Even though Lin-Manuel Miranda is leaving Hamilton in July, fans can still get excited about the franchise because, in October, a documentary and a mixtape about the Broadway musical will be released.
PBS is producing a 90-minute Hamilton episode of its Great Performances series titled “Hamilton’s America.” The episode will debut on October 17, and it will feature never-before-seen footage from the show’s beginnings in 2013, including video clips of Miranda writing the play’s script.
Alex Horwitz, a filmmaker and one of Miranda’s best friends from college, will be directing the documentary, which also features interviews with George W. Bush, the Obamas, Jimmy Fallon and Questlove. RadicalMedia, the company that is producing the documentary, will also film two other Hamilton performances featuring Miranda at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. However, what the footage will be used for is still undetermined.
As for the mixtape, titled The Hamilton Mixtape, “it’s more like a satchel [of songs cut from Hamilton],” said Miranda to Playbill.
Around 10 to 15 songs were cut when writing Hamilton. The mixtape will also feature covers and inspired-bys not written by Miranda, who explained:
So I’m going to put that cut slavery rap battle that was in the book… We’re putting my demo of that on [the album]. I have a song called “Valley Forge” that I cut that we actually performed in the Lincoln Center concert. I sort of took the best lines from it and put it in “Stay Alive,” but the “Valley Forge” demo will be on the recording. There’s a number of other demos … “Congratulations” was a song that Angelica had. I think we’re putting that on the Mixtape. So there’s going to be like six or seven of the cut tunes on that as interludes between these amazing artists. A lot of my favorite rap albums have skits, so those are our skits, like me singing hoarsely at four in the morning with these tunes.
We’ll take all the Hamilton we can get. Read our May feature on the show’s singular power here.