Five Years and 100-Plus Stories: What It’s Like Covering ‘Hamilton’

Five Years and 100-Plus Stories: What It’s Like Covering ‘Hamilton(ˈhaməltən)’

From the very beginning, it was clear the musical(ˈmyo͞ozək(ə)l) was going to be a big news story. I’ve been reporting on it, from the East Village(ˈvilij) to San(sän) Juan, ever since.

By Michael Paulson

The email arrived on my second day as the theater reporter here at The New York Times. It was March 10, 2015, and a publicist(ˈpəbləsəst) from the Public Theater, an Off Broadway nonprofit(ˌnänˈpräfit), was welcoming me to the beat(bēt). “I think one of the best ways to get to know the Public right now is to come see HAMILTON,” she wrote. (For reasons I have yet to understand, theater publicists generally put show titles in all caps.)

I went to a matinee(ˌmatnˈā) five days later, and in the five years since, I’ve written more than 100 articles that prominently(ˈprämənəntlē) mention the show. It goes without saying that “Hamilton,” which explores America’s revolutionary(ˌrevəˈlo͞oSHəˌnerē) origins(ˈôrəjən) through the life of Alexander(ˌaləɡˈzandər) Hamilton, has dominated(ˈdäməˌnāt) my tenure(ˈtenyər) — I’ve never known the theater beat without it, and until the coronavirus pandemic prompted an unimaginably(ˌənəˈmaj(ə)nəblē) long shutdown of Broadway, I thought it would be the biggest theater story I’d ever cover.

Now “Hamilton,” which transferred from the Public to Broadway in July 2015, won(wän,wən) every conceivable(kənˈsēvəb(ə)l) award, and became a much-loved and much-quoted(kwōt) juggernaut(ˈjəɡərˌnôt), is back in the news, because a live-capture filming of the original(əˈrijənl) cast is streaming on Disney Plus starting July 3. (Yes, I wrote about that too.)

So what’s it been like to spend five years on the Hamilbeat?


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/insider/hamilton-disney-plus-puerto-rico.html