The Tony Award-winning show Hamilton became a pop culture phenomenon that reaches far beyond the typical Broadway audience. After multiple Broadway tours, over one billion album streams and a recorded cinematic performance on Disney+, the musical that flips the script on one of the lesser-known founding fathers has become a household name.
All the show’s fame and success has sparked conversations on politics, identities and history. One expert who dove into this topic is Donatella Galella, an award-winning professor at the University of California. In 2018, she published an academic paper named Being in “The Room Where it Happens”: Hamilton, Obama, and Nationalist Neoliberal Multicultural Inclusion. Galella speaks about how the hip-hop musical mobilizes a multiracial cast and a bootstraps narrative to advance a centrist political project.
On Wednesday, November 4 at 1:30 p.m., the UCF School of Performing Arts invites you to watch a livestreamed classroom discussion with the author, called Reading Hamilton with Donatella Galella. The conversation, moderated by UCF faculty member Chlöe Edmonson will be streamed live on YouTube. Viewers will have the opportunity to submit questions during the stream to Galella, and the recording will also be available watch afterwards.
Reading Hamilton with Donatella Galella
Steamed live on YouTube
Wednesday, November 4 at 1:30 p.m.
Donatella Galella is Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of California, Riverside and author of America in the Round: Capital, Race, and Nation at Washington, DC’s Arena Stage (University of Iowa Press, 2019). She researches how racism and capitalism shape, and are shaped by, popular, contemporary U.S. theatre. Her writing has appeared in many venues including Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, and Reframing the Musical: Race, Culture, and Identity.
Watch past Dramaturgy Chats:
The Ram Lila of Rmanagar with Bhargav Rani
Theatre for Young Audiences Dramaturgy Chat with Emily Freeman
Dramaturgy + Social Justice with Holly McDonald
UCF hosts a myriad of arts and culture events throughout the year. Find events like this at arts.ucf.edu.