Hamilton: The Revolution - Jeremy McCarter, Lin-Manuel Miranda

I am one of the lemmings obsessed with Hamilton these past few years. No shame.

 

Listened to this in audio format and it was narrated by the lovely Mariska Hargitay. Her voice is very nice to listen to, although I do wonder if the recording was her first time through (either an audiobook or this particular one) as there was at least one time where she distinctly starts to laugh mid-sentence. A pleasant sound, but distracting from the otherwise smooth cadence of narration. I also appreciated that there was no pretension wen she read the printed rap lyrics.

 

The book itself is the "behind the scenes" or the "making of" story of the (in)famous musical. It's amazing to learn how much of the success was due to luck and a long building process. What I thought was the "final" version of the musical that everyone has come to know is apparently not what the first audiences saw when it opened off Broadway. Then hearing about that process of refinement from the main contributors, Lin-Manuel Miranda featuring prominently, of course, is fascinating.

 

The end of the audio, at least via Audible, included Lin-Manuel Miranda reading the notes that were included on the annotated (PDF) copy of the musical's lyrics + promotional photos. It's gorgeous.