Lin-Manuel Miranda says that the Disney+ release of ‘Hamilton’ has "amplified" Broadway ticket sales.
Lin-Manuel Miranda: Disney Hamilton boosted Broadway sales
The 41-year-old composer has shared his delight that the streaming service’s version of the musical - which featured the original cast members, including Lin-Manuel, Leslie Odom Jr, Renee Elise Goldsberry, and Daveed Diggs - has “amplified” the desire to see the hip-hop operetta about the life and death of Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary of the United States.
The 'tick, tick...Boom!' director told 'CNBC': “It forever demolishes the idea that a beautifully shot version of your show diminishes the demand to see it live. In our estimations, it only amplified the demand to see ‘Hamilton’ live.”
The ‘In the Heights’ creator called it a “win for theatre”, as due to the nature of live performance, it is not possible for everyone to see the show due to cost, geography and capacity.
The ‘Moana’ songwriter said: “That’s a win for theatre. To have more pro-shots, to have those out in the world, I think is a win. I would love to see more of that going forward.”
The ‘His Dark Materials’ star has spoken previously about having limited access to the theatre, despite growing up in New York City, and picking up most of what he knows via original cast recordings that his parents played in the house
Lin-Manuel - who has Sebastian, seven, and Francisco, three, with lawyer wife Vanessa Nadal - reflected: “The only shows I saw as a kid were that holy trinity: ‘Les Miz,’ ‘Cats,’ ‘Phantom [of the Opera].”
One of the most “personal” shows he saw as a young boy was 'Rent' by the late Jonathan Larson - whose life story he recently brought to the big screen in the Netflix original movie, 'tick, tick...Boom!', starring Andrew Garfield - which inspired his career in musicals.
He said: “It’s about as personal as a musical ever felt to me. I started writing musicals then and there because I loved them, but I thought musicals were written by old white people and that was the first time I saw a truly contemporary musical that was about people who wanted to be artists, were scared or selling out, were scared of dying – I was scared of all those things. That’s when my career as a musical writer began.”
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