The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda takes a hard look at Hamilton
Who: Nuyorican Poets Cafe
What: Livestream of previously recorded production of The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda
Where: Nuyorican Poets Cafe Facebook Live and Zoom
When: Tuesday, July 14, free (donations accepted), 8:00
Why: In August 2015, Tennessee-born writer playwright, poet, novelist, lyricist, and essayist Ishmael Reed wrote the magazine article ”Hamilton: the Musical: Black Actors Dress Up like Slave Traders . . . and It’s Not Halloween” for CounterPunch, criticizing the smash hit by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who Reed called a “very clever salesman.” Reed followed that up with the play The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, which ran at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in May 2019 and reimagined Miranda as a Scrooge-like character visited by ghosts of slaves, Native Americans, and others who set him straight on America’s original sin. The play was directed by Rome Neal; the cast includes Jesse Bueno as Miranda, Robert Turner as George Washington, Zachary Clarence as Alexander Hamilton, Roz Fox as Harriet Tubman, and Tom Angelo as Ron Chernow, whose biography of Hamilton served as the basis for Miranda’s show. (The Haunting won three Audelco Awards, for Turner, Fox, and costume designer Carolyn Adams.) With the filmed version of Hamilton now streaming on Disney+ and statues of the nation’s Founding Fathers in danger of being torn down, a controversy has resurfaced about the way Miranda dealt with such slaveowners as Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton himself. The Nuyorican Poets Cafe will be streaming a recorded version of The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda from the May 2019 engagement on Facebook Live and Zoom on July 14 at 8:00.