By Ben Payne
While listening to Act 1 of Hamilton, it was evident to me that one of the methods Lin Manuel Miranda used to connect today’s Broadway audience with the scene of 1770s New York was by presenting New York as a place where dreams are made true. Today, New York, like Los Angeles, is seen as the place to be for young people trying to make their place in the world. Want to be a world class chef? Go to New York. Want to be an artist? Go to New York. Are you an immigrant looking to start a new life in America? Go to New York. The same holds true with Alexander Hamilton, a young man looking to make his mark and do the million things he hasn’t done yet.
Since the first performance of the song “Alexander Hamilton” at the White House, Lin Manuel Miranda has been bent on convincing us that the life of Alexander Hamilton is one that embodies hip-hop. In “Alexander Hamilton”, the repetition in the background of “In New York you can be a new man” is reminiscent of Jay-Z and Alicia Key’s “Empire State of Mind”, a song about self-reinvention and the role of the city in making dreams come true.