Hamilton Cast Revolt at 1st Ave

Last updated on February 18th, 2022 at 10:05 pm

Alexander Hamilton! A common household name nowadays to join the likes of Justin Bieber, Twilight Sparkle, and Donald Drumpf. Thanks, in part, to the award-winning play Hamilton, An American Musical, created by Lin-Manuel Miranda and the drunken friend we all have who spits mumbled history-rap after a few stevewisers.

I am not going to waste your attention span writing about how DOPE Hamilton is. It is! Instead, I am going to explore the We, The Revolution show put on by the cast on Monday (September 24^th) at 1^st Ave. to raise money for Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS (BCEFA).

The BCEFA started as two separate organizations, both raising money for similar causes. The merger came in 1992 and the current day nonprofit was established to carry on the previous missions. Today they are one of the nation’s leading AIDS fundraiser and grant-making organizations of performers and musicians. They have raised over $300 million dollars for the USA and Puerto Rico, with five in Minneapolis/St. Paul charities benefitting a total of eight statewide.

The show itself was the most passionate performance of tomfoolery I have ever witnessed. I mean that in a good way! Electric performances with personality were the norm. The coverage of original numbers to the classics was extensive.

@ 1st Ave — Photo: Travis Meier, Carina-Kay Louchiey dancing at We, The Revolution

One original which stuck out was by Nyla Sostre (who plays Peggy Schuyler & Maria Reynolds in Hamilton). It had a soul, hip-hop hybrid sound. It made the crowd rock with the same with energy as Desmond Sean Ellington (Aaron Burr substitute in Hamilton), who covered Journey, Don’t Stop Believing.

Nothing very special about the song except he broke the crowd into a choir. Yes! A choir. Complete with an intoxicated crowdsourced soprano, alto, and tenor section. They all sang the final “streetlight, people” in a debauched symphonic tone before the special guest.

The special guest of the night was none other than Ashley Támar Davis, known as Támar professionally, who collaborated with the late Prince on “Beautiful, Loved, and Blessed” off of his 3121 album. Támar only performed the song live once with Prince because after the performance Prince said “Wow! That song is deep.”

Luckily that didn’t stop her from during her visit to the pseudo mecca for which it has become. The message for which is carries echoed for the rest of the night. Eventually, the entire cast came out singing Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” to end the show.

The message from these artists was clear. Whether a hobby or dream, have fun with what you do. No matter how abstract your ideas, people love to see them. Much like what Lin-Manuel did with the play, humans are competing with bots for on the internet for tickets.