Beyond ‘Hamilton’: Other musicals examine US history, politics
Pop quiz time: Name the first Pulitzer Prize-winning musical to focus on American history and/or politics.
Guess again, because it’s not “Hamilton.” It’s “Of Thee I Sing,” a 1931 musical distinguished by its political satire — about a candidate running for president on a “love” platform — along with its George and Ira Gershwin score and its Pulitzer Prize for drama, the first for any musical.
Between “Of Thee I Sing” and “Hamilton,” multiple musicals have given U.S. history and politics the song-and-dance treatment. A few notable productions:
— “I’d Rather Be Right” (1937): Rodgers and Hart’s Broadway musical about Franklin D. Roosevelt, as embodied by the legendary (and legendarily FDR-hating) composer and performer, George M. Cohan.
— “Mr. President” (1962): Irving Berlin’s final musical, about a fictional president facing problems political (the Soviet Union) and personal (his kids).
— “1776” (1969): In this Tony-winning musical, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson lead the great debate in the Continental Congress, urging passage of the Declaration of Independence.
— “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” (1976): Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner explore White House history, from George Washington through Teddy Roosevelt, with Ken Howard (“1776’s” Jefferson) playing all the presidential residents.
— “Assassins” (1990): Stephen Sondheim’s ahead-of-its-time cavalcade of presidential assassins, from John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald and beyond, overcame an underwhelming off-Broadway debut in a Tony-winning 2004 Broadway revival.
— “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” (2008): America’s seventh president gets the emo rock star treatment as he leads the chorus in such numbers as “Populism Yea Yea,” promising “we’re gonna take this country back for people like us, who don’t just think about things.”