Hamilton returns to Sydney with a new cast and set to make history

A new cast of stars is set to make history as one of the world’s biggest musicals, Hamilton, returns to Sydney.

Vidya Makan as Eliza Hamilton in the new Australian production of Hamilton the musical.

Googoorewon (Goori) Knox is ready to stand in ­George Washington’s shoes.

The 31-year-old will make his professional musical theatre debut in the new production of Hamilton when it opens in Sydney next week. In doing so he will create history as the first Indigenous Australian performer to play the American founding father in the record-breaking show, which has transformed the face of the modern ­musical. As part of his preparation, Knox has been reading the Ron Chernow’s Hamilton biography, the inspiration for composer Lin-Manuel Miranda.

“The first battle that he (Washington) was a part of, he was in the midst of having dysentery. He comes in the battle late and his commander had been shot, so Washington gets on his horse and rides the battlefield, bullets flying everywhere, and he ends up losing two or three horses along the way, gets up and gets on the next one, has four bullets through his hat, a couple in his coat …”

Knox relishes the story of Washington’s courage, but says he’s also learned a thing or two about relinquishing power.

The story of America’s first president as portrayed in the musical is having a viral moment, courtesy of President Joe Biden’s decision to step down last month from the US election campaign. Washington’s big ballad in the show is One Last Time – his farewell to the fledgling nation he has helped to shape. As he explains to protégé Alexander Hamilton: “If I say goodbye, the nation learns to move on / It outlives me when I’m gone.”

A YouTube video of Miranda and Christopher Jackson singing the song to Barack Obama and Biden at the White House was captured in 2016, in the twilight of Obama’s presidency. A flurry of new comments appeared on the video in the past fortnight. One reads: “Watching this on July 21st 2024, after President Biden stepped down to allow our nation to move on, hits a different chord. Thank you Mr. President.”

Knox says delivering the number represents “my chance and Washington’s chance to just let loose, and sing to my heart’s content”.

A newcomer to musicals he may be, but Knox’s childhood in Tamworth was shaped by song. His grandfather is Uncle Roger Knox, often referred to as Australia’s “Black Elvis” and the Koori King of country music. Knox recalls Sunday morning jam sessions that shook him out of bed, as the family band rehearsed at home, unable to afford rehearsal space. Around the age of six Knox gave his first public performance, singing a Blink-182 song at the local community centre.

Knox’s hype man is his father, who pushed the young Goori to find gigs at RSL clubs, and audition for the Schools Spectacular. From there, he was scouted to attend the Sydney Actors School.

Googoorewon (Goori) Knox will play George Washington in the new production of Hamilton.

“Most of the time he just says, ‘You’re going to show them’. Just plain and simple, ‘You’re going to show them. They never seen anything like you’.”

Broadway certainly hadn’t seen anything resembling Hamilton when it opened in August 2015. Reviewing the show for The New York Times, theatre critic Ben Brantley found Miranda’s fusing of rap, hip-hop, and R&B “the perfect voice for expressing the thoughts and drives of the diverse immigrants in the American colonies who came together to forge their own contentious, contradictory nation”.

Vidya Makan, 30, plays Eliza Hamilton in this production. A triple threat who is also a composer, Makan says the show’s unique musical fingerprint reveals its cultural history. “Take away the fact that Hamilton is about one of the founding fathers of the US, it’s actually the story of an immigrant who had a really hard childhood; had to leave the place that he was born. And he went from rags to riches. He was the hardworking underdog. That, in its essence, is the core of hip-hop music, of soul music, of R&B, of jazz, of all of these genres that were created by people of colour around the world, and especially in America.”

Makan was born in Brisbane after her parents immigrated from apartheid-era South Africa. When their daughter showed early musical promise, they asked her singing teacher some tough questions.

“It was scary for my parents. Not because they weren’t supportive, but because they were like: ‘Is this a viable option for her? We’ve never seen anyone like her doing the types of things that she wants to do’.”

Makan earned a place in the respected musical theatre program at the Queensland Conservatorium, where her studies were punctuated by the Hamilton soundtrack being played on repeat. Eliza became her dream role.

