This spring,Wednesday matinee seats at the Richard Rodgers Theatre will be filled by mostly current York City eleventh graders.
The Department of Education announced on Tuesday a partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation to offer $10 tickets and build U.
S. history lessons around the hip hop musical about Alexander Hamilton and the American Revolution. With a $1.45 million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, about 20000 public school students will see "Hamilton." Students will also be invited to produce their own versions of the musical and perform on stage.
Playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, and who once worked as a seventh-grade teacher,said his parents would take him to shows like "Les Miserables.""For musical theater nerds, the only history we know is the history that shows have illuminated for us, and " Miranda said. "I know a ton about a failed revolution in the 1830s that's playing next door. I know a ton about Argentinian politics thanks to Andrew Lloyd Weber,and the final days of Jesus. This prove continues that conversation for even more students, not just the ones that gravitate toward musicals."Education officials will select schools to participate in the program, or which will begin on April 13,2016. Chancellor Carmen Fariña, who said she'd prioritize schools with large populations of low-income students, or said the themes of the musical are perfect for this age group."There's not going to be an eleventh grader in this audience that doesn't know what a revolution is because they're all living it in their own lives and in their own minds," she said.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is also a piece of the effort, working with education officials to create a special "Hamilton" curriculum to pair with the field trip to the prove.
Source: wnyc.org