document_title: Hamilton (musical)

question_text: what song is the end of act 1 in hamilton

question_tokens: what song is the end of act 1 in hamilton

text: Hamilton (musical)

text: Synopsis

text: The play has two acts, telling Hamilton's story through major events:[12]

text: Act I

text: The musical begins with the company summarizing Alexander Hamilton's early life as an orphan in the Caribbean ("Alexander Hamilton"). After arriving in New York in 1776, Hamilton meets Aaron Burr, John Laurens, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Hercules Mulligan ("Aaron Burr, Sir"), and impresses them with his rhetorical skills ("My Shot"). They affirm their revolutionary goals to each other ("The Story of Tonight"). "The Schuyler Sisters", Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy, are then introduced. King George then insists on his authority ("You'll Be Back"). During the New York and New Jersey campaign Hamilton accepts a position as George Washington's aide-de-camp ("Right Hand Man") instead of field command.

text: Hamilton marries Eliza Schuyler ("Helpless") as her sister Angelica suppresses her feelings for the sake of their happiness ("Satisfied").  Burr reflects on Hamilton's swift rise while considering his own career and more cautious style ("Wait For It").

text: Hamilton's friend Laurens duels General Charles Lee, with Hamilton and Burr as their seconds. Laurens injures Lee and Lee yields ("Ten Duel Commandments"). Hamilton is temporarily suspended by Washington over the duel but recalled to help plan the final Siege of Yorktown ("Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)").

text: Soon after the victory at Yorktown, Hamilton's son Philip is born, while Burr has a daughter, Theodosia ("Dear Theodosia"). Hamilton receives word that Laurens has been killed in a seemingly pointless battle and throws himself into his work ("Tomorrow There'll Be More of Us"). He co-authors The Federalist Papers and is selected as Secretary of the Treasury by newly-elected President Washington. Angelica moves to London with her new husband ("Non-Stop").

text: Act II

text: In 1789, Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton debate the merits of Hamilton's financial plans during a Cabinet meeting. Washington pulls Hamilton aside, and tells him to figure out a compromise to win over Congress ("Cabinet Battle #1").

text: Eliza and her family, along with Angelica, back from London, travel upstate during the summer, while Hamilton stays home to work on the compromise ("Take a Break"). Hamilton begins an affair with Maria Reynolds, making him vulnerable to her husband's blackmail ("Say No To This"). Hamilton, Jefferson and James Madison create the Compromise of 1790 over a private dinner, exchanging Hamilton's financial plan for placing the country's permanent capital on the Potomac River. Burr is envious of Hamilton's sway in the government and wishes he had similar power ("The Room Where It Happens").

text: In another Cabinet meeting, Jefferson and Hamilton argue over whether the United States should assist France in its conflict with Britain. Washington ultimately agrees with Hamilton's argument for remaining neutral ("Cabinet Battle #2"). Washington decides to retire from the presidency and Hamilton assists in writing a farewell address ("One Last Time").

text: John Adams becomes the second President and fires Hamilton, who publishes an inflammatory critique of the new president as a response ("The Adams Administration"). Hamilton's affair with Reynolds becomes public ("The Reynolds Pamphlet"), damaging his relationship with Eliza ("Burn"). Their son Philip dies at age 19 in a duel with George Eacker ("Blow Us All Away"), causing a reconciliation between Alexander and Eliza ("It's Quiet Uptown").

text: Hamilton's endorsement of Jefferson in the presidential election of 1800 results in further animosity between Hamilton and Burr. Burr challenges Hamilton to a duel via an exchange of letters ("Your Obedient Servant"). Hamilton dies with his wife and Angelica at his side. Burr laments that even though he survived, he is cursed to be the villain who killed Alexander Hamilton ("The World Was Wide Enough"). The close of the musical is a reflection on historical memory and "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story".

text: Roles and principal casts

text: Original production casts

text:
Character

Vassar Workshop[13]

Off-Broadway[14]

Broadway[15]

Chicago[8]

First U.S. Tour[16]

West End[17]

Second U.S. Tour[18]

Puerto Rico[19]

Alexander Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Miguel Cervantes

Michael Luwoye

Jamael Westman

Joseph Morales

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Eliza Hamilton

Ana Nogueira

Phillipa Soo

Arianna Afsar

Solea Pfeiffer

Rachelle Ann Go

Shoba Narayan

TBA

Aaron Burr

Utkarsh Ambudkar

Leslie Odom Jr.

Joshua Henry

Giles Terera

Nik Walker

Angelica Schuyler

Anika Noni Rose

Renée Elise Goldsberry

Karen Olivo

Emmy Raver-Lampman

Rachel John

Ta'Rea Campbell

George Washington

Christopher Jackson

Jonathan Kirkland

Isaiah Johnson

Obioma Ugoala

Marcus Choi

Marquis de Lafayette / Thomas Jefferson

Daveed Diggs

Chris De'Sean Lee

Jordan Donica

Jason Pennycooke

Kyle Scatliffe

Hercules Mulligan / James Madison

Joshua Henry

Okieriete Onaodowan

Wallace Smith

Mathenee Treco

Tarinn Callender

Fergie L. Philippe

John Laurens / Philip Hamilton

Javier Muñoz

Anthony Ramos

José Ramos

Rubén J. Carbajal

Cleve September

Elijah Malcomb

Peggy Schuyler / Maria Reynolds

Presilah Nunez

Jasmine Cephas Jones

Samantha Marie Ware

Amber Iman

Christine Allado

Danielle Sostre

King George III

Joshua Henry

Brian d'Arcy James

Jonathan Groff

Alexander Gemignani

Rory O'Malley

Michael Jibson

Jon Patrick Walker

Alexander Hamilton (alternate)

N/A

Javier Muñoz

Joseph Morales

Ryan Alvarado

Ash Hunter

Julius Thomas III

tag: table

text: Broadway cast replacements

text:
Alexander Hamilton – Javier Muñoz (July 11, 2016 – January 14, 2018);[20] Michael Luwoye (January 16, 2018 – present)[21][22]
Eliza Hamilton – Lexi Lawson (July 12, 2016 – present)[23][22]
Aaron Burr – Brandon Victor Dixon (August 23, 2016 – August 13, 2017);[23] Daniel Breaker (August 29, 2017 – present)[24][22]
Angelica Schuyler – Mandy Gonzalez (September 6, 2016 – present)[25][22]
George Washington – Nicholas Christopher (November 15, 2016 – January 8, 2017);[26] Bryan Terrell Clark (January 10, 2017 – present)[22]
Marquis de Lafayette / Thomas Jefferson – Seth Stewart (August 15, 2016 – April 16, 2017);[27] James Monroe Iglehart (April 18, 2017 – present)[28]
Hercules Mulligan / James Madison – J. Quinton Johnson (January 3, 2017 – present)[22]
John Laurens / Philip Hamilton – Jordan Fisher (November 22, 2016 – March 5, 2017);[29] Anthony Lee Medina (March 7, 2017 – present)[30][22]
Peggy Schuyler / Maria Reynolds – Alysha Deslorieux (December 20, 2016 – September 3, 2017);[30] Joanna A. Jones (September 5, 2017 – present)[22]
King George III – Rory O'Malley (April 11, 2016 – January 15, 2017);[31] Taran Killam (January 17, 2017 – April 16, 2017);[30] Brian d'Arcy James (April 18, 2017 – July 16, 2017);[32] Euan Morton (July 28, 2017 – present)[33]

