Broadway-Bound HAMILTON Breaks $27M in Advance Ticket Sales

It seems that it could be the biggest upcoming Broadway musical in recent years. Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical, HAMILTON begins previews tonight July 13th and has already become the biggest Broadway event of the 2015/16 season.

Hamilton begun performances this spring Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in NYC and took the theatre community by storm. From Paul McCartney to Jimmy Fallon to The First Lady of the United States, everyone wanted a piece of the latest and greatest Broadway masterpiece.

According to The New York Times, "Hamilton has been seen by relatively few people - a total of 34,132 seats were available over 15 weeks at the Public, fewer than at a typical Yankees home game, and there remain uncertainties about how it will be received by broader audiences over time." So when the long awaited announcement came that Hamilton would be moving to Broadway this summer, fans were sent into a frenzy.

Hamilton hasn't even opened yet and it's already breaking records. "It has already brought in $27.6 million, with just over 200,000 tickets sold in advance - huge numbers for Broadway, and among the biggest pre-opening totals in history." Hamilton opened their box office in early March and tickets for this summer are almost impossible to nail down. The best part about this show? They know the high-demand and they want to show this new musical to as many people as possible. Just last week Hamilton announced they would be doing $10 tickets for front-row seats for a lucky few winners. It even has struck a cord with educators and Hamilton is working to bring the experience to a large number of NYC schoolchildren in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institue of American History. Seth Andrew, the founder of Democracy Prep Public Schools told The New York Times, "It was unquestionably the most profound impact I've ever seen on a student body," after he chaperoned 120 students to a performance at the Public.

Of course the early success of Hamilton inevitably comes with some doubts, Jeffrey Seller, the shows lead producer told The New York Times, "'The question we have to answer is: 'Will the word of mouth be as good, or better, on Broadway? Will we measure up?'" But in the end Hamilton has already given Broadway one of the greatest gifts: a hip, historical musical that will give audiences a chance to explore history.

Theordore S. Chapin, the longtime president of the Rodgers and Hammerstein organization told The New York Times, "'It takes the rules and shifts them...It's historical but modern. This is a guy who knows rap and knows Stephen Sondheim, and that's the step no one has taken yet.'"

For more from The New York Times article visit here.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride