LYNN — Classical students expect to have their worlds turned upside down when they go see the mega-hit performance of “Hamilton” in Boston next week.
The famed Broadway musical is nearing the end of its two-month stint at the Boston Opera House. Not only do the cast and crew tour the country, so does its education program, which made it possible for 100 Classical students, along with students from 30 other schools, to attend the Nov. 8 showing at only $10 each.
One Classical senior, Ahvianna Elysse, has a bigger part to play at the Boston Opera House that day. She was one of 15 students selected across all the schools to perform onstage, followed by a Q&A with the cast of the “Hamilton,” before the 7:30 p.m. showing.
“We are giving them a real theater experience, which is something a lot of these kids may have never had the opportunity to do,” said Chris LeBlanc, Classical’s Advanced Placement (AP) Government teacher. “If we had to buy these tickets ourselves, they’d be $400 or $500 apiece.”
The Hamilton Education program is the product of a partnership between The Gilder Lehrman Institute, Lin Manuel Miranda and his family, and the producers of “Hamilton,” according to the program’s website. Wherever the show is performing, that state’s Title I high schools are invited to integrate Alexander Hamilton and the Founding Era into classroom studies and then, if selected, come enjoy the show.
“As a government teacher, I use it to talk about the beginning of our governmental systems, so it comes up with the federalists and anti-federalists, which rolls right into Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson,” said LeBlanc. “It is helpful to attach a kind of modern take to these 250-year-old subjects.”
Gwen Hansen, AP U.S History teacher, said she found out Classical was invited to the show at the end of May, but she didn’t tell the students until the first day of the new school year.
“I’ve been a little unhealthily obsessed with the musical since I found out about it,” said Hansen. “This is my fourth year using it in the classroom and I use some of the songs and pair them with a couple letters and documents so it can help students explore the relationship between Hamilton and Jefferson. Some of the students are skeptical that I’m actually going to bring them something cool, so they get standoffish, but some of them with the bigger personalities are like ‘Ms. Hansen, this is bumping.'”
About 50 students from the AP Government class and 50 from the AP U.S. History class were asked to take their modern lessons and turn them into creative performances. They could either perform solo or in small groups, but had to perform it in front of their classes.
The teachers then narrowed the performances down to eight before selecting 12th-grader Elysse’s spoken word poem, titled “Sally Hemings,” for submission. Elysse and Hansen found out she was chosen on Tuesday evening via email.
“I wrote the poem in three days,” said Elysse. “It was when I started reading about the different characters I could have written about and I kind of realized there was such a lack of women, specifically a lack of black women, and I was just like we definitely had more of a voice at that time so I felt like someone had to do it. At first I was like ‘don’t get your hopes up, don’t get too attached,’ but when Ms. Hansen told me, I ran to tell my parents and instantly started crying.”
Elysse has never seen “Hamilton” live before, but that did not stop her from listening to just about every song on the soundtrack. The soon-to-be high school graduate said she thought some of her classmates’ performances should have been picked over hers.
Fellow seniors Julia Jordan and Carly Mendonca wrote a song about the Boston Tea Party using the backbeat of a song by famous rapper Fetty Wap. Nicknamed “Sons of LiberTEA,” the girls wrote the song in two days.
“I just love Hamilton and I know all the songs, and I know Mr. LeBlanc and I are definitely going to cry together,” Mendonca said with a laugh.
“I’ve already got a box of tissues for us to share, Carly,” LeBlanc joked back.
Juniors Chloe Kebrea, Amanda Wilkins, and Alex Show wrote a rap song about the relationship between Hamilton and Margarita “Peggy” Schuyler Van Rensselaer. In the hopes of going viral online and making money off their internet fame, Show said the girls searched hard for a beat on YouTube that wasn’t copyrighted.
While they didn’t get chosen, all the girls said they were grateful to Hansen for her hard work on getting them invited to the show and they were proud of Elysse, stating her poem gave each of them chills.
“The students have said it but I can’t echo enough how much work Ms. Hansen has put towards this and with a lot of it on her own time,” said Zachary Johnson, Classical’s history department head. “Her enthusiasm for it has been infectious for the staff and the kids.”
