HAMILTON's Jackson, Goldsberry, Diggs, Jones and Odom, Jr. Talk Up Broadway's Revolutionary Musical

Back in the day, revolutions were plotted over pints of ale at the local taverns. Be it Boston's Green Dragon, where the rebellious tea party was planned, or New York's Fraunces Tavern, where patriots became so incensed over King George III that they hopped the fence that guarded the nearby statue of the monarch and pulled it down to melt and make bullets.

Sardi's Restaurant on 44th Street isn't, technically, a tavern, but for decades the homey venue with caricatures on the walls has served as a meeting place for theatre denizens, some certainly plotting revolutionary Broadway shows.

The five people who recently took a corner table at Sardi's with Vulture may not really be colonial rebels, but they play them eight times a week at the Richard Rodgers Theatre where Lin-Manuel Miranda's smash hit HAMILTON expects to be ensconced for at least as long as the time that passed between the first shot at Lexington and the waving of the white flag at Yorktown.

There were no talks of uprisings during the round table discussion between Leslie Odom Jr. (Aaron Burr), Renée Elise Goldsberry (Angelica Schuyler), Christopher Jackson (George Washington), Daveed Diggs (Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson) and Jasmine Cephas Jones (Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds) but a myriad of subjects were touched.

While each has achieved various degrees of recognizability in their careers, the national attention received by their current gig has certainly upped the "What have I seen you in?" factor.

DIGGS: 'For me, it seems to be about proximity to the theater. Like, without fail, if I'm hanging out anywhere in midtown, yeah; but the further away I get, the less frequent it is. I live in Washington Heights, where it almost never happens."

JACKSON: "I was shopping a couple of days before Christmas, and I got off the train and the cop grabs my arm. And there were a number of things going through my head. And he was like, 'Are you Christopher Jackson? I love your work. Thank you for what you're doing.' And I was like, 'Thank you for saying that. Would you please let go of my arm? Unhand me.' And then within the next 20 minutes, three different people in three different stores stopped me to sign the Playbill that they still had in their purses. They all had been there in the last couple of days. So that was probably the craziest part. Normally I don't notice, but I'll be with my wife and she'll look around and say, 'Oh, there's been a sighting.'"

GOLDSBERRY: "It's what's so crazy about my life right now. You would never think all of this would happen. I was on the train one day, coming into work, and this woman said, 'Excuse me. I'm sorry to bother you. Are you a rapper?' And I said, 'I'm sorry, what?' And she said, 'I'm sorry to bother you. I'm just wondering. Are you a rapper?' I said, 'I'm not a rapper.' She said, 'I think I saw you on the BET Awards.' And I was like, 'Oh my God. Yes, I am.' And then I proceeded to say, 'Can I take a picture with you?' On the train, I literally took a picture with this woman because I was just so proud to be recognized - not as an actress, but for being a rapper on the BET Awards. It just gave me all the validation I ever wanted in my life."

Of course, the tables are turned when celebrities attend performances and drop by backstage.

JONES: "Beyoncé. I freaked out when Beyoncé came."

ODOM: "As far as stars go, there's no one more famous than her and Jay. Sometimes I think of creativity or art as this well that we all draw from. Since childhood, we take from it, and we take and we take, and this is the first time for me that I feel like I'm able to give back. So when people like that come, people who've been entertaining you for however many years, it's really special to be able to give them a nice night in the theater, or maybe some inspiration back."

GOLDSBERRY: "The height of this whole hype was when Obama came a second time and spoke from the stage. We got to sit in the wing as a company and patter back and forth with him in the beginning of his speech. I don't know that it's possible for that to be topped in my lifetime. That went beyond what my biggest dream was, which was that I would one day perform for a president. Then it was this president, and he came back."

An experienced rapper making his Broadway debut, Diggs gives special insight into specifics of Miranda's score.

DIGGS: "Writing rap songs is about flow, about one word blending seamlessly into the next and creating a thing that is possible to perform in a way that feels natural. Lin does that. The tricky thing about fast raps is not really the delivery of them; it's the writing of them, with consonants close enough together that you don't trip up over them... And it's different for every character. Each character rhymes differently. The way that they are rapping contributes to their story. George Washington raps in a very on-beat, metronomic way because he is focused and driven and always moving forward. Lafayette has this great arc where he starts out rhyming words that don't really rhyme and he can't really figure it out. As he becomes comfortable - and a general - he can do this really complicated, technical, fast stuff. It's like him mastering this language. Jefferson's raps are so bouncy and all over the place, and part of it's because I'm playing him - but Lin was writing with this interesting kind of West Coast feel."

Director Thomas Kail is also universally praised.

JACKSON: "I've heard Tommy say once that if he does his job the right way, no one will ever know he was there."

DIGGS: "Yeah, make no mistake about it, this is Tommy's show. Tommy's hands are in every single part of it."

ODOM: "Every single aspect of it. What it was is an environment where everybody felt they could do their best. That sounds simple. But all of us have been in environments where we didn't feel like that. We felt like our best was going to threaten somebody else, or we were stifled in some way. But Hamilton was a carefully crafted environment where everyone felt like we could come in and dump all of our toys out in the center of the floor."

And while the musical's fans may be looking forward to cheering on the cast and creative team when it comes time for the Tony Awards, the actors try not to think about such matters.

GOLDSBERRY: "Ignorance really can be bliss, especially when it comes to acting as competition sport. I want every performance to be celebrated. I'm really proud of this whole year on Broadway. To get to hang with the other members of the 2016 class is pretty amazing, and the idea that we could do more of that because we're nominated for Tonys would be really amazing. Other than that, I just want to shut my brain off and do the show."

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From the creative team behind the Tony Award-winning In The Heights comes a wildly inventive new musical about the scrappy young immigrant who forever changed America: AlexanderHamilton. Tony and Grammy Award winnerLin-Manuel Miranda wields his pen and takes the stage as the unlikely founding father determined to make his mark on a new nation as hungry and ambitious as he is.

From bastard orphan to Washington's right hand man, rebel to war hero, loving husband caught in the country's first sex scandal to Treasury head who made an untrusting world believe in the American economy, Hamilton is an exploration of a political mastermind. George Washington,Thomas Jefferson, Eliza Hamilton, and lifelongHamiltonfriend and foe,Aaron Burr, all attend this revolutionary tale of America's fiery past told through the sounds of the ever-changing nation we've become. Tony Award nominee Thomas Kail directs this new musical about taking your shot, speaking your mind, and turning the world upside down.