Are you a Hamilton fan? Do you know what Hamilton is? I didn’t until about two years ago. Kalissa and her family got me loving Hamilton.
For those of you who don’t know, Hamilton is a play…technically I guess a musical that has been sweeping through Broadway and now happily is touring in places like Des Moines Iowa.
I had found out earlier in the year that Hamilton was coming to Des Moines and wanted to go. Then looked and tickets were well out of my range. Nope…not $250 for a ticket. So I was a little sad.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago…Kayla contacted me and told her that her friend Liz has season tickets. She’d already seen Hamilton and something came up and she wouldn’t be going. She wanted to know if Kayla wanted the tickets. Kayla said she had something going on but she was sure I would want the tickets. SHE WAS RIGHT. I did! So…I got two tickets. The best news, they were only $60 each, and Liz had valet parking. WHOOT!!! WHOOT!!!
This girl was going to see Hamilton. Now the problem, I could only take one person with me. Being it was Kalissa’s family that got me hooked on Hamilton, I asked Kalissa if she wanted to go with me.
Sunday was our day to go. Here we are…
It was a Sunday matinee which was perfect for us as we had a three-hour drive to Des Moines.
Oh my, we had a ….great time. We were seriously both smiling the whole day long!
We were definitely small-town girls “in the big city” as we had no idea how valet parking worked. Of course, we knew they took our car and we didn’t have to park it but we didn’t know the details or where to pull up or how to retrieve our car so kind of just guessed and we ended up doing okay.
We had great seats…just a few in from the door which made it closer to us for the bathrooms and getting out.
For those of you who don’t know, the play is completely sung- much in rap-style music, but don’t let that turn you off. It’s awesome. It’s based on the life of Alexander Hamilton one of our Founding Fathers who now graces the $10 bill. He was also the first Secretary of the Treasury.
Kalissa originally showed me the play on Disney Plus. It’s still there and I HIGHLY recommend it. If you haven’t watched it before and do. I also highly recommend watching it with the subtitles. You’ll catch more that way.
I’m not one that watches shows more than once but this I’ve watched many times. Carver, my five-year-old grandson, loves it too. Carver loves Hamilton so much that when asked to pick out a movie to watch, he often picks Hamilton on Disney Plus. It’s a movie that I’ll sit down and watch with him.
Carver was so sad when he found out that we had tickets but not one for him. He so badly wanted to go. He kept saying he was jealous of us. What a cutie. We did end up buying him a shirt…and I bought one for myself.
All week long, lyrics have been running through my head. I’ve found myself singing from time to time too. Kalissa said she was the same.
We were both afraid to go to the play and then find ourselves comparing the Disney version to the live version and being disappointed somehow but we totally weren’t. We actually loved the play even more. So much was happening with the ensemble, it was just awesome to see live. I totally recommend it!!
If you’re wondering why the title of this post is “In the room where it happened”? It’s one of the songs from the show.
One of the characters sings a song, “I want to be in the room where it happened”. So on the way home, Kelli called and asked how the show was and both Kalissa and I yelled, “We were in the room where it happened!!” So-so fun.
Kalissa’s comment was that she REALLY wants to take Carver someday. My comment…I REALLY WANT TO GO WITH YOU and see it again!! How incredibly fun! If the show comes to your town…or even one three hours away, it’s totally worth going!! If you at all like plays and haven’t seen it, at least watch it on Disney Plus.
I taught 3rd grade for quite a few years. The end of Language Arts and Social Studies was to combine them in a beginning research report on someone famous. I had 1 young man who was fascinated by Alexander Hamilton. He wrote a very short report on him as most of the ‘research’ he could find was above his reading level. However, as he moved on to high school graduation, every report he had to write was an extension of his original AH report! Now I wonder if he has ever seen the play, etc. We live in middle MO, so not very close to a theater!
My daughter has seen it live 3 times in NYC. Once in Tampa, once in Jacksonville, once in Atlanta and one more that I can’t remember the city. It may be that she saw it 4 times not 3 in NYC. Her younger daughter has seen it 3 times. It has many good even great points, but it changes history significantly. I wasn’t there so I can like this version as much as much as the one I learned in school. History has always been shades of gray and changes often.
The play is amazing! We were advised to listen to the soundtrack which is available on YouTube before we went in order to grab as much of the lyrics as we could. Love live theater !
It sounds so fun especially to go with your daughter It was near me, but I didn’t get to go. I wish I had pushed to see it.
We saw it live in Los Angeles on it’s last day there. We found out it was coming to San Diego in Nov. Immediately started to look for tickets- $300 , nope. We looked up season tickets for the theater & bought them. We’ll see 7 shows for just above the price for the single ticket for Hamilton. BUT, I have to agree it’s awesome. We had seen it in 2020 when one of the channels had an offer to purchase tickets for $35.
Of course nothing beats a live performance. Glad you were able to see it.
I loved the costumes, too — how the “underclothes” were basic muslin that could be covered with full skirts or uniform tops or whatever the plot needed. There’s nothing like live theater, is there?
Lin-Manuel Miranda read the Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow and was inspired to write a hip-hop musical. Hamilton founded the city of Paterson, NJ, and there’s a statue of him by the Great Falls, which is part of the National Park Service. I live an hour out of NYC, but the last Broadway play I went to was Les Miserables.
I have a great friend with season tickets too. We saw it in Kansas City. It’s a fantastic production.
My daughter got 2 tickets and we are going this weekend. I have been so excited since she told about it several months ago.
It was here in Nashville but I couldn’t justify the ticket price. I will check into the Disney version. I’m so glad that you and Kalissa were able to go and have a wonderful time. What a fun time!
We saw Hamilton several years ago at the Civic Center. I’d love to go again. I’ve seen the Disney Plus version, too.
Sure wish we could have seen you when you were here. Glad you had a great time! And what a deal for tickets!!
My 32 yo son and I went to see it at the Majestic Theater in San Antonio, Tx. I splurged on tickets, as I’d never seen a live play at 60+yo. It’s was absolutely FABULOUS and worth the cost. My son went again several months later to see it in Austin, Tx with his girlfriend. She loved it, but my son said that the old beautiful Majestic Theater venue was so much better!! I want to see it again, hoping it comes back sometime soon to the Majestic. Glad you enjoyed it. I thought that the rap to the music would not be my cup of tea, but honestly it wasn’t what I expected nor the rapping unpleasant. It was a great show. If anyone has the opportunity to go, I promise it is an awesome production, the costuming was great and how fast the show moves along, makes it fly by and very enjoyable.
I’ve only seen it on Disney Plus, but I have the sound track and listen to it often. I LOVE King George’s songs!
i’m hoping that the fourth time is the charm. was supposed to see Hamilton 3 different times in early-covid and they were all cancelled. (1x broadway, 2x DC).
So enjoyed Hamilton! My sister and I live in Alberta, Canada. We drove down to Havre, Montana in October 2018 and took Amtrak to Chicago to see the play. We had a lovely long weekend visiting the sites, and the best part was seeing the show. Amazing music and learned a bit more American history.