text: Other notable production cast replacements

text: Chicago

text:
Aaron Burr – Wayne Brady;[34] Daniel Breaker;[35] Gregory Treco[citation needed]
Angelica Schuyler – Montego Glover[36]

text: First U.S. Tour

text: Eliza Hamilton - Julia K. Harriman[citation needed]

text: Musical numbers

text:
Act I

"Alexander Hamilton" – Burr, Laurens, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Eliza, Washington, and Company
"Aaron Burr, Sir" – Hamilton, Burr, Laurens, Lafayette, and Mulligan
"My Shot" – Hamilton, Laurens, Lafayette, Mulligan, Burr, and Company
"The Story of Tonight" – Hamilton, Laurens, Mulligan, Lafayette, and Company
"The Schuyler Sisters" – Angelica, Eliza, Peggy, Burr, and Company
"Farmer Refuted" – Seabury, Hamilton, and Company
"You'll Be Back" – King George III and Company
"Right Hand Man" – Washington, Hamilton, Burr, and Company
"A Winter's Ball" – Burr, Hamilton, and Company
"Helpless" – Eliza and Company
"Satisfied" – Angelica and Company
"The Story of Tonight (Reprise)" – Laurens, Mulligan, Lafayette, Hamilton, and Burr
"Wait for It" – Burr and Company
"Stay Alive" – Hamilton, Washington, Laurens, Lafayette, Mulligan, Lee, Eliza, Angelica, and Company[a]
"Ten Duel Commandments" – Laurens, Hamilton, Lee, Burr, and Company
"Meet Me Inside" – Hamilton, Burr, Laurens, Washington, and Company
"That Would Be Enough" – Eliza and Hamilton
"Guns and Ships" – Burr, Lafayette, Washington, and Company
"History Has Its Eyes on You" – Washington, Hamilton, and Company
"Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)" – Hamilton, Lafayette, Laurens, Mulligan, Washington, and Company[a]
"What Comes Next?" – King George III
"Dear Theodosia" – Burr and Hamilton
"Tomorrow There'll Be More of Us" – Laurens, Eliza, and Hamilton[b]
"Non-Stop" – Burr, Hamilton, Angelica, Eliza, Washington, and Company

Act II

"What'd I Miss" –  Jefferson, Burr, Madison, and Company
"Cabinet Battle #1" – Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison
"Take a Break" – Eliza, Philip, Hamilton, and Angelica
"Say No to This" – Maria Reynolds, Burr, Hamilton, James Reynolds, and Company
"The Room Where It Happens" – Burr, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and Company
"Schuyler Defeated" – Philip, Eliza, Hamilton, and Burr
"Cabinet Battle #2" – Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison
"Washington on Your Side" – Burr, Jefferson, Madison, and Company
"One Last Time" – Washington, Hamilton, and Company[c]
"I Know Him" – King George III
"The Adams Administration" – Burr, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Company[a]
"We Know" – Hamilton, Jefferson, Burr, and Madison
"Hurricane" – Hamilton and Company
"The Reynolds Pamphlet" – Jefferson, Madison, Burr, Hamilton, Angelica, James Reynolds, and Company[a]
"Burn" – Eliza
"Blow Us All Away" – Philip, Martha, Dolly, Eacker, Hamilton, and Company
"Stay Alive (Reprise)" – Hamilton, Phillip, Eliza, and Company
"It's Quiet Uptown" – Angelica, Hamilton, Eliza, and Company
"The Election of 1800" – Jefferson, Madison, Burr, Hamilton, and Company
"Your Obedient Servant" – Burr, Hamilton, and Company
"Best of Wives and Best of Women" – Eliza and Hamilton
"The World Was Wide Enough" – Burr, Hamilton, and Company
"Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" – Washington, Burr, Jefferson, Madison, Angelica, Eliza, Mulligan, Lafayette, Laurens, and Company[a]

text: Notes

text:
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Credited to full company on the original Broadway cast recording.

Jump up ^ "Tomorrow There'll Be More of Us", a second reprise to "The Story of Tonight", does not appear on the original Broadway cast recording. Miranda explained that it was "more of a scene than a song, the only scene in the [sung-through] show", and he wanted to reserve the impact of "at least one revelation" that could be experienced more fully onstage.[37]

Jump up ^ Previously titled "One Last Ride" in the Off-Broadway production.[38]

tag: ol

text: Recordings

text: Original Broadway cast album (2015)

text: The original Broadway cast recording for Hamilton was made available to listeners by NPR on September 21, 2015.[39] It was released by Atlantic Records digitally on September 25, 2015, and physical copies were released on October 16, 2015.[40] The cast album has also been released on vinyl.[41] The album debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, the highest entrance for a cast recording since 1963.[42] It went on to reach number 3 on the Billboard 200[43] and number 1 on the Billboard Rap albums chart.[44] The original cast recording has won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.[45]

text: The Hamilton Mixtape (2016)

text: The Hamilton Mixtape, a collection of remixes, covers, and samples of the musical's songs, was released on December 2, 2016. The Mixtape debuted in the number 1 spot on the Billboard 200.[46]

text: The Hamilton Instrumentals (2017) and Hamiltunes

text: The Hamilton Instrumentals, an instrumental edition of the original Broadway cast recording without the cast's vocals, was released on June 30, 2017.[47]

text: In conjunction with the release, the producers of Hamilton announced that they were officially authorizing free sing-along programs for fans, and offering organizers the Hamiltunes name and logo to promote the events.[47] A series of unauthorized Hamilton sing-alongs under that name, starting with Hamiltunes L.A. in early 2016, had already taken place in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington D.C., with spinoff events nationwide.[47][48][49]

text: Hamildrops (2017–2018)

text: Miranda announced a new series of 13 Hamilton-related recordings called Hamildrops, releasing once a month from December 2017 to December 2018. The first release, on December 15, 2017, was "Ben Franklin's Song" by The Decemberists, containing lyrics Miranda wrote during development of Hamilton for an unused song that was never set to music.  Miranda had long imagined Benjamin Franklin singing in a "Decemberist-y way", and ultimately sent the lyrics to Colin Meloy, who set them to music.[50][51] The second release, on January 25, 2018, was "Wrote My Way Out (Remix)", a remixed version of a song on The Hamilton Mixtape, featuring Royce Da 5'9", Joyner Lucas, Black Thought and Aloe Blacc.[52]

text: The third release, on March 2, 2018, was "The Hamilton Polka" by "Weird Al" Yankovic, a polka medley of some of the songs from the musical. A fan of Yankovic since childhood, Miranda became friends with him after they tried to develop a musical together. About the origin of the song, Yankovic said, "Lin pitched it to me as a polka medley way more hesitantly than [he] should have. He was like, 'Would you want to do a polka medley?' I was like, 'Of course I do!'" Since Yankovic was busy working on his new tour, he wouldn't be able to release the song on February, so he suggested calling March 2nd "February 30th". Miranda said it was "the most perfect 'Weird Al' creative problem solving possible."[53]

