Failing Up

by Leslie Odom, Jr.

  Wilder wrote the truth as he imagined it. He wrote the truth about a small town of white strivers at the turn of the century. It is through his detail and specificity that he is able to tap into powerful and universal truths about the human experience. Obviously, plays about the specific and unique concerns of a town full of black people at that same point in American history would have an entirely different language and tone.

  For context, 1901 saw the first publication of Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, about his life’s journey from child slave to nationally renowned orator, philosopher, educator, and author. Just five years earlier in 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson cemented legal segregation of the races, with a landmark decision handed down from the highest court in the land. It was a line drawn in the sand and on our buses, train cars, restrooms, diners. It set the stage for the future American horror stories of the Jim Crow South. In 1905, W.E.B. Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement, a civil rights organization that preceded the NAACP, whose prescient ethos called for an end to racial segregation and disenfranchisement. All around the United States, there were riots rooted in the protest against racism and its ugliness.

  The mundane existed for black people in 1901, too. We cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well. We went shopping and dancing. Black children played hopscotch and football in the street, too. But the more I read and tried to imagine, the more it felt like my casting and Mr. Wilder’s text were at odds. It was the trickiest translation job I’d ever been given and I wasn’t sure it was going to work at all.

  Am I a Black George in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town? Am I to investigate the way these scenes would play differently as Black George? Won’t my race impact the power dynamics in the play or dramatically alter the temperature in some of these scenes? Or … am I meant to ignore all this?

  Am I a white person for the evening? Am I, instead of Black George, “Black George in Whiteface”?

  My imagination had posed the question: Who am I really? Integrity demanded that I hunt down the answer.

  Logical solutions eluded me. I had no clue how I was going to translate Mr. Wilder’s text into anything that came close to a truthful rendering onstage.

  In the midst of something of a downward spiral, I paused, and after some deep breaths, the voice of my wiser self took over.

  This is an experiment and no one has the answers. You have been invited into the room to search for the answers alongside your collaborators.

  You’re afraid. Guess what? So is everybody else.

  This experiment will work or it won’t work, but you’ve been invited into the room to explore. The exploration is the mission.

  You have the permission to fail.

  * * *

  YOU HAVE the PERMISSION to FAIL.

  * * *

  I had to remind myself of it then. I have to remind myself of it today. We all have patterns we repeat. Learn to recognize your patterns early. Maturation is only learning to spot these patterns and having the self-discipline to make different decisions once you do. Practice will make the process faster.

  Life has shown me again and again that the answers to some of the most profound questions can only be revealed during the expedition. Those first risky, wobbly steps will require some heart and your humility.

  We found our way to Our Town. The audience received us well, and I’d had a transformative experience along the way. I carry the lessons with me today. Representatives from Thornton Wilder’s estate came to see the one-night-only benefit. One commented that it was one of the most poignant and moving versions she’d ever seen.

  Nicolette and I had just gotten married. This was the first piece I’d worked on since then, and I was able to connect emotional dots of love and loss in ways that I never knew were possible for me. There was a new emotional depth I’d found in my life that I was able to bring to my work.

  As for the translation of the text, we discovered that there were more than enough cognates in the Universal language of the heart and the language of our shared humanity to bring a collective light of truth to Our Town. The new emotional depths and possibilities came as somewhat of a revelation to me, and I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to test the limits once more.

  * * *

  “Octburr” was the subject line of an e-mail that came from Lin in the fall of 2013.

  Leslie!

  I hope this email finds you happy, healthy, and creative.

  So I’m writing Act Two of Hamilton as fast as I can (it’s never fast enough for my tastes, but I digress) and we’re hoping to sing through what I have so far on October 8. I’d love to have you join us. We’d rehearse Saturday the 5th (take Sunday off), Monday the 7th, and the morning of Tuesday the 8th, and sing through it that afternoon.

  This is nothing so formal as the Vassar performance you saw. No audience, just us and Jeffrey Seller to see where we are. Are you around/available to play? Lemme know.

  Siempre, Lin-Manuel

  I didn’t want five minutes to lapse without a response from me. I checked my calendar and hit reply: I’d love to. By the subject line, I got that I’d be reading the role of Aaron Burr.

  The schedule and material were in my in-box a few hours after that, and I got to work immediately.

  I figured I had an ace up my sleeve. There were just over two hundred people who’d seen the first act of The Hamilton Mixtape at Vassar. Coming into the week, I had an advantage in that I knew firsthand how incredibly special Lin’s piece was, and I knew how challenging it would be. Professionally, I’ve never been more game for anything in my life.

  * * *

  PREPARATION IS the SIGN of YOUR INTENTION.

  * * *

  Preparation is the sign of your intention. You can allow your preparedness to speak for you in rooms you care about.

