One thing I’ve come to realize, as a theater certificate student just starting to think about independent work, is that even creative projects have a motive. There has to be a justification for putting on this play, in this place, at this time, and in this unique way. Rarely does the performance itself present the motive so explicitly as does Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster Broadway musical Hamilton. In “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”, Angelica raps about the musical’s eponymous lead: “Every other founding father’s story gets told/Every other founding father gets to grow old.” In one couplet, she justifies the musical biography of Alexander Hamilton, a founding father whose historical life has failed to capture the public’s imagination, despite the enormous political and economic legacy he left behind. In other words, Hamilton just “doesn’t get enough credit for all the credit he gave us.”
—Annabel Barry ’19
Lyrics:
MADISON:
He took our country from bankruptcy to prosperity.
I hate to admit it, but he doesn’t get enough credit for all the credit he gave us.
WASHINGTON AND COMPANY:
Who lives
Who dies
Who tells your story?
ANGELICA:
Every other founding father’s story gets told.
Every other founding father gets to grow old.
BURR:
But when you’re gone, who remembers your name?
Who keeps your flame?
CHORUS:
Who tells your story?