text: The fourth release, on March 19, 2018, was "Found/Tonight" by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt. A mash-up of the songs "You Will Be Found" from the stage musical Dear Evan Hansen and "The Story of Tonight", part of the proceeds were destinated to the initiative March for Our Lives, created after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Miranda said the song was his way "of helping to raise funds and awareness for [the efforts of the students in Parkland, Florida], and to say Thank You, and that we are with you so let's keep fighting, together." Platt added that he hoped the song could "play some small part in bringing about real change [in gun control laws]".[54]

text: The fifth release, on April 30, 2018, was "First Burn", featuring five actress who played Eliza Hamilton at productions of the musical: Arianna Afsar (original Chicago company), Julia Harriman (first national tour), Shoba Narayan (original second national tour company), Rachelle Ann Go (original West End company) and Lexi Lawson (Broadway). The song is the first draft written by Miranda of "Burn". Miranda described Eliza's portrayal in the first version of the song as "angrier" and "entirely reactive", while in the final version "she has agency", and explained that "it works as a song but not as a scene".[55]

text: The sixth release, on May 31, 2018, was a cover of "Helpless" by  The Regrettes.[56] Miranda credited Mike Elizondo, a producer who worked with the band, as having suggested the idea, which he immediately accepted.[57] The seventh release, on June 18, 2018, was "Boom Goes the Cannon..." by Mobb Deep. The song, which incorporates a sample of the musical's "Right Hand Man", was one of the last recorded by Havoc and Prodigy, before Prodigy's passing on June 2017. Havoc expressed that the release of the record was "a great way to pay homage to [Prodigy] and continue not only Mobb's legacy, but his as well." Miranda dedicated it to Queensbridge.[58]

text: Background

text:
External audio
 Lin-Manuel Miranda Talks 'Hamilton': Once A 'Ridiculous' Pitch, Now A Revolution, interview with Scott Simon, NPR, April 9, 2016

text: While on vacation from performing in his hit Broadway show In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda read a copy of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, a biography of Alexander Hamilton. After finishing the first few chapters, Miranda began to envision the life of Hamilton as a musical, and researched whether a stage musical of Hamilton's life had been created.  All he found was that a play of Hamilton's story had been done on Broadway in 1917, starring George Arliss as Alexander Hamilton.[60] (Arliss reprised the role in a 1931 feature film adaptation, Alexander Hamilton, but to date there is no record of Miranda having seen it.)

text: Miranda therefore began a project entitled The Hamilton Mixtape. On May 12, 2009, Miranda was invited to perform music from In the Heights at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music and the Spoken Word. Instead, he performed the first song from The Hamilton Mixtape, a rough version of what would later become "Alexander Hamilton", Hamilton's opening number. He spent a year after that working on "My Shot", another early number from the show.[61]

text: Miranda performed in a workshop production of the show, then titled The Hamilton Mixtape, at the Vassar Reading Festival on July 27, 2013.[62] The workshop production was directed by Thomas Kail and musically directed by Alex Lacamoire. The workshop consisted of the entirety of the first act of the show and three songs from the second act. The workshop was accompanied by Lacamoire on the piano.[61]

text: Of the original workshop cast, only three principal cast members played in the Off-Broadway production: Miranda, Daveed Diggs, and Christopher Jackson. Most of the original Off-Broadway cast moved to Broadway, except Brian d'Arcy James, who was replaced by Jonathan Groff as King George III.

text: Productions

text: Off-Broadway (2015)

text:
External video
 Interview with Ron Chernow (conducted by Harold Holzer) on the adaptation of his book into the play, February 25, 2016, C-SPAN

text: Directed by Thomas Kail and choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler, the musical received its world premiere Off-Broadway at The Public Theater, under the supervision of the Public's Artistic Director Oskar Eustis, with previews starting on January 20, 2015 and officially opening on February 17.[63][64] The production was extended twice, first to April 5 and then to May 3.[65] Chernow served as historical consultant to the production.[4][66] The show opened to universal acclaim according to review aggregator Did He Like It.[67]

text: Broadway (2015–present)

text: Hamilton premiered on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre (also home to Miranda's 2008 Broadway debut In the Heights) on July 13, 2015 in previews, and opened on August 6, 2015.[1] The production is produced by Jeffrey Seller and features scenic design by David Korins, costumes by Paul Tazewell, lighting by Howell Binkley and sound by Nevin Steinberg, who all reprised their roles from the off-Broadway production.[68]

text: The production was critically acclaimed by many theater analysts.[1][69][70]

text: Chicago (2016–present)

text: Hamilton opened at the CIBC Theatre in Chicago on October 19, 2016, following previews from September 27, 2016.[71] It is currently booking through January 20, 2019.[72] Near the beginning of its run, lead producer Jeffrey Seller said the show may be in residence for two years or more.[73] On its opening, attended by author Miranda, the Chicago production received strongly positive reviews.[74][75][76] Miranda praised the Chicago casts' performance during a later television interview.[77]

text: U.S. touring productions (2017–present)

text: Plans for a national tour of Hamilton emerged near the end of January 2016. The tour was initially announced with over 20 stops, scheduled from 2017 through at least 2020.[78] Tickets to the tour's run in San Francisco—its debut city—sold out within 24 hours of release; the number of people who entered the online waiting room to purchase tickets surpassed 110,000.[79] The first national touring production began preview performances at San Francisco's SHN Orpheum Theatre on March 10, 2017 and officially opened on March 23. The production ran in San Francisco until August 5, when it transferred to Los Angeles' Hollywood Pantages Theatre for a run from August 11 to December 30, 2017.

text: Just days after the first U.S. tour began performances in San Francisco, news emerged that a second U.S. tour of Hamilton would begin in Seattle for a six-week limited engagement before touring North America concurrently with the first tour.[11] To distinguish the first and second touring productions, the production team has labeled them, respectively, the "Angelica tour" and the "Philip tour".[78]

text: The second national tour began preview performances at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle on February 6, 2018 before officially opening on February 15, 2018.[80]

text: The Angelica tour alone requires 14 truckloads of cargo and a core group of over 60 traveling cast, crew, and musicians.[78] The production team insisted that each tour must be able to duplicate the original Broadway show's choreography, which literally revolves around two concentric turntables on the stage.[78] This led to the construction of four portable sets, two for each tour, so that one set can be assembled well in advance at the next stop while the tour is still playing at the last stop.[78]

text: West End (2017–present)

text: Cameron Mackintosh produced a London production which re-opened the Victoria Palace Theatre on December 21, 2017, following previews from December 6.[9] Initial principal casting was announced on January 26, 2017.[17] The London production received strongly positive reviews.[81]

text: Puerto Rico (2019)

text: It was announced on November 8, 2017 that Hamilton would play the University of Puerto Rico's Teatro UPR in San Juan, beginning in January 2019, with Lin-Manuel Miranda reprising his performance as Alexander Hamilton.[19] The Teatro UPR stage had suffered damage following Hurricane Maria in September and October 2017, and is set to undergo restorations and repairs prior to Hamilton's 2019 bow.

