Giles Terera recollects theatre directly and authentically from the actor’s perspective in Hamilton and Me

Giles Terera in the West End cast of Hamilton. Picture: Matthew Murphy

Tom Martland writes: July marks the 17th, and hopefully final, month in which curtains have been down and house lights shut off across the West End and the rest of the country’s usually vibrant theatres. It also marks the publication of Hamilton and Me: An Actor’s Journal by London’s original Aaron Burr, Giles Terera.

If anything good can be said of the last year and a half, it has at least encouraged we as audiences, performers, and behind-the-scenes creatives, to find new outlets to help keep what we love alive in the absence of traditional theatregoing. In an interview streamed with Fane Online earlier in July, Terera told DJ MistaJam that he initially wrote the book while performing in Hamilton and never intended to publish. The journal is a valuable fragment, not only recollecting theatre as it was, but doing so directly and authentically from the actor’s perspective, something so few of us would otherwise glimpse.

Terera recalls the enormous realisation of Hamilton’s cultural place in, among other moments, discovering President Obama’s interest in the show. He guides us through everything from overcoming crippling nerves to inviting young people from schools close to the hearts of cast and crew for special performances. The book casts back to something that seems almost like a dream now: a ‘normal’ theatre experience – flooding into a bustling foyer, struggling across rows of seats, crowding around a stage door. However, the cue for a return seems imminent; with Terera’s book in mind, the spotlight returns again to the once-in-a-generation phenomenon that is Hamilton.

In many ways, the lockdown experience has been bookended by Lin-Manuel Miranda and his revolutionary tale; last July brought us the recorded Broadway production (a Holy Grail that had seemed like a pipedream come to life for long-time fans) streamed on Disney +; last month saw the release of In The Heights, the show that originally brought Miranda’s name to the lips of the Broadway elite. The film stars original Hamilton cast member Anthony Ramos in the role Miranda himself occupied onstage.

Jamael Westman (who played Alexander Hamilton in the original West End cast of Hamilton) and Giles Terera

Predictably, then, fans are ravenous for Hamilton to return to the stage, and the West End will have more than its fair share of fans from around the globe flocking to the Victoria Palace, not least in light of how elusive Broadway tickets continue to be, even five years after opening. Those who have seen the show countless times, many who have wished long and hard for tickets, and those who discovered it through In The Heights or on Disney +, will unite in front of that same stage onto which Terera remembers stepping out, quite alone, back in the winter of 2017.

From the moment the cast album had become available, fans in the UK, Europe and anywhere else closer to London than New York were speculating when the show would make the natural next step from the Richard Rodgers to the West End. Every word reported about it – the renovations to the Palace, casting call announcements, proposed changes to the production – compounded the scrutiny and the excitement. When much of the principal cast was filled by lesser-known talents and the title role was taken by virtually untested RADA graduate Jamael Westman, the stakes went up and so too did the hype. No less were the thrills and fears for those auditioning; Terera opens up about the dauntingly broad requirements of a part in Hamilton, not least having Miranda at his audition – ‘in the room where it happens’, so to speak.

Many were nervous about how Hamilton might be received in London: would the British take against it for making fun of the monarchy? Would we be able receiving a watered-down version? Was it simply lightning in a bottle, impossible to reproduce? My own fears were only (but totally) allayed when I actually entered the auditorium and saw David Korins’ design there before me, as if air-lifted across the Atlantic, a perfect re-creation of the backdrop to every clip and production still I had pored over. Yes, I thought, this will do just fine.

The potential for myself, and more importantly those who have yet to see Hamilton, to finally live (or relive) that electric thrill with this or any other show once again is stirring. The future of our theatres, many of which have struggled in the past year and a half, is uncertain – we must support them however we can. We can be sure, though, that for Hamilton and (I hope) very many others, the show will go on very soon.