  By “Octoburr,” Lin had probably put in hundreds of hours of preparation and hard work. As I saw it, my impossible task was to try to catch up. There was no better way for me to show my affinity for the piece than to learn the words and rhythms exactly as the man had written them and, beyond that, try to begin to understand the reasons and impulses behind why he’d written them.

  This was a time to go for broke and a time to find the courage to lay it all on the line.

  At Vassar, I thought that Hamilton was the smartest, freshest, most brilliant piece of original material I’d ever seen. And now it was in my hands. My personal goal for my very first week of work on The Hamilton Mixtape was simple: to make them never want to see anyone else in the role of Burr ever again.

  * * *

  We did several readings over the next year, each one more clearly in focus and more complete than the last. I watched the cast get assembled one by one. For me, there was never an actual audition to be in Hamilton after the e-mail from Lin. Instead it was more like a protracted two-year audition before the Broadway opening, which was only the beginning in many respects, but the surest end to the development process. For two years or so I was focused on staying available and doing everything I could to knock it out of the park every time one of those presentations was scheduled.

  There were no assurances that you would make it to the next reading, let alone to the Public Theater or to Broadway. What you did know was how lucky you were to be invited into the process at such a delicate time and how lucky you were that you might leave a lasting impression on the thing. We looked to our director, Tommy Kail; to our musical director and arranger, Alex Lacamoire; and to our choreographer, Andy Blankenbuehler, as lighthouses.

  Hamilton seemed to have a healing and disarming emotional power from the outset. During more than a year and a half of readings and rehearsals, I witnessed the reactions of hardened, jaded professionals from various facets of the entertainment business as they reconnected with childlike wonder and sometimes tears—as I had the first time I saw it.

  Love was my way into Lin’s work and to Aaron Burr.

  * * *

  LOVE was MY WAY into LIN’S WORK and to AARON BURR.


  * * *

  I didn’t feel the need to approach Burr as a villain. That wasn’t how Lin approached him in the writing. Anyone who writes a character a song like “Dear Theodosia” or “Wait for It” is not looking at that character as a villain. Burr and Hamilton were close from the start. They had come up together, they respected each other, and, different as they were in temperament, they had a lot in common. At nineteen years old, neither would have believed they’d end up on those dueling grounds more than twenty-five years later.

  I wanted to be so led by love throughout the proceedings that I would be surprised by those final moments in the show. I wanted to be shocked by the ending every time. My goal, every time we arrived at the denouement, was to hope against hope that things could turn out differently. Kind of like the end of Romeo and Juliet, when you imagine there might be a last-minute twist to save the kids from themselves. You think, Not this time, not tonight.

  My goal with Burr was to lead with his humanity. I would forgo being liked by our audiences and settle instead for being understood. I wanted to make him as ugly and beautiful and flawed and interesting as the people in the seats who’d come to witness.

  In the process of developing the show, I was certain that something about the role and the experience was changing me from the inside. The work was making me a better friend, a better husband, a better man. I felt closer to God and closer to that bottomless creative well within all of us than I’d ever felt before. With Burr, I recognized that Lin was giving me the opportunity to become the type of actor I always admired.

  Nothing could keep me from seeing this thing through to the finish. Nothing. Except a few months before we opened at the Public Theater, that was exactly what a new series on NBC threatened to do.

  * * *

  State of Affairs landed in my lap as one of the easiest jobs I’d ever gotten. I went in to read for the casting director on a Tuesday. She filmed the audition in her office. By the following Monday, I had the job.

  A pilot had never happened for me like that before, and it hasn’t since. The whole process had been so painless, I could hardly believe they were serious when they called to offer me the job. You usually jump through hoop after hoop for these types of things. It takes weeks or months. You’re usually trying to convince them that you’re up to the task. This was almost too good to be true.

  I’d auditioned because, well, why not? The show would shoot in New York. My bank account had been giving me the side-eye for months. My agents knew not to send me in for anything that would conflict with Hamilton (I wouldn’t even consider something that would put my participation in jeopardy), but my commitment to Hamilton in its development phase had financial ramifications. Doing some television “uptown” while I fed my artistic needs “downtown” made a lot of sense. Television is really nice work if you can get it. It isn’t easy, but I wouldn’t be the first actor in town who kept a role on television during the daytime and worked at night in the New York theater. For many, it’s the only way the equation makes sense. Off-Broadway theater is a tricky financial proposition, no matter how brilliant the material. Television work can ease the hardship.

  If the pilot was picked up, as a series regular I would supplement the $800-a-week paycheck in Hamilton at the Public Theater (which gets cut nearly in half after taxes, commissions, and expenses) with my State of Affairs payment of $35,000 an episode (which also looks a lot different after deductions). That was a model that made sense to me.

  The only problem was that State of Affairs never intended to keep production in New York if it got picked up. The show would move to LA, and, as a contracted series regular, I would have to move to LA with it. I didn’t know that piece of information until the announcement of the pickup happened.