text: Box office and business

text: Opening and box office records

text: Hamilton's off-Broadway engagement at The Public Theater was sold out,[6] and when the musical opened on Broadway, it had a multimillion-dollar advance in ticket sales, reportedly taking in $30 million before its official opening.[82]

text: By September 2015, the show was sold out for most of its Broadway engagement.[83][84][85][86] It was the second-highest-grossing show on Broadway for the Labor Day week ending September 6, 2015 (behind only The Lion King).[7]

text: Hamilton set a Broadway box office record for the most money grossed in a single week in New York City in late November 2016, when it grossed $3.3 million for an eight performance week, becoming the first show to break $3 million in eight performances.[87]

text: Ticket lottery and Ham4Ham

text: Hamilton, like other Broadway musicals, offers a ticket lottery before every show. Initially, twenty-one front row seats (and occasional standing room tickets) were offered in each lottery. Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda began preparing and hosting outdoor mini-performances shortly before each daily drawing, allowing lottery participants to experience a part of the show even when they did not win tickets.[88] These were dubbed the "Ham4Ham" shows, because lottery winners were given the opportunity to purchase two tickets at the reduced price of one Hamilton ($10 bill) each.

text: The online theatrical journal HowlRound characterized Ham4Ham as an expression of Miranda's cultural background:

text: Ham4Ham follows a long tradition of Latina/o (or the ancestors of present-day Latina/os) theatremaking that dates back to when the events in Hamilton were happening.... The philosophy behind this is simple. If the people won't come to the theatre, then take the theatre to the people. While El Teatro Campesino's 'taking it to the streets' originated from a place of social protest, Ham4Ham does so to create accessibility, tap into social media, and ultimately generate a free, self-functioning marketing campaign. In this way, Ham4Ham falls into a lineage of accessibility as a Latina/o theatremaking aesthetic.[89]

text: As a result of the Ham4Ham shows, Hamilton's lottery process drew unusually large crowds of people that created a significant congestion problem for West 46th Street.[90] To avoid increasingly dangerous crowding and traffic conditions, an online ticket lottery began operating in early January 2016.[90] On the first day of the online lottery, more than 50,000 people entered, resulting in the website crashing.[91]

text: Following Miranda's departure from the show on July 9, 2016, Rory O'Malley, then playing King George III, took over as the host of Ham4Ham.[92] The Ham4Ham show officially ended on August 31, 2016, after over a year of performances.[93] The online lottery continued, with an official mobile app released in August 2017 that expanded the lottery by offering tickets for touring productions of Hamilton as well as the Broadway show.[94]

text: Critical response

text: Marilyn Stasio, in her review of the Off-Broadway production for Variety, wrote, "The music is exhilarating, but the lyrics are the big surprise. The sense as well as the sound of the sung dialogue has been purposely suited to each character. George Washington, a stately figure in Jackson's dignified performance, sings in polished prose... But in the end, Miranda's impassioned narrative of one man's story becomes the collective narrative of a nation, a nation built by immigrants who occasionally need to be reminded where they came from."[95]

text: In his review of the Off-Broadway production, Jesse Green in New York wrote, "The conflict between independence and interdependence is not just the show's subject but also its method: It brings the complexity of forming a union from disparate constituencies right to your ears.... Few are the theatergoers who will be familiar with all of Miranda's touchstones. I caught the verbal references to Rodgers and Hammerstein, Gilbert and Sullivan, Sondheim, West Side Story, and 1776, but other people had to point out to me the frequent hat-tips to hip-hop... Whether it's a watershed, a breakthrough, and a game changer, as some have been saying, is another matter. Miranda is too savvy (and loves his antecedents too much) to try to reinvent all the rules at once.... Those duels, by the way—there are three of them—are superbly handled, the highlights of a riveting if at times overbusy staging by the director Thomas Kail and the choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler."[96]

text: Although giving a positive review, Elisabeth Vincentelli, of the New York Post (which was founded by Hamilton himself), wrote that Hamilton and Burr's love/hate relationship "fails to drive the show—partly because Miranda lacks the charisma and intensity of the man he portrays", and that "too many of the numbers are exposition-heavy lessons, as if this were 'Schoolhouse Rap!' The show is burdened with eye-glazingly dull stretches, especially those involving George Washington."[97]

text: Reviewing the Broadway production in The New York Times, Ben Brantley wrote, "I am loath to tell people to mortgage their houses and lease their children to acquire tickets to a hit Broadway show. But Hamilton, directed by Thomas Kail and starring Mr. Miranda, might just about be worth it.... Washington, Jefferson, Madison—they're all here, making war and writing constitutions and debating points of economic structure. So are Aaron Burr and the Marquis de Lafayette. They wear the clothes (by Paul Tazewell) you might expect them to wear in a traditional costume drama, and the big stage they inhabit has been done up (by David Korins) to suggest a period-appropriate tavern, where incendiary youth might gather to drink, brawl and plot revolution."[1]

text: In Time Out New York, David Cote wrote, "I love Hamilton. I love it like I love New York, or Broadway when it gets it right. And this is so right... A sublime conjunction of radio-ready hip-hop (as well as R&B, Britpop and trad showstoppers), under-dramatized American history and Miranda's uniquely personal focus as a first-generation Puerto Rican and inexhaustible wordsmith, Hamilton hits multilevel culture buttons, hard... The work's human drama and novelistic density remain astonishing." Cote chose Hamilton as a Critics' Pick, and gave the production five out of five stars.[3]

text: In an issue of Journal of the Early Republic, Andrew Schocket wrote that while Hamilton makes bold choices to stray away from what he calls the "American Revolution Rebooted" genre,[98] it remains "forged in the mold of this genre, and despite its casting and hip-hop delivery, is more representative of it than we might think."[99] In the same issue, Marvin McAllister noted that the production's heavy hip-hop influence works so well because "Miranda elevates the form through this marriage with musical theater storytelling, and in the process, ennobles the culture and the creators."[100]

text: A review in The Economist summed up the response to Hamilton as "near-universal critical acclaim".[101] Barack Obama joked that admiration for the musical is "the only thing Dick Cheney and I agree on".[102]

text: Honors and awards

text: Original Off-Broadway production

text:
Year

Award

Category

Nominee

Result

2015

Lucille Lortel Awards[103]

Outstanding Musical

Won

Outstanding Director

Thomas Kail

Won

Outstanding Choreographer

Andy Blankenbuehler

Won

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Won

Leslie Odom, Jr.

Nominated

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical

Phillipa Soo

Won

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical

Daveed Diggs

Won

Brian d'Arcy James

Nominated

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical

Renée Elise Goldsberry

Won

Outstanding Costume Design

Paul Tazewell

Won

Outstanding Lighting Design

Howell Binkley

Won

Outstanding Sound Design

Nevin Steinberg

Won

Outer Critics Circle Awards[104]

Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical

Won

Outstanding Book of a Musical

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Won

Outstanding New Score

Won

Outstanding Director of a Musical

Thomas Kail

Nominated

Outstanding Choreographer

Andy Blankenbuehler

Nominated

Drama League Awards[105]

Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical

Nominated

Distinguished Performance

Daveed Diggs

Nominated

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Nominated

Drama Desk Awards[106]

Outstanding Musical

Won

Outstanding Actor in a Musical

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Nominated

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical

Leslie Odom, Jr.

