While in New York City for the Acquiror Summit, I finally had the opportunity to see Hamilton. The show has been going for almost a decade now and has even been here in the Triangle while I’ve lived here, but I hadn’t seen it before Saturday. Mom and Dad joined me at the show as part of a long weekend in New York City.

I’ve seen six shows on Broadway now and several others off-Broadway, and Hamilton is right there with The Lion King with the two hard to compare as I saw them at different points in my life. None of us listened to the music beforehand, which I would advise anyone who doesn’t regularly listen to hip-hop to do so that you can understand more of the lyrics. I read the Chernow biography in college, though, and I was able to understand the words in all of the songs. The place was packed and the energy was high even for a Saturday matinee.

King George was hilarious with his short vignettes during the performance even if fans of John Adams might be upset by the treatment he received from the British monarch. Thomas Jefferson was also cast in a soft villain role, which worked from the perspective of Alexander Hamilton but is not a universal view. The real villain of the story was Aaron Burr, the man who shot and killed Hamilton on the dueling ground. His character received little development, a deliberate and well-executed choice given Hamilton’s perspective that Burr lacked any real beliefs. The play accentuated Hamilton’s immigrant status and the actions and life of his wife, but it wasn’t done in the beat-you-over-the-head-with-my-ideology sort of manner preferred by lesser writers. In summation, I left the theater without wondering why the show has seen such a long run.