Jan 31, 2019 2 min read

During its nearly month-long run in Pittsburgh, “Hamilton” was one of the hottest tickets in town, with most seats to the show selling for hundreds of dollars.

Some students at Washington High School and Jefferson-Morgan High School, however, were able to see “Hamilton” for, well, just a Hamilton.

They were among the 2,700 students and teachers from 42 Title 1-eligible high schools throughout the region who attended a matinee performance of “Hamilton” last Friday. Each student paid only $10 to see the musical about the life and times of Alexander Hamilton, after having spent the weeks leading up to the performance studying Hamilton and the country’s founding.

Bria Jamison, a junior at Jefferson-Morgan, was one of the students who attended. While she has long listened to the soundtrack album for “Hamilton,” she had not seen the rap and hip-hop-infused musical live, and seeing it “helped with the visuals and story,” she explained.

The students attended “Hamilton” under the auspices of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and its Hamilton Education Program. The institute is dedicated to fostering an understanding of and an appreciation for American history among young people, and the program was crafted in a collaboration with “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and its producer, Jeffrey Seller. The Rockefeller Foundation was also part of the partnership.

Pittsburgh was among 14 cities that were chosen for the program. Title 1 schools are those in which a certain percentage of students are from low-income families. Along with seeing the performance at a discounted price, students participated in a question-and-answer session with members of the “Hamilton” cast, and some of the students performed an original work based on their classroom studies.

For instance, Jefferson-Morgan freshman Skylar Dickens wrote a poem called “As Seconds Tick By” about what might have been going through Hamilton’s mind as he faced the duel that ended his life in 1804. Its first stanza is, “Step One/ Here I am today/ Whose price am I going to pay?/ My mothers, my brothers/ For this country, for my wife/ Will it cost my life?”

“For many students, this is the first time they’ve seen a professional production,” said Tim Bailey, director of education for the Gilder Lehrman Institute.

Other area high school students who enjoyed the show came from Uniontown, Albert Gallatin and Southmoreland school districts.