Nominated

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical

Renée Elise Goldsberry

Won

Outstanding Director of a Musical

Thomas Kail

Won

Outstanding Music

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Won

Outstanding Lyrics

Won

Outstanding Book of a Musical

Won

Outstanding Orchestrations

Alex Lacamoire

Nominated

Outstanding Set Design

David Korins

Nominated

Outstanding Costume Design

Paul Tazewell

Nominated

Outstanding Lighting Design

Howell Binkley

Nominated

Outstanding Sound Design in a Musical

Nevin Steinberg

Won

Special Award ‡

Andy Blankenbuehler

Won

New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards[107]

Best Musical

Won

Off Broadway Alliance Awards[108]

Best New Musical

Won

Theatre World Awards[109]

Outstanding Debut Performance

Daveed Diggs

Won

Clarence Derwent Awards[110]

Most Promising Female Performer

Phillipa Soo

Won

Obie Awards[111]

Best New American Theatre Work

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, Andy Blankenbuehler, Alex Lacamoire

Won

Edgerton Foundation New American Play Awards[112]

Won

text: ‡ Blankenbuehler received a Special Drama Desk Award for "his inspired and heart-stopping choreography in Hamilton, which is indispensible [sic] to the musical's storytelling. His body of work is versatile, yet a dynamic and fluid style is consistently evident. When it's time to 'take his shot,' Blankenbuehler hits the bull's-eye."[106]

text: Original Broadway production

text:
Year

Award

Category

Nominee

Result

2016

Tony Awards[113]

Best Musical

Won

Best Book of a Musical

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Won

Best Original Score

Won

Best Actor in a Musical

Nominated

Leslie Odom, Jr.

Won

Best Actress in a Musical

Phillipa Soo

Nominated

Best Featured Actor in a Musical

Daveed Diggs

Won

Jonathan Groff

Nominated

Christopher Jackson

Nominated

Best Featured Actress in a Musical

Renée Elise Goldsberry

Won

Best Scenic Design of a Musical

David Korins

Nominated

Best Costume Design of a Musical

Paul Tazewell

Won

Best Lighting Design of a Musical

Howell Binkley

Won

Best Direction of a Musical

Thomas Kail

Won

Best Choreography

Andy Blankenbuehler

Won

Best Orchestrations

Alex Lacamoire

Won

Drama League Awards[114]

Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical

Won

Distinguished Performance

Daveed Diggs

Nominated

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Won

Pulitzer Prize

Drama

Won

Grammy Awards[45]

Best Musical Theater Album

Daveed Diggs, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jonathan Groff, Christopher Jackson, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom, Jr., Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos & Phillipa Soo (principal soloists); Alex Lacamoire, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bill Sherman, Ahmir Thompson & Tariq Trotter (producers); Lin-Manuel Miranda (composer & lyricist)

Won

Fred and Adele Astaire Awards[115]

Outstanding Ensemble in a Broadway Show

Nominated

Best Choreographer

Andy Blankenbuehler

Won

Best Male Dancer

Daveed Diggs

Nominated

NAACP Image Awards[116]

Outstanding Duo, Group or Collaboration

Original Broadway Cast

Nominated

Dramatists Guild of America Awards[117]

Frederick Loewe Award for Dramatic Composition

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Won

Edward M. Kennedy Prize[118]

Drama Inspired by American History

Won

Broadway.com Audience Awards

Favorite New Musical

Won

Favorite Leading Actor in a Musical

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Won

Leslie Odom Jr.

Nominated

Favorite Leading Actress in a Musical

Phillipa Soo

Won

Favorite Breakthrough Performance (female)

Won

Jasmine Cephas Jones

Nominated

Favorite Featured Actress in a Musical

Nominated

Renee Elise Goldsberry

Won

Favorite Featured Actor in a Musical

Daveed Diggs

Nominated

Christopher Jackson

Nominated

Anthony Ramos

Nominated

Jonathan Groff

Won

Favorite Diva Performance

Won

Favorite Funny Performance

Won

Daveed Diggs

Nominated

Favorite Breakthrough Performance

Won

Anthony Ramos

Nominated

Okieriete Onaodowan

Nominated

Favorite Onstage Pair

Lin-Manuel Miranda & Leslie Odom Jr.

Won

Lin-Manuel Miranda & Phillipa Soo

Nominated

Favorite Replacement (Male)

Andrew Rannells

Nominated

Rory O'Malley

Nominated

Favorite New Song

"Alexander Hamilton"

Nominated

"My Shot"

Nominated

"The Schuyler Sisters"

Nominated

"Satisfied"

Won

"The Room Where It Happens"

Nominated

2017

Kids' Choice Awards

Favorite Soundtrack

Nominated

Billboard Music Award[119]

Top Soundtrack/Cast Album

Won

2018

Kennedy Center Honors[120]

Lin Manuel-Miranda, Andy Blankenbuehler, Alex Lacamoire and Thomas Kail

Won

text: Original West End production

text:
Year

Award

Category

Nominee

Result

2018

Critics' Circle Theatre Award[121]

The Peter Hepple Award for Best Musical

Won

Laurence Olivier Awards[122]

Best New Musical

Won

Outstanding Achievement in Music

Alex Lacamoire and Lin-Manuel Miranda

Won

Best Actor in a Musical

Giles Terera

Won

Jamael Westman

Nominated

Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical

Michael Jibson

Won

Jason Pennycooke

Nominated

Cleve September

Nominated

Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical

Rachel John

Nominated

Best Costume Design

Paul Tazewell

Nominated

Best Lighting Design

Howell Binkley

Won

Best Sound Design

Nevin Steinberg

Won

Best Director

Thomas Kail

Nominated

Best Theatre Choreographer

Andy Blankenbuehler

Won

text: Accolades

text:
External video
 Presentation to Lin-Manuel Miranda of the Special Achievement Award from the board of the George Washington Book Prize, December 14, 2015, C-SPAN

text:
Publication

Accolade

Rank

Billboard

25 Best Albums of 2015[123]

2

Rolling Stone

50 Best Albums of 2015[124]

8

text: Concept

text: According to an article in The New Yorker, the show is "an achievement of historical and cultural reimagining". The costumes and set reflect the period, with "velvet frock coats and knee britches. The set ...is a wooden scaffold against exposed brick; the warm lighting suggests candlelight".[4] The musical is mostly sung and rapped all the way through, with little dialogue isolated outside of the musical score.[13][2][125]

text: Casting diversity

text: Miranda said that the portrayal of Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other white historical figures by black and Hispanic actors should not require any substantial suspension of disbelief by audience members. "Our cast looks like America looks now, and that's certainly intentional", he said. "It's a way of pulling you into the story and allowing you to leave whatever cultural baggage you have about the founding fathers at the door."[126] He noted "We're telling the story of old, dead white men but we're using actors of color, and that makes the story more immediate and more accessible to a contemporary audience."[127]

