Telling Her Story: The Representation of Women in Hamilton: An American Musical (2015)

Abstract

“Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?”. These were the three questions that resonated within the walls of The Public Theater, New York City, as what critics would later describe as an outstanding performance came to an end on the 20th of January 2015. Hamilton: An American Musical’s author, Lin-Manuel Miranda, has been praised for turning the story of Alexander Hamilton, the United States’ first Secretary of Treasury, into an inclusive work of art which has since often been associated with the word “revolutionary”. It is undeniable that, much to some historians’ joy and others’ dismay (Herrera 2018), the musical based on Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton succeeded not only in modernizing and “humanizing” the image of some of the Founding Fathers, therefore reintroducing them into popular culture, but also in redirecting the projectors towards non-white musical performers by turning what is often told as a white men centered narrative into an immigrant success story. Nevertheless, one ought to question whether the musical truly succeeds in its attempt to ‘revolutionize’ the historical narrative by analyzing an important aspect of the Founding Era: the lack of importance given to the women who are so often omitted from the narrative. This article will analyze Miranda’s representation of Angelica and Eliza Schuyler as well as Maria Reynolds in an attempt to highlight the simultaneous contemporary struggle to integrate feminism into the dramatic and male focused milieu of  historical musical theater. To do so, equal importance will be given to the analysis of the audio-visual content of the performance and Miranda’s socio-cultural context.