an absolute human right too. I saw one Mexican restaurant in White Marsh that had gender neutral bathrooms and it had just opened in 2020 or 2021, it's called Banditos, they serve awesome street tacos, and the gender neutral bathrooms are 100% private and very cozy! Honestly, there should be more public bathrooms like this, especially since believe it or not, gender neutral bathrooms like this are also disability accessible too. We need more inclusive public places everywhere you go.
Ok, enough about that- Women should have the equality and purpose to write. Eliza deserved to have a voice. That's it. I'm so glad that Miranda gave her a voice at last.
#8. Does anybody notice that the ticking of the clocks in the musical kind of remind you of steampunk? And the fact that Angelica and Eliza have parasols, which is a very steampunk nature in Act 2 of Hamilton, if you've read anything by Gail Carriger? I have, and I think that rocks.
#9, and finally: I'm going to have to find out when I see the real thing on stage.
Yes, my boyfriend and I caved. On Monday, May 16, 2022, Ticketmaster opened their gates to allow people to order online tickets to go see Hamilton at the historic and gorgeous Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore City. Tickets are NOT CHEAP! This was a huge deal for all of us, especially when my friend from college, Beth, asked us on Facebook if we were willing to go see the show on a Sunday matinee in October for her birthday.
Alexander then called me on Monday afternoon after lots of stressing, hair pulling, pounding on the computer, and waiting, waiting, waiting for the computer to load, because web traffic was absolute hell...
Alexander called me and said, "We're IN."
I said, "Sorry, what? We got the tickets?"
He said, "We got. The tickets. Sunday, October 16, at 2. We're going. We may have to trade phones with my mom because she has the Ticketmaster account, but think of this as an early birthday present for both of you."
I couldn't believe my ears. I squealed and I jumped out of my seat. I was going to see Hamilton in Baltimore. My first ever Broadway show on a real stage. Just... wow.
But I had to hold myself down, even though I was shaking from the caffeine in my tea and the adrenaline from the entire morning when he told me. This was insane. I had uprooted Waitress, for THIS, and I caved to go see the show LIVE.
Eh boy.
Me: WHY AM I DOING THIS??? I'M LOSING MY MIND!
Sara Bareilles, my sweet goddess of music and Girls 5 Eva, please forgive me for this. I adore you, still do.
But I need to get to the bottom of this.
Looks like this has to be a 7-part series, I don't know.
THE DRAMATIC CONCLUSION OF LONG LIVE THE KING OF BROADWAY WILL RETURN IN OCTOBER!!!
Stay tuned. Love you, everyone deserves love. Na night.
Love, Rachel, Lady in the Blue Box
In Loving Memory of my fur baby, Cinderella Angel. August 10, 2008 - February 15, 2022
Final note- I've kind of taken a sabbatical from writing in this blog to focus on Patreon, and I've also taken a break from Twitter as well for this reason. Cinderella went over the Rainbow Bridge on February 15, 2022 in the afternoon while I was on my Valentine's vacation with Alexander. My mom called me to tell me as we were checking out of our hotel to come home immediately for a family emergency. She would have been 14 this year, but she passed away on the 7th anniversary -to the day- of when we lost my favorite fur baby D'Artagnon. They are now reunited with my daddy. And I could hardly bare it, neither could Alexander. We hugged each other and cried with each other when we said our goodbyes for the last time.
The Impossible Year With No End still thrives with no end in sight.
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