text:
The pro-immigration message of Hamilton is at the forefront, as the show revolves around the life of one of the Founding Fathers of America, Alexander Hamilton, and how he made his mark in American politics as an immigrant. Instead of being characterized as a white person, Alexander Hamilton's immigrant status would be referenced throughout the whole show, alongside with the virtue and prowess of Hamilton ("by working a lot harder, by being a lot smarter, by being a self-starter", described in the show's opening), in order to foster a positive image of immigrants.[128] Alongside this, the casting of Black, Latino, and Asian American leads allowed audiences to literally view America as a nation of immigrants, with the intention of showing how irrelevant the Founding Fathers' whiteness is to their claim on the country.[129]
"Hamilton is a story about America, and the most beautiful thing about it is... it's told by such a diverse cast with a such diverse styles of music," according to Renee Elise Goldberry, who played Angelica Schuyler. "We have the opportunity to reclaim a history that some of us don't necessarily think is our own."[130] Miranda has stated that he is "totally open" to women playing the Founding Fathers.[131] Casting for the British production is expected to feature predominantly black British artists.[132][133]

text: Historical accuracy

text: Chronology and events

text: Although Hamilton was based on historical events and people, Miranda did use some dramatic license in retelling the story. For example, while Angelica did have a strong relationship with Hamilton, it was exaggerated in the show. During "Satisfied", Angelica explains why Hamilton is not suitable for her despite wanting him. In particular, she states, "I'm a girl in a world in which my only job is to marry rich. My father has no sons so I'm the one who has to social climb for one." In actuality, Angelica had less pressure on her to do this. Philip Schuyler actually had fifteen children, including two sons who survived into adulthood (one of whom was New York State Assemblyman Philip Jeremiah Schuyler), and Angelica had eloped with John Barker Church three years before she met Hamilton at her sister's wedding, when she was already mother of two of her eight children with Church.[134] Miranda stated that he chose to do this because it is stronger dramatically if Angelica is available but cannot marry him.[135][136][137]

text: In addition, in Act I, Burr's role in Hamilton's life is overstated, and much of the early interactions between the two men in the show are fictionalized. For example, while Burr was present at the Battle of Monmouth, Burr did not serve as Charles Lee's second in his duel with John Laurens as seen in "Ten Duel Commandments"; Lee's second was Evan Edwards.[138] Hamilton also never approached Burr to help write The Federalist Papers as portrayed in "Non-Stop".[139]

text: During Act I, the character of Aaron Burr says that "...Martha Washington named her feral tomcat after him! [Hamilton]", to which Alexander Hamilton replies: "That's true!"[140] In fact, it is false. The idea of Hamilton as a serial adulterer has been one of the biggest mischaracterizations of the real Alexander Hamilton for centuries, with celebrated authors repeating the story over and over again, notwithstanding that the sexual connotation of tomcat as a womanizer did not appear in dictionaries until the first half of the 20th century. The "tomcat" story has been previously discredited by author Stephen Knott,[141] and refuted by historian and author Michael E. Newton at the "Alexander Hamilton Discoveries and Findings" talk held by the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society at Liberty Hall (Kean University) as part of the 2016 CelebrateHAMILTON events.[142][143]

text: In Act II, there are multiple inaccuracies throughout Hamilton's decline, probably due to time constraints and narrative arc. While it is true that John Adams and Hamilton did not particularly get along, John Adams did not fire Hamilton as told in the show. Hamilton tendered his resignation from his position as Secretary of the Treasury on December 1, 1794,[144] two years before Adams became president. However, Hamilton remained close friends with Washington and highly influential in the political sphere.[145] Additionally, Jefferson, Madison and Burr did not approach Hamilton about his affair; it was actually James Monroe, Frederick Muhlenberg and Abraham Venable in December 1792.[146] Monroe was a close friend of Jefferson's and shared the information of Hamilton's affair with him. In the Summer of 1797, journalist James T. Callender broke the story of Hamilton's infidelity. Hamilton blamed Monroe, and the altercation nearly ended in a duel.[147] With nothing left to do, Hamilton then published The Reynolds Pamphlet.[148]

text: In "Take a Break", Philip Hamilton, at age 9, claims, "I have a sister, but I want a little brother". Philip already had two younger brothers at the time: Alexander Hamilton Jr. and James Alexander Hamilton. On the same song, Angelica sends a letter to Hamilton, revealing she would come back to America from Europe for the summer. She didn't send such a letter, and remained in her home.

text: In "Blow Us All Away", George Eacker and Philip engage in a duel, before the events of the 1800 presidential election. The duel actually occurred in 1801, with Philip Hamilton dying on November 24. In the song, Eacker fires on Philip at the count of seven, while what happened in real-life was quite the opposite; both men refused to fire for over a minute before Eacker shot Philip in the hips.[149]

text: Lastly, it was not the presidential election of 1800 that led to Burr and Hamilton's duel. Burr did become Jefferson's vice-president, but when Jefferson decided to not run with Burr for reelection in 1804, Burr opted to run for Governor of New York instead. Burr lost to Morgan Lewis in a landslide. Afterwards, a letter was published in The Albany Register from Charles D. Cooper to Philip Schuyler, claiming that Hamilton called Burr "a dangerous man, and one who ought not be trusted with the reins of government", and that he knew of "a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr".[150] This led to the letters between Burr and Hamilton as seen in the show in "Your Obedient Servant".

text: Critical analysis and scholarship

text: The show has been critiqued for a simplistic depiction of Hamilton and vilification of Jefferson. Joanne B. Freeman, a history professor at Yale,[151] contrasted the show's Hamilton to the "real Hamilton [who] was a mass of contradictions: an immigrant who sometimes distrusted immigrants, a revolutionary who placed a supreme value on law and order, a man who distrusted the rumblings of the masses yet preached his politics to them more frequently and passionately than many of his more democracy-friendly fellows".[152]

text: Australian historian Shane White found the framing of the show's story "troubling", stating that he and many historian colleagues "would like to imagine that Hamilton is a last convulsion of the founding father mythology".[153] According to White, Miranda's depiction of the founding of the United States "infuses new life into an older view of American history" that centered on the Founding Fathers, instead of joining the many historians who were "attempting to get away from the Great Men story" by incorporating "ordinary people, African-Americans, Native Americans and women" into a "more inclusive and nuanced" historical narrative in which Hamilton has a "cameo rather than leading role".[153]

text: Rutgers University professor Lyra Monteiro criticized the show's multi-ethnic casting as obscuring a complete lack of identifiable enslaved or free persons of color as characters in the show.[154] Monteiro identified other commentators, such as Ishmael Reed, who criticized the show for making Hamilton and other historical personages appear more progressive on racial injustice than they really were.[154] According to Reed, "[Hamilton's] reputation has been shored up as an abolitionist and someone who was opposed to slavery," which Reed stated was untrue.[155]

text: In The Baffler, policy analyst Matt Stoller criticized the musical's portrayal of Hamilton as an idealist committed to democratic principles, in contrast to what he characterized as the historical record of Hamilton's reactionary, anti-democratic politics and legacy.[156] For example, Stoller cited Hamilton as a leader involved in the Newburgh conspiracy (a military coup plot against the Continental Congress in 1783); his development of a national financial system which, in Stoller's view, empowered the plutocratic elite; and his use of military force, indefinite detention, and mass arrests against dissenters during the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791.[156] In 2007, history writer William Hogeland criticized Chernow's biography of Hamilton on similar grounds in the Boston Review.[157]

text: In 2018, Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America's Past was published.  Fifteen historians of early America authored essays on ways the musical both engages with, and sometimes misinterprets history.[158]

