‘Hamilton’ Education Competition Brings Low-Income Youth to Broadway

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Broadway actor Erbin Stanley belts rap bars about the American Revolution eight times a week in the heart of New York City as Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette in Hamilton. 

But last week, instead of the wealthy audience members who usually applaud the Tony, Grammy and Pulitzer-winning show, hundreds of middle and high school students that looked like him screamed back in awe.

Brought to Manhattan from all over the country by the Gilder Lehrman Institute and Hamilton Education Program, low-income students celebrated winning EduHam’s annual competition that encourages learning history through original performance, like song or poetry. Dozens more, whose schools brought EduHam’s free arts-based founding era curriculum to classrooms this school year, attended via lottery. 

“It’s more immersive because when you see it here – all the little quips and the quotes, like in particular about the Federalist papers and how John Jay and Hamilton wrote very differently – it’s a more memorable way … to get involved with the learning process,” said Chloe Flood, a junior at Cesar Chavez High School in Arizona and one of this year’s winners. “It’s also a lot better to listen to a soundtrack than a textbook.”

For many young people in attendance, including Flood whose done theater for years, the May performance marked their first professional show. It also reminded them of what social and cultural nuances they yearn for in history class. 

“I’ve heard a lot of statistics and I’ve learned a lot of numbers but I’ve never learned how things affect the people who lived … how they coped with it, how they dealt with it, how they did it,” Flood said, adding she wishes history classes took time to teach the small, personal impacts. 

For her winning EduHam rap, Flood dove deep into the War of 1812, including the burning and reconstruction of the White House. Like Hamilton, she said, it tapped into the idea of “building something for yourself and the people around you.”

Other winning creations featured a 3-part spoken word on Paul Revere, with student winners coming from Alaska, Connecticut, Kentucky, Arizona, Maryland, New York and California. The broader curriculum, accessible for 6-12 graders, hopes to foster “deeper understanding of our nation’s heritage,” according to James Basker, GLI’s president.

For Justus Gaines, an aspiring animator and Maryland 8th grader who was recognized for a performance about Thomas Jefferson and the Whiskey tax, the curriculum and show brought emotions and nuance to the forefront – something he’d been missing from textbooks.

“But when you’re here, you go through all of the things that the characters are going through, you see everything on their faces, their reactions, their vocal inflections,” Gaines said, adding that this approach to learning history, which is more engaging for students, could be applied to other eras. 

“I wish we could talk more in depth about the civil rights era more than just Black History Month,” Gaines said. “It’s something that should go throughout the year because it affected a lot of the things back then and even today.”

Responding to a student question during an aftershow panel, stage actor Stanley reminded students how unearthing history’s personal stories can make moments resonate and empower people in new ways. 

He’d auditioned for Hamilton his senior year of college for months, without hearing much back in between. He experienced homelessness during that period. 

“Every time I’m able to do [“My Shot”], it’s just the persistence and the perseverance that you have to go through and remembering, hey, if you just keep going, if you remember why you’re here, you can just keep doing it – just don’t throw away your shot.”

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