Thursday, March 13, 2025, marked five years since the COVID-19 lockdown began. Looking back, many cultural events occurred during the pandemic, especially in the entertainment world. The arts, like everything else in the world, were hit hard. Live theatre took a major blow. New York City’s Broadway shows were closed, and Broadway was forced to go dark for 18 months, making a comeback in September 2021.

However, this did not fully stop the theatre world from producing its magic. On July 3, 2020, Disney+ released a promotional shot of the musical “Hamilton” starring the original Broadway cast. Live performances were brought to our living rooms. “Hamilton,” created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also portrayed the titular character, began previews on Broadway at the Richard

Rodgers Theatre on July 13, 2015, and officially opened on Aug. 6, 2015. The production closed in March 2020 due to the pandemic and later returned when Broadway reopened.

In 2016 the musical was filmed and stored away. As written in a New York Times article by Michael Paulson published on June 25, 2020, “Broadway shows are often recorded for archival purposes, but rarely for commercial runs. The ‘Hamilton’ film was shot over just three days in June 2016, shortly after the Tonys [Awards] and shortly before Miranda and several other performers departed from the cast.”

Releasing the recording to “Hamilton” on the streaming platform of Disney+ not only brought musical theatre directly to its fans, but it also made it much more accessible to a wider audience, many of whom were not already fans of Broadway productions.

Making theatre accessible has always been the goal, but it continues to be a hard one to achieve. Ticket prices tend to be through the roof, especially for shows running on Broadway, and transportation can be tricky and expensive if people do not live close to a theatre. In addition, there are people who simply do not have exposure to the art form.

This was not the first ever recording of a Broadway production nor the first musical movie, but this release was different. It’s rare that actual footage of a live performance is shown to the public. There is a drastic difference between a taping of an on-stage performance and a musical-turned-movie, such as “The Sound of Music” (1965) and, more recently, “Mean Girls” and “Wicked” (2024).

Thanks to the “Hamilton” pandemic release, other pro shots have been released. In 2023, a recording of the live performance of “Waitress” was brought to movie theatre screens and can now be accessed on select streaming platforms.

“Hamilton” was and is important for several reasons. In addition to gifting us the original Broadway cast pro shot while we were all in lockdown, Miranda took the story of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and created a hip-hop musical out of it. He was quoted in an article by Ashely Griffin published in On Stage on Aug. 2, 2024, as having described the show as “America then, as told by America now.”

All the founding fathers were portrayed by non-white males, which had not been done before then. Hamilton was an immigrant, born and raised on the Caribbean Island of Nevis. He later moved to New York City to pursue an education. This is an immigrant story, something many Americans can relate to, and something that needs to be highlighted more often due to the discrimination against immigrants in the United States.

The lockdown threw many challenges and changes into our society, causing us all to think about and rethink our lives and the world that we live in. But through it all, the arts prevailed and continued to reach wide audiences. All in all, “Hamilton” was more than just another movie release.

Victoria Tibets can be reached at [email protected].