text: Use in education

text: KQED News wrote of a "growing number of intrepid U.S. history teachers...who are harnessing the Hamilton phenomenon to inspire their students".[159] The Cabinet rap battles provide a way to engage students with topics that have traditionally been considered uninteresting.[159] An elective course for 11th and 12th graders on the musical Hamilton was held at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York.[159] KQED News added that "Hamilton is especially galvanizing for the student who believes that stories about 18th century America are distant and irrelevant" as it shows the Founding Fathers were real humans with real feeling and real flaws, rather than "bloodless, two-dimensional cutouts who devoted their lives to abstract principles".[159] A high school teacher from the Bronx noted his students were "singing these songs the way they might sing the latest release from Drake or Adele".[160] One teacher focused on Hamilton's ability to write his way out of trouble and toward a higher plane of existence: "skilled writing is the clearest sign of scholarship—and the best way to rise up and alter your circumstance."[161]

text: Hamilton's producers have made a pledge to allow 20,000 New York City public high school students from low-income families to get subsidized tickets to see Hamilton on Broadway by reducing their tickets to $70 for students, and the Rockefeller Foundation provided $1.5 million to further lower ticket prices to $10 per student.[162][163] The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History created a study guide to accompany the student-ticket program.[162][163]

text: Through a private grant, over the course of the 2017 school year nearly 20,000 Chicago Public School students got to see a special performance of the show, and some got to perform original songs on stage prior to the show.[164]

text: The website EducationWorld writes that Hamilton is "being praised for its revitalization of interest in civic education".[165] Northwestern University announced plans to offer course work in 2017 inspired by Hamilton, in history, Latino studies, and interdisciplinary studies.[166]

text: In 2016, Moraine Valley Community College started a Hamilton appreciation movement, Straight Outta Hamilton, hosting panels and events that talk about the musical itself and relate them to current events.[167][168]

text: Legacy and impact

text: $10 bill

text: In 2015, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced a redesign to the $10 bill, with plans to replace Hamilton with a then-undecided woman from American history. Because of Hamilton's surging popularity, almost exclusively due to the musical, United States Treasury Secretary Jack Lew reversed the plans to replace Hamilton's portrait, instead deciding to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.[169]

text: Hamilton: The Revolution

text:
External video
 Presentation by Jeremy McCarter on Hamilton: The Revolution, June 11, 2016, C-SPAN

text: On April 12, 2016, Miranda and Jeremy McCarter's book, Hamilton: The Revolution, was released, detailing Hamilton's journey from an idea to a successful Broadway musical. It includes an inside look at not only Alexander Hamilton's revolution, but the cultural revolution that permeates the show. It also has footnotes from Miranda and stories from behind the scenes of the show.[170]

text: Hamilton's America

text: After premiering on the New York Film Festival on October 1, 2016, PBS' Great Performances exhibited on October 21, 2016 the documentary Hamilton's America. Directed by Alex Horwitz, it "delves even deeper into the creation of the show, revealing Miranda's process of absorbing and then adapting Hamilton's epic story into groundbreaking musical theater. Further fleshing out the story is newly shot footage of the New York production with its original cast, trips to historic locations such as Mt. Vernon and Valley Forge with Miranda and other cast members, and a surprising range of interviews with prominent personalities, experts, politicians, and musicians."[171] The film featured interviews with American historians and Hamilton authorities.[172]

text: Hamilton: The Exhibition

text: Hamilton: The Exhibition is a planned traveling interactive museum, which will focus on the history concerning the life of Alexander Hamilton and also the musical.[173] It is to debut in Chicago in November 2018.[174]

text: 2016 Vice President–elect Pence controversy

text: Following a performance on November 18, 2016, with Vice President-elect Mike Pence in the audience, Brandon Victor Dixon addressed Pence from the stage with a statement jointly written by the cast, show creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and producer Jeffrey Seller.[175] Dixon began by quieting the audience, and stated:

text: Vice President-elect Pence, we welcome you and we truly thank you for joining us here at Hamilton: An American Musical, we really do. We, sir,—we—are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us. All of us. Again, we truly thank you truly for seeing this show, this wonderful American story told by a diverse group of men and women of different colors, creeds and orientations.[175]

text: Pence listened to the expression of concern about President-elect Donald Trump's upcoming administration and later expressed that he was not offended.[176] However, Trump demanded an apology[177] for what he described, on Twitter, as the cast having "harassed" Pence.[178] This led to an online campaign called "#BoycottHamilton", which became widely mocked as the show was already sold-out months in advance.[179] Trump was criticized by The Washington Post, who noted the division between white and non-white America in the 2016 Presidential election and suggested Trump could have offered "assurances that he would be a president for all Americans—that he would respect everybody regardless of race or gender or creed";[180] instead, as Presidential historian Robert Dallek expressed, Trump's Twitter response was a "striking act of divisiveness by an incoming president struggling to heal the nation after a bitter election",[180] with the Hamilton cast a proxy for those fearful of Trump's policies and rhetoric. Jeffrey Seller, the show's lead producer, said that while Trump has not seen Hamilton or inquired about tickets, he is "welcome to attend".[181]

text: Parodies

text: In April 2016, Jeb! The Musical appeared on the Internet with Jeb Bush in the place of Alexander Hamilton,[182][183] with political figures like Donald Trump and Chris Christie holding supporting roles.[184] A staged reading, given "just as much preparation as Jeb's campaign", was staged at Northwestern University in June of that year.[185] The parody was crowdsourced, with contributions coming from a range of writers. A number of writers were drawn from Yale University, Boston University, McGill University and the University of Michigan. These writers met in a Facebook group named "Post Aesthetics".[186]

text: In 2016, Gerard Alessandrini, creator of Forbidden Broadway, wrote the revue Spamilton, which premiered at the Triad Theater in New York and also played at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago. It parodies Hamilton and other Broadway shows and caricatures various Broadway stars.[187][188]

text: On October 12, 2016, the American sitcom Modern Family released the episode "Weathering Heights". The episode features a scene where Manny applies for college. To do so he records a parody of "Alexander Hamilton" as part of his application, complete with rewritten lyrics to accompany to his own life. It is revealed that most of the other applications are also Hamilton parodies.[189]

text: Live stage filming

text: On July 24, 2018, it was learned that a filmed version of a 2016 stage performance with the original cast was being bid on by major movie studios.[190]

text: Film adaptation

text: On February 10, 2017, Miranda told that In the Heights playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes wrote a script for a film adaptation, but reassured that, while a film would be made someday, it would not happen for years.[191]


document_title: Christmas controversies

question_text: when was christmas banned in the united states

root

text: Christmas controversies

text: History[edit]

text: Pre-Christian influence[edit]

text: There is controversy concerning the date of December 25 as the birthday of Jesus. Many customs from these holidays, particularly from the pagan Scandinavian and Germanic celebration of Yule in northern Europe, are transparently present in later Christmas customs, suggesting that the date was appropriated directly from pagan customs and given a Christian veneer rather than being the true birthday of Jesus.[citation needed]

tag: p

text: The pagan Scandinavian and Germanic people of northern Europe had a celebration called Yule (also called Jul, Julblot, jólablót, midvinterblot, julofferfest) that occurred near the winter solstice. Some folklorists assert that many modern Christmas traditions, such as the Christmas tree, the Christmas wreath, the Yule log, and others, may be descended from Yule customs. Scandinavians still call Yule "Jul". In English, the word "Yule" is often used in combination with the season "yuletide" [21] a usage first recorded in 900. It is believed that the celebration of this day was a worship of these peculiar days, interpreted as the reawakening of nature. The Yule (Jul) particular God was Jólner, which is one of Odin's many names.