“Suddenly I’m looking at a woman who’s played by a woman of colour, who’s three-dimensional, who gets to be loved and who gets to love on stage, who gets to be fierce. Who gets to carry this story in a way that’s so bold and reverent. What other show, what other character gets to do that? I can’t think of a single other one.”

Review speaks with a buoyant Makan while she is backstage on the company’s first day in the Sydney Lyric Theatre. It is a full-circle moment from those early singing lessons, where her parents worried about how she might fit into the industry.

“We were talking about how we all fell in love with the show, and so many of our cast were not musical theatre fans, but they love hip-hop and they love storytelling, and they love rap … And so, we see artists who would never have otherwise found themselves in this world absolutely smashing it.”

Callan Purcell, who plays Hamilton’s antagonist, Aaron Burr, is a proud Wiradjuri man who grew up on Awabakal country in Newcastle.

The 30-year-old trained as an actor in London, and grabbed a standing room only ticket to a performance of Hamilton on Broadway in 2019. At the time, Purcell knew auditions for the first Australian production were imminent, but he held back.

“I knew I needed to be part of it, but I told my agent not to put me up, because I was scared. At drama school, I was told by my head of drama that I wouldn’t play any Aboriginal parts because of the way I looked. And from that, that was an internal conflict I had.”

Today, Purcell is the equivalent of a Hamilton skeleton key – a performer who has successfully slotted into multiple roles across numerous tours. In the previous Australian production, which lapped the country from 2021 to 2023 and registered almost 700 performances, Purcell understudied the title role, but more regularly appeared as the musical’s comic villain, King George.

Although the monarch is gifted with a gleeful number that encourages audiences to sing along, Purcell has been conscious to share the darker side of the historical figure, too.

“Stepping into the world of Hamilton, then stepping into the heels of the King, you get both sides of the coin. You get the colonised and the coloniser. And so, you’ve got to reflect on yourself and how that sits in you. And you learn that you can be in the world, but not of the world.”

Producer Michael Cassel has returned to underwrite the new production. He nominates One Last Time as his favourite part of the show, with the caveat that he’s always discovering new dimensions to the musical. (He estimates he’s watched Hamilton more than 100 times). Cassel has seen the Hamilton effect change the way musicals in this country are cast. He notes the healthy diversity of local talent evidenced in the recent auditions for his upcoming production of the Michael Jackson jukebox musical, MJ. “Audiences want to see themselves and the community on stage, and we achieved that with Hamilton,” Cassel says.

Hamilton producer Michael Cassel. Picture: Daniel Boud.

“That has allowed other people to realise that this is a possibility, this is a career path, this is a stage that they’re welcome on.”

(Such change was overdue. In 2017, a Queensland company attempted to stage Miranda’s earlier musical, In the Heights, only to cancel because the casting was criticised for being culturally inappropriate. The show, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2008, sprouted from the Latinx neighbourhood in New York where the composer grew up. The proposed cast for the Queensland production was predominantly white).

Cassel saw Hamilton early during its Broadway run at the urging of his colleague, famed producer Cameron Mackintosh.

“I had woken up one morning to a text message saying that he had just been to the opening night of Hamilton on Broadway. He was waxing lyrical about the production and said what an amazing musical it was, how well-crafted it was, and saying it was a game-changer.”

Cassel quickly booked a meeting with the show’s producer, Jeffrey Seller, and the two men discussed how the production might work in Australia, including the crucial aspect of casting.

Knox says the conversations among his castmates reflect recurring themes of identity, inclusion, and opportunity.

“They’ve said to be chosen because of who I am, versus to fill a role, is the most life-changing thing … because it means that they are being seen for who they are and what they are.”

Although he is ready to impress as George Washington, in conversation Knox has the swagger of Hamilton himself – a young man on the rise, acutely aware of his place in history.

“As a young street rat from Tamworth, I used to walk the street at night and just hang out with mates, and get home late, and go to school late. And to live that life, to be able to stand on the stage and show that even though you might come from that place, the sky’s still the limit. You just got to put your mind to it.”

Hamilton plays at the Sydney Lyric Theatre until December 15.