Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton — the most culturally significant American musical since West Side Story and a phenomenon that made the Founding Fathers into pop culture.
Hamilton's cultural contributions: (1) It made the Founding Fathers emotionally legible to contemporary audiences by using hip-hop as the primary idiom — framing Hamilton as an immigrant outsider, Washington as the wise authority figure, Jefferson and Madison as political opponents with their own valid perspectives. (2) It triggered a wave of popular interest in American founding history (Ron Chernow's Hamilton biography returned to bestseller lists). (3) Its casting politics (non-white actors playing Founding Fathers) made a statement without preaching it. (4) Its commercial dominance ($6B+ in revenue) demonstrated that adult-oriented serious theater could be a mass cultural phenomenon.
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