text: The concept of Yule (Jul) occurs in a tribute poem to Harold Hårfager from about AD 900, where someone said "drinking Jul". Julblot is the most solemn sacrifice feast. At the julblotet, sacrifices were given to the gods to earn blessing on the forthcoming germinating crops. Julblotet was eventually integrated into the Christian Christmas. As a remainder from this Viking era, the Midsummer is still important in Scandinavia, and hence vividly celebrated.

text: Sol Invictus ("The Unconquered Sun") was originally a Syrian god who was later adopted as the chief god of the Roman Empire under Emperor Aurelian. His holiday is traditionally celebrated on 25 December, as are several gods associated with the winter solstice in many pagan traditions.[22]

text: Puritan era[edit]

text: The first documented Christmas controversy was Christian-led, and began during the English Interregnum, when England was ruled by a Puritan Parliament.[23] Puritans sought to remove elements they viewed as pagan (because they were not biblical in origin) from Christianity (see Pre-Christianity above). In 1647, the Puritan-led English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas, replacing it with a day of fasting and considering it "a popish festival with no biblical justification", and a time of wasteful and immoral behavior.[24] Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans.[25] The book The Vindication of Christmas (London, 1652) argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with "plow-boys" and "maidservants", old Father Christmas and carol singing.[26] The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 ended the ban. Poor Robin's Almanack contained the lines: "Now thanks to God for Charles return, / Whose absence made old Christmas mourn. / For then we scarcely did it know, / Whether it Christmas were or no."[27] Many clergymen still disapproved of Christmas celebration. In Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland also discouraged observance of Christmas. James VI commanded its celebration in 1618, but attendance at church was scant.[28]

text: In Colonial America, the Pilgrims of New England disapproved of Christmas.[29] The Plymouth Pilgrims put their loathing for the day into practice in 1620 when they spent their first Christmas Day in the New World building their first structure in the New World – thus demonstrating their complete contempt for the day.[29] Non-Puritans in New England deplored the loss of the holidays enjoyed by the laboring classes in England.[30] Christmas observance was outlawed in Boston in 1659.[31][32][33] The ban by the Puritans was revoked in 1681 by an English appointed governor, Edmund Andros, however it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.[34] By the Declaration of Independence in 1776, it was not widely celebrated in the US.[32]

text: Protestantism[edit]

text: Prior to the Victorian era, Christmas in the United States was primarily a religious holiday observed by Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Lutherans. Its importance was often considered secondary to that of Epiphany and Easter.

text: As was the case with other Christian holidays, Christmas borrowed elements from pagan peoples, including yule logs and decorations such as candles, holly, and mistletoe. Christmas trees were seen as pagan in origin. During the various Protestant reformations, these paganizing elements were a source of controversy. Some sects, such as the Puritans, rejected Christmas as an entirely pagan holiday. Others rejected certain aspects of Christmas as paganizing, but wanted to retain the "essence" of the holiday as a celebration of the Christ's birth. This tension put in motion an ongoing debate within some Protestant denominations about the proper observance of Christmas.[35]

text: 19th century[edit]

text: According to historian Ronald Hutton, the current state of observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid-Victorian revival of the holiday, spearheaded by Charles Dickens. In A Christmas Carol, Hutton argues, Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity, in contrast to the community-based and church-centered observations, the observance of which had dwindled during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.[36]

text: Historian Stephen Nissenbaum contends that the modern celebration in the United States was developed in New York State from defunct and imagined Dutch and English traditions in order to refocus the holiday from one where groups of young men went from house to house demanding alcohol and food into one centered on the happiness of children. He notes that there was a deliberate effort to prevent children from becoming greedy in response.[35] Christmas was not proclaimed a holiday by the United States Congress until 1870.[32]

text: 20th century[edit]

text: In the early 20th century, Christian writers such as C. S. Lewis had already noted what he saw as a distinct split between the religious and secular observance of Christmas. In Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus, Lewis gives a satire of the observance of two simultaneous holidays in "Niatirb" ("Britain" spelled backwards) from the supposed view of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (484–425 BC). One of the holidays, "Exmas", is observed by a flurry of compulsory commercial activity and expensive indulgence in alcoholic beverages. The other, "Crissmas", is observed in Niatirb's temples. Lewis's narrator asks a priest why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas. He receives the reply:

text: "It is not lawful, O Stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left." And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, "It is, O Stranger, a racket. . ."[37]

text: The December 1957 News and Views published by the Church League of America, a conservative organization co-founded in 1937 by George Washington Robnett,[38] attacked the use of Xmas in an article titled "X=The Unknown Quantity". The claims were picked up later by Gerald L. K. Smith, who in December 1966 claimed that Xmas was a "blasphemous omission of the name of Christ" and that "'X' is referred to as being symbolical of the unknown quantity." Smith further argued that Jews introduced Santa Claus to suppress the New Testament accounts of Jesus, and that the United Nations, at the behest of "world Jewry", had "outlawed the name of Christ".[39] There is, however, a well documented history of use of Χ (actually a chi) as an abbreviation for "Christ" (Χριστός) and possibly also a symbol of the cross.[40][41] The abbreviation appears on many Orthodox Christian religious icons.

text: The Soviet Union (until 1936), and certain other Communist regimes, banned overtly religious Christmas observances. Most customs traditionally associated with Christmas, such as decorated trees, presents, and Ded Moroz (Father Frost), were later reinstated in Soviet society, but tied to New Year's Day instead; this tradition remains as of the present day.[42] It should, however, be noted that most Russian Christians are of the Orthodox community, whose religious festivals (Christmas, Easter etc.) do not necessarily coincide precisely with those of the main western Christian churches (Catholic or Protestant), because of continued connection of the church calendar to the Julian calendar.

text: Present-day controversy[edit]

text: History[edit]

text: The expression "the War on Christmas" has been used in the media to denote Christmas-related controversies.[43] The term gained notability due in part to its use by conservative commentators such as Peter Brimelow and Bill O'Reilly beginning in the early 2000s.[44][45][46]

text: The claim of Brimelow, O'Reilly and others was that any specific mention of the term "Christmas" or its religious aspects was being increasingly censored, avoided, or discouraged by a number of advertisers, retailers, government (prominently schools), and other public and secular organizations. In the United States and Canada, where the use of the term "Holidays" is most prevalent, opponents have denounced its usage and avoidance of using the term "Christmas" as being politically correct.[13][14][19]

text: Jeff Schweitzer, a commentator for The Huffington Post, addressed the position of commentators such as O'Reilly, stating that "There is no war on Christmas; the idea is absurd at every level. Those who object to being forced to celebrate another's religion are drowning in Christmas in a sea of Christianity dominating all aspects of social life. An 80 percent majority can claim victimhood only with an extraordinary flight from reality."[47]

text: Heather Long, an American columnist for The Guardian, addressed the "politically correct" question in America over use of the term "holidays", writing, "people who are clearly