HAMILTON Reviews

Time Out New York gives the show 5 Stars out of 5:

"History ticks to a syncopated beat in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s jubilant, overflowingly rich Hamilton. And just as syncopation achieves its energizing effect by disturbing the expected flow, so Miranda’s biomusical on founding father Alexander Hamilton is a rhythm-and-rhyme intervention for American iconography and ideology. This populist throwdown to the way we tell our stories and spin our songs is about the Revolution, and it is a revolution: hip-hop grooves stuffed with political critique, heroes of color taking over the old house and throwing a party. You’re invited, but you’ve got to learn new moves."

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/hamilton

The Hollywood Reporter is a Rave:

"There's rarely been a history lesson as entertaining as Lin-Manuel Miranda's new hip hop-infused musical about Alexander Hamilton, or, as the opening number puts it, "The ten-dollar founding father without a father." Based on Ron Chernow's best-selling biography, Hamilton brings American history to musical-theater life in a style akin to the classic 1776, only with a hipper, more multi-cultural attitude. Currently enjoying a virtually sold-out off-Broadway premiere engagement at the Public Theater, where its run has already been extended twice before the official opening, the show seems inevitably destined for a Broadway transfer."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/lin-manuel-mirandas-hamilton-theater-774361

The Associated Press is Positive:

"The audience will get a tremendous amount of information about Hamilton. Did you know he had a thing for his sister-in-law? And they'll also get too much about the smaller moments in American history. The Whiskey Rebellion, anyone? The Battle of Monmouth?

When everything works, it's thrilling to watch. "The Room Where It Happened" is a real feat of choreography, performance and stagecraft, led by Odom, who is an anguished, multi-dimensional Burr. "The Duel Commandments" is a clever riff from the Notorious B.I.G's "Ten Crack Commandments," and "Satisfied" is a "Rashomon" love moment led by a glorious Goldsberry..."

http://www.newsobserver.com/2015/02/17/4563617/review-lin-manuel-mirandas-hamilton.html

Deadline is a Rave:

"Hamilton, which acknowledges its debt to both ['Les Mis' and 'Rent'] among others, is the rare show critics leave the theater thinking, This is the future of Broadway. We’re almost always wrong. Not this time, I think...

...As of-the-moment as Pitbull and yet timeless as Rodgers & Hammerstein, Hamilton also certifies the Public as the country’s premier incubator for new-musical talent. If there’s any justice, Hamilton will follow the same route as that earlier Broadway show about the American Revolution, 1969’s 1776, which was equally adventurous in its way, just as unlikely—and a Tony-winning box office hit."

http://deadline.com/2015/02/musical-hamilton-opens-public-theater-1201375233/

Updated On: 2/17/15 at 09:45 PM

I do not understand AM NY's review at all. I think you could certainly find things to criticize but I do not believe this score relies too heavily on rap. A large portion of the score ranges from R&B to reggae to pop to indie rock. And as for the actors "playing themselves" - they are indeed playing somewhere between modern-folk and the founding fathers - and by doing this they are drawing parallels between the stories of modern-day immigrants and these historical figures. That, to me, was the brilliance of the show.

Talkin' Broadway is Negative:

"When history comes alive (something it seldom does) in Hamilton, which just opened at The Public Theater, it tends to do so on the wave of a yawn. This new musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda may be many things — or, more accurately, it may be too many things — but exciting is not one of them.

To those familiar with In the Heights, the musical for which Miranda earned a 2008 Tony Award for Best Score, this should not come as much of a surprise. Miranda works well in the contemporary idiom, and is as skillful at deploying of-the-minute genres like rap and hip-hop as he is weaving in elements of more traditional theatrical forms, but generating excitement is not what he does. He's more of a comfort technician, gifted at making you feel better about what you already know and like than exposing you to anything new.

It's one thing when your subject is an Independence Day weekend in the barrio, and something else altogether when it's the circumstances and people surrounding America's actual independence and the growing pains associated with it. For Hamilton, Miranda, who has reunited with his In the Heights director (Thomas Kail), choreographer (Andy Blankenbuehler), and other assorted personnel, has attempted to adapt Ron Chernow's 2004 biography of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton using the tricks and techniques that served him so well on that earlier, lighter show. And the results are about as cluttered as you'd expect..."

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/ob/2_17_15.html

Rave from USA Today **** out of four stars:

"Live entertainment doesn't get more exciting than this, in any form. So believe the hype: Hamilton is revolutionary in its own right, and an extraordinary achievement."
USA Today review

The New York Post gives the show 3 Stars out of 4:

"For months now, a deafening buzz has surrounded “Hamilton.” Rumor had it that creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda — a Tony winner for “In the Heights” — would apply his magic hip-hop touch to first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and the American Revolution, and make them cool.

Well, mission half-accomplished..."

http://nypost.com/2015/02/17/lin-manuel-miranda-creates-an-ambitious-musical-portrait-with-hamilton/

Theatermania is a Rave:

"Sometimes a show is crushed under the weight of its own hype. In recent weeks, Hamilton (now making its world premiere at the Public Theater with book, music, and lyrics by the show's star, Lin-Manuel Miranda) has been compared favorably to Tony Kushner's Angels in America and William Shakespeare's Henriad. Many have called it a game-changer. TheaterMania even predicted a Pulitzer Prize for the hip-hop bio-musical before it began public performances. How could any theatrical production live up to such expectations? Well, like its extraordinary subject, Hamilton exceeds all expectations. Exceptionally smart and unexpectedly timely, this story of an American patriot is the best new American musical in years."

http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/reviews/hamilton_71754.html

The Washington Post is a Rave:

"Lin-Manuel Miranda is showing us the way. To anyone who might suggest musical theater has hit a creative dead end, the actor-songwriter unfolds a spectacularly persuasive counter­argument in the myriad melodious ­masterstrokes of “Hamilton.” [...]

You get the feeling, courtesy of “Hamilton,” which had its official opening Tuesday night at off-Broadway’s Public Theater, that the nation’s first Treasury secretary would have deemed it fitting that we find his name and likeness not only on a $10 bill, but on a New York marquee as well. And for the world to see him — through the eyes and in the guise of Miranda himself — as the evocation of what America was, and still can be. It’s gratifying to discover that at the intersection of scholarship and showmanship there exists a consoling affirmation of how we’re all in this together..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/history-as-youve-never-heard-it-before/2015/02/17/e803502e-b6e4-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html

Updated On: 2/17/15 at 10:36 PM

Of course After Eight hates words like "innovative" and "groundbreaking." What else can be expected from someone who once said, and I quote here verbatim the entirety of a post:

"Change can often be a very bad thing. Indeed. it can be a disastrous thing"

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Several reviews have mentioned the "inevitable" move to Broadway, which I presume would happen next season so as not to compete with Fun Home or interupt the extended-extended run. This already looks like a frontrunner for the Pulitzer.