Wednesday, May 24, 2017

My Name Is Alexander Hamilton


I am pretty sure we've been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack in the background of our lives for the last two years.  Lorien fell in love with the musical at some point and began playing the songs...all the time.  Last year, when I chaperoned the high school orchestra field trip to San Francisco we saw posters for Hamilton coming in March of 2017.  I began plotting, how could we get Lorien to see Hamilton in person.  She knows all of the words, the story and the story of the creation of the musical.  She has fallen in love with musicals and history because of Hamilton.  

First, we tried to get seasons tickets through the Orpheum Theater.  For a measly five hundred bucks you got to attend four shows at the theater through the 2017 season.  We didn't act quickly enough for that...and we would have had to buy at least two season tickets...big money.

Second, we heard early ticket sales were being made available to American Express card holders.  We had an American Express card that we never used so we got the info and tried for a spot.  They do ticket sales through a random spot generator.  So you sign up before tickets go on sale and they email you with your spot in line.  It doesn't matter when you sign up, you are randomly assigned a place in line.  Will tried to get a spot the morning they went on sale...his place in line was in the 80 thousands...it didn't look good.  Sure enough, tickets were sold out long before his number came up.

Finally, when tickets came up for the general public (also through a random spot generator) we tried again.  This time, we requested a spot with every internet enabled device in our home.  We had two lap tops, two phones, all four of the kid's kindles and an ipad ready to get a spot.  7 of our 9 requests were in the 60 thousands, one was in the 8 thousands and one was in the 3 thousands!  We were pretty sure we could get tickets with the 3 or 8 thousand spots.  We were successful.  Will ordered the tickets and we waited until Christmas to give them to her.  I think we ordered them around Thanksgiving.  

Her face when she opened and realized what her present was was priceless...maybe one of my all time favorite Christmas memories.

Anyway, our day for the show was today.  We've all been so excited to go.  A few friends have been already and said it was FANTASTIC.  

We drove in early because Will had a meeting in the city that morning.  Lorien and I wandered around town a bit but ended up at Target...I do what I love.



Once Will was done with his meeting, we had lunch at a yummy Chinese restaurant and headed to the theater.






It was with out a doubt, the most amazing show I've ever seen.  The music was SO GOOD!  I am not going to be able to describe how great this show was...I have no words.  I will say I was so impressed with Lin Manuel Miranda's talent in writing this musical.  The songs, the story line all of it was so awesome.  And to do it all with a contemporary flare with rap battles and a diverse cast...unprecedented and amazing.  There was so much to see going on on the stage.  The set and staging were minimal but impactful.  The prop pieces were moved around by the dancers and singers as part of the story line and dancing.  It was too cool.  I would see it again in a heart beat.

Lorien loved it too.  Ask her about it, she will be happy to tell you.  For the first part of the play, I watched her face more than I watched the actors.  She was excited and cute.  It was so cool.



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