Although Victor’s next musical was supposed to be announced towards the end of the year, the senior high show was announced last night. The entire cast and crew of Spamalot got a surprising email late in the evening from Mr. Hawkinson, the director. It read, “The rights for Hamilton were secretly dropped seven minutes ago and I bought them impulsively.”
With nothing else to go on, the theatre kids of Victor have many questions. This article will answer all of them.
We investigated the “secret drop” for the Hamilton license. When schools perform musicals, they have to buy the rights to do so. Hamilton has not been available for years, but that changed last night when the rights were released with no announcement.
Since this is such a well-known show, we assumed the license would be expensive. This investigation found that the majority of Victor’s theatre budget was spent on this license. Our calculations put the remaining funds for the show at about $12. We speculated over whether this money would be put towards props or costumes.
One anonymous tip suggested it is going be used to bribe Alex Repass to stay at Victor after his senior year and play Alexander Hamilton.
We asked Mr. Hawkinson many questions, but the main concern was that people who like Hamilton are going to audition, even if they’ve never performed before. Hawkinson is very excited that the show will draw first-timers who already know the show.
“I’m looking forward to having a cast with their lines memorized before the first rehearsal. I don’t even want to bother with the full audition process. I’m planning on just having the students recite all the lines for the character they want and deciding from there.”
Miss Mellema, the vocal director, has a different take on how the popularity will affect the show.
“Everyone is going to be trying to sing the melody and the words that they already know. It’s going to be impossible to get anyone to harmonize!”
We went around the school to ask people what they thought about this show. Vivianne Phillips, a freshman who has been doing Victor shows for years, is thrilled.
“I can’t believe they really picked a show with more than one female lead!”
Sophomore Walter Pitt, a member of the basketball team who has never seen a musical in his life, told us his plans to join next year.
“I love Hamilton. I didn’t even know it was a play, I thought it was just a weird album. But it sounds pretty cool to be in the concert for it. I’m gonna be Jefferson. Do you know when tryouts are?”
