Ma'am Why Did You Redeem It: The Musical

 You already know what Hamilton is. Maybe you haven't seen it, but you know it. Hamilton as a musical dominated Broadway in 2015, gaining enough traction to be professionally recorded and uploaded onto Disney+ in 2020. Fun fact, it was this recording that started my addiction with musicals, and I didn't even want to watch it. My dad had to force me to sit down for 3 hours and I'm pretty sure he enjoyed the initial experience far more than I did. Neither of us knew just what a gateway it would be for me. Moving forward, I feel pretty confident in saying that Hamilton is one of the most famous musicals that is still running on Broadway today, and it's worth a watch. That being said, this article is not about Hamilton, it's about something much much worse. Feast your eyes on the utter beauty of Scamilton. 

Scamilton refers to an unauthorized and altered performance of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton staged by The Door Christian Fellowship, a church in McAllen, Texas. Before I tell you about just how bad it was, let's talk a little bit about licensing. Typically, shows that are available for people to perform have licenses that you can buy online. These licenses will typically come with scores, lyrics, and scripts, but that varies from company to company. If you've ever seen a high school production of Newsies Jr or Seussical, it was (hopefully) licensed. All that you need to know about this is that licensing is required if you're planning to put on a show that was written by someone else. Now, Hamilton's license is not available for purchase yet, which makes sense as they are still running on Broadway and doing quite well. That is why it was very surprising, and very illegal to see The Door Christian Fellowship perform Hamilton. 

Performing without a license is pretty bad, but at the end of the day Hamilton is raking in the cash some random church putting on a bad production of their show wasn't going to force them into bankruptcy or anything. In fact, these illegal productions come and go, they're usually only remembered if they managed to go viral on you tube, and even then, they're more remembered for how bad they were as opposed to how much of a crime it was. Scamilton is different, with even it's name having connotations to a crime, but why is this show so much worse than all the others? Because I have so many thoughts about this, and because I love Jenny Nicholson, I have organized my thoughts into a numbered list. 

Number 1, the singing and dancing is bad. I hate to rag on the actors, especially when half of the cast look like they're actual children, but it's clear that the direction was horrible. There are numerous points where the singing is out of pitch, the lyrics are just wrong and OH MY GOD WHY IS KING GEORGE CHEWING GUM ON STAGE. King George is particularly egregious because despite having one of his already small number of 3 songs cut out, HE STILL FORGOT THE LYRICS TO HIS SONGS. Hamilton and Aaron Burr both do fine as actors, but they were heavily missing direction and both of them were too afraid to put energy into their songs. I mean, Hamilton is a hip hop musical it needs energy, but most of the actors sound like they just ran a marathon before singing. Their lack of singing ability is not a huge issue, it can be worked around, even Lin Manuel Miranda is no great singer but he carries it with energy. The main issue with the performance is the lack of rehearsal and direction. Obviously I don't know how often they rehearsed, but given the number of messed up lines and missed cues, I'm willing to bet it wasn't a lot. 

Number 2, the costumes and props are pretty bad. Most of the costumes look like they need to be ironed and the props feel super out of place for the setting of the show. Youtuber Maxwell Greene did an excellent job breaking down everything wrong with these, and I think you should check his video out after you read this. The woman playing Eliza is the exact same woman playing Mariah Reynolds, they just gave her a cheap black wig that looks like something out of a nightmare. They did this of course, because the actors are married in real life and they didn't want any premarital hand holding. Yes, handholding because they cut out most of the affair, only showing the two holding hands and exiting the stage. 

On that note, it's time for Number 3, the weird censoring of language. Now, high school productions do this all the time, so it's not entirely strange but I do think that Scamilton does a particularly terrible job at this. One example of good censorship is when School of Rock Jr changed "got you good and pissed" to "got you in a twist". This censorship is subtle, and what Scamilton does is not, not even close. There are points where they just skip over a word, very awkwardly manipulating the rhyme scheme because they couldn't think of something in it's place. Now that we've unpeeled these layers of slight issues, we've arrived at the heart, at what is, in my opinion the worst sin this show commits. 

Number 4, the altered content. Much of the content was altered, far worse than just the censored parts. Let's talk about the religious messages placed within the show. One lyric change that says the most to me, and the one that went the most viral, is the change from Eliza singing "I'm not afraid, I know who I married" to "I'm not afraid, my hope is in Jesus". This line has gone from a sweet line about her love for her husband to a random mention of religion where none was needed. Hamilton has always been an atheist, it's referenced in the original show, and it's a true historical fact. In the show this isn't given much emphasis, except for a brief line where he mentions that he began to pray after the death of his son. This is more a line about how he has fallen into a routine and has maybe found his faith again after a tragedy, and isn't supposed to actually be a commentary on God or prayer. Scamilton takes this message and ignores it completely, instead adding what may be the most disgusting scene in any illegal production (Yes, it's worse than Courtney take your break). Scamilton adds a new character, not present in the original musical, a pastor. The pastor talks to Hamilton, telling him about how the death of his son was a result of Hamilton's actions (his affair and disavowal of God). Yes, this musical actually implied that the death of Phillip Hamilton, a real person, was caused by his father not believing hard enough. As if that wasn't disgusting enough, the pastor returns after the show to say that they offer help to anyone suffering from issues such as homosexuality. Hamilton, and Broadway in particular has always been a safe space for everyone, especially people of color (all the Scamilton actors are white if you were wondering) and the LGBTQ+ community. To take something that has always been a safe space and turn it into an attempt to save these people has to be one of the most disgusting and vile things you can do to a musical. 

Unsurprisingly, Lin Manuel Miranda said no to this production, condemning it online to the point where the church promised never to perform it again. This issue goes so much deeper than a bad production, plenty of high schools and youth drama clubs have terrible shows that never go anywhere, but this show was so utterly disrespectful to the core of what Hamilton is. Hamilton is a show about ambition, about pushing yourself and being self sufficient. The church turned it into a message of religion, replacing all the self-sufficiency with sufficiency on God. It feels like a youth sermon masquerading as a musical. I will say one thing, if I was in that audience, I'd probably need to be saved too. 

This picture has nothing to do with anything I just spoke about but I feel like it would enrage everyone at the church, so here we go.