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“Hamilton” teaches students to process the less than stellar parts of history.

Five Charlotte-Mecklenburg Title I high schools are participating in the inaugural wave of the Hamilton Education Program (EduHam) in the Southeast. Charlotte is one of 14 locations hosting the program, which incorporates a deeper look at Alexander Hamilton in the classroom, while also providing students with an opportunity to see the show for a Hamilton each ($10).

The initiative is a collaboration between the producers of the musical, the Gilder Lehrman Institute and the Miranda family—Lin-Manuel Miranda is the Tony Award-winning lyricist, composer and author of the Broadway hit. He also starred in the original Broadway show as the title character.

Roughly 2,000 students from schools across the Carolinas as well as Virginia are participating in the program. CMS schools are Vance, Garinger, Harding University, West Charlotte and West Mecklenburg.

“There are certain criteria that you have to have in order to be involved in the EduHam project, and we fit all those criteria,” West Charlotte Drama Club advisor and English Department Chair Franchone Bey said. “Our history teachers are laying all of the groundwork for our students to understand the founding era, and we have 120 students and our teacher chaperones who are going to be participating in it.”

Said Blumenthal Performing Arts Education Manager Jenny Kabool: “It’s really giving kids a way to dig into history and really process it through the arts, which is a great tool for them to have their entire lives. In addition to the founding era, they’re talking about Miranda’s creative process, and how to apply that process to the stories that intrigue them in history. They can use spoken word poetry, any type of performance art, to express what they find interesting about the piece of history that they have chosen.”

Since creating the West Charlotte drama club in 2016-17, Bey facilitated the production of the school’s first musical in nearly two decades with last year’s “In the Heights,” another Miranda creation. The school is riding a wave of theatrical momentum, with the addition of theater teacher John Harris, and two upcoming productions: “5 Women Wearing the Same Dress” Nov. 8-10 at 7 p.m. and Nov. 11 at 3 p.m. in the West Charlotte auditorium and “21 Chump Street,” also a Miranda musical, in the spring.

“It’s very exciting” to participate in EduHam, said Kiahri Craig, a West Charlotte junior. “I really want to go see it. It allows me to be creative, and put my own twist on history, and that’s different.”

Craig’s favorite “Hamilton” numbers are “My Shot” and “Helpless.” She plays the role of Mindy McClure in “5 Women Wearing the Same Dress.” Fellow junior Maurice Collins, who plays Tripp Davenport in “5 Women,” is also participating in EduHam. His favorite song from “Hamilton?” “Dear Theodosia.”
No other touring Broadway musical offers student engagement to this extent. It also includes a competitive creative component, where students produce an original piece based on their classroom studies. The winning school will perform prior to the Nov. 1 show.

“All of the students have to create some type of written piece that correlates with the founding era,” Bey said. “The best performance from the school will be videotaped, and we’ll send it to the foundation. They decide who performs the day of the performance.”

Said Kabool: “You don’t see this with very many Broadway shows. I’ve never seen a Tony Award-winning musical offer a program like this on the road. They are dedicating an entire performance to high school students. You don’t see that.”

“Hamilton” is a hot commodity in Charlotte, with some remaining tickets costing over $400.

“The opportunity for students to have a chance to see a show this big, that has so much notoriety, it was a hard ticket to get,” Bey said. “For us to be able to have that opportunity is tremendous, and I don’t think the gravity of that has hit many of the students who aren’t aware of it. We showed them some news stories where people were standing out in line to get tickets, so they can get an idea, ‘this is a big deal.’ It’s slowly starting to hit them that this is a big deal. They’re really getting into putting the performance piece together, and just embracing this opportunity.”

On the Net:
https://www.blumenthalarts.org/events/detail/hamilton

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