Lin-Manuel Miranda, Daveed Diggs and Jonathan Groff On Maintaining Your Chill While Starring in HAMILTON

"There was a moment when we'd announced our last extension at The Public. Oskar Eustis, who has been around The Public a long time-he's the guy who runs The Public Theater-walked in and said, 'You crashed our phone!' That's when I realized, oh, this is another thing. This is not a typical theatrical experience. Phones at The Public have never crashed before."

That's when, as he explains to GQ Magazine, HAMILTON author/star Lin-Manuel Miranda realized that his new musical had become a full-blown phenomenon.

For Jonathan Groff, who plays King George III, the realization came "when we had Supreme Court Justice (Anthony) Kennedy in the audience, who helped pass gay marriage and is creating legislation that is changing our lives and our kids' lives and our kids' kids' lives, that was pretty epic. That he's at HAMILTON? Like, he's at a musical?!"

Daveed Diggs, who doubles as Lafayette and Jefferson was startled to be recognized on the street.

"One day I was running to the gym, and I got lost. I'm in the Bronx somewhere. And this, like, seventeen-year-old kid is crossing the street. I'm running past him, and he dropped his stuff on the ground. 'Oh my god, you're Thomas Jefferson!' I was like, 'That's the first time anyone's ever said that to me, but yeah. I am.' And then, you know, he took a bunch of selfies, and we talked for a little while."

In the cleverly titled, "How To Maintain Your Chill When You're Starring In HAMILTON," the trio relate stories about being in the reality of the eight show a week grind while becoming a part of a national craze.

Miranda had previously won a Tony Award for IN THE HEIGHTS, but HAMILTON is proving to be a much bigger experience.

"One of the really amazing things is when you get to sort of cross the threshold into friendship of people you grew up idolizing. HEIGHTS, for all its accolades, never really crossed over into the hip-hop community. The Venn diagrams of musical theater and hip-hop just weren't meeting at that point. And with this show, to get a text from Busta after the BET Cypher saying, 'You bodied that shit!'-you know, that's... I'm framing that! Like, I'm framing a text message."

Groff, who sings 60s-style Brit-pop as the king, is a newcomer to being involved in the hip-hop world.

"My aunt and uncle, who are Mennonites, came to see it. They're literal dairy farmers from the fields of Pennsylvania. And they were blown away. And I was like, 'Did you follow, like, the rap and stuff?' And they were like, 'Totally! We got all of it!' And (my uncle) was like, 'It's this, and FIDDLER ON THE ROOF." Best shows I've ever seen.' I was like, there you go."

Diggs admits to being skeptical about whether or not the concept of presenting America's white founding fathers as hip-hop artists would work. That changed for him in rehearsals.

"The first time I did a workshop of it, Chris Jackson was playing George Washington, and it changed everything the first time I heard him sing as George Washington. Because he was so clearly George Washington. So all of a sudden, this guy that I know really well, we've been freestyling together for years, and, I know his family, I know his kids, I know his wife-this is George Washington! A regular person who looks like people who I know, who has many successes and many failures and is not a perfect human being but is a great, great man. All of a sudden I have a real connection to this Founding Father who's been the dude on the money for so long. Or, like, you know, some shit about a cherry tree. Having this living, breathing, real, passionate, and supremely virtuosic human being be the stand-in for what that person is in my brain-and that's forever now. Any time I think about George Washington, it's Chris Jackson. And if something similar to that is happening for people who come see the show, the effect really is profound, because that gives me a type of ownership over the history of this country that I didn't have before."

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The new musical Hamilton has book, music and lyrics by Tony and Grammy Award-winning composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also plays the title role. The musical is directed by Thomas Kail, with choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler and music direction and orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire. Hamilton is inspired by Ron Chernow's biography "AlexanderHamilton."

$10 front row seats for Hamilton - the new musical about the $10 Founding Father, AlexanderHamiltonare on sale for each show by lottery. THE LOTTERY begins two and half hours prior to each performance when patrons may enter their name at the Richard Rodgers Theatre (226 W. 46 St.) for a chance to buy up to two front row tickets for $10 each -Hamilton for "Hamilton." The winner's names will be drawn 2 hours before show time. Entrants must present photo ID, and the winners must pay with cash at the box office.

The cast of Hamilton is comprised of Lin-Manuel Miranda (Alexander Hamilton), Daveed Diggs(Marquis De Lafayette,Thomas Jefferson), Renée Elise Goldsberry (Angelica Schuyler),Christopher Jackson (George Washington),Jonathan Groff (King George), Jasmine Cephas Jones (Peggy Schuyler, Maria Reynolds), Javier Muñoz (Hamilton alternate), Okieriete Onaodowan(Hercules Mulligan, James Madison), Leslie Odom, Jr. (Aaron Burr),Anthony Ramos(John Laurens, PhilipHamilton) and Phillipa Soo (Eliza Hamilton).

HAMILTON is the acclaimed new musical about the scrappy young immigrant Alexander Hamilton, the $10 Founding Father who forever changed America with his revolutionary ideas and actions. During his life cut too short, he served as George Washington's chief aide, was the first Treasury Secretary, a loving husband and father, despised by his fellow Founding Fathers and shot to death by Aaron Burr in their legendary duel.