  The role of a lifetime in the most masterful piece of original work written for the theater that I’d ever encountered was about to slip from my grasp on a technicality.

  For me, State of Affairs was a great job. Hamilton: An American Musical might’ve been one of the great loves of my life. Artistically, it was what I had been waiting for since my heart was first opened and I’d started down the path years ago.

  State of Affairs was a contract that would guarantee $500,000. At the time, the Hamilton agreement guaranteed less than $15,000. Financially, it wasn’t even a contest. But Nicolette and I prayed, and I kept my focus on moving toward the thing that was making me feel most alive.

  Once I’d made the decision that Hamilton was what I wanted to do, advice poured in from respected advisers. Some suggested that I hire a lawyer to negotiate my way out of the State of Affairs contract, others recommended a PR maneuver or bringing more agents into the conversation. But the reality was that I had no legal recourse if NBC decided to enforce the terms of our agreement. After months of consideration, as elementary and ridiculous as it may sound, I realized that asking nicely was the only option I really had. I also had to admit to myself that if someone at NBC said no, for whatever reason, Hamilton would probably be over for me.

  Any misstep in my conversations with NBC could have serious career ramifications and risk burning bridges at one of the major TV networks. Not having the conversation would risk letting the role of a lifetime slip through my fingers without a fight.

  There is no risk that isn’t tied to a consequence. You assess and make sure you can live with the ones you can foresee.

  In an e-mail to Bob Greenblatt, the chairman of NBC Entertainment and someone who’s turned out to be a real friend, I poured my heart out with as much honesty as seemed appropriate in the delicate situation:

  No one knows the power and relevance of a vital American Theater more than you, Bob. I suspect that no one knows its pitfalls and challenges better than you do. You know what a rarity it is to come across a genuine masterpiece. If one is lucky—I mean truly truly divinely blessed—at ONE point in your career you are invited into the room at the development phase of an Angels in America, or a Sunday in the Park with George, or Rent … think about the very first performers who were given the unsullied, never-before-seen-or-heard-of perfect librettos of Gypsy, or Fiddler, or Dreamgirls … they are a part of history. Their contribution to the craft and to our industry was not only inspiring and entertaining but extraordinarily necessary.

  Hamilton is that timeless and necessary work. This show is going to revolutionize our industry once again.

  I am desperate to be a part of it.

  I realize that this email bucks protocol. These are matters that are usually left to agents and managers but I really wanted you to hear from me. It is out of respect for our friendship and the incredible amount of kindness you’ve shown me over the years that I wanted to try to explain what all the fuss is about and why this project means so much to me.

  Bob and the producers of the show let me out of my contract with no penalties. They wished me luck and they meant it. When Hamilton tickets were most scarce a year and a half later, I found a way to repay them.

  * * *

  In the end, I think what made the connection to Lin’s work so deep for me was the language in which it is written. For one of the first times in my life as a professional actor, I felt like I was standing center stage in a work that was written in my tongue even though the men and women that we were portraying were, in most instances, as disparate from us as could be imagined.

  The story was theirs at its inception. But this time around, the rhythms, the syncopations, the dance and the vibe, the pulse, the movement, the moment—this time around—was ours.

  This town was ours. No translation necessary.

  CHAPTER 8

  HAMILTON ACT 2: THE NEW AMERICAN DREAM

  But, just for a moment now we’re all together … just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another … It goes so fast … Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

  —EMILY

  in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town

  When we got word that the Broadway transfer of Hami
lton wouldn’t be happening until the following season, after our record-breaking run off-Broadway, I have to admit it was a tough pill to swallow. Lin and the producers made the decision to give the show more time to cook off-Broadway; rushing ran the risk, they felt, of key production elements not coming together quickly enough and endangering the quality of the show. That being said, Hamilton had amassed one of the strongest word-of-mouth campaigns the city had ever seen, and I wasn’t alone in hoping a move uptown could come sooner rather than later. At that juncture for me in early 2015, more time only meant more time struggling to make ends meet.

  We were in the middle of a bitter, lingering winter in NYC with winds, inclement weather, the works. I invested in a pair of long johns and a new sweatshirt. These would have to do, as there was no room in the budget that season for a new winter coat or boots for me or for Nicolette. Traveling by taxi was also a luxury we had to do without. The commute from our apartment in Hell’s Kitchen to the Public in the East Village could be brutal.

  Most of the cast was in a similar position. There were articles being written and lots of talk on the outside saying we were fools not to capitalize on the heat and buzz of the moment by transferring to Broadway as quickly as possible. Seemingly overnight, Hamilton had become the hottest ticket in New York City. The scarcity of tickets, due to the three-hundred-seat capacity of our off-Broadway home, fanned the flames of the frenzy. There were those who said that if we thought that same attention would be waiting for us whenever we decided to move uptown the following season, we were deluded.

  We paid our dues that winter. The off-Broadway run wasn’t easy for any of us, but it sure did serve to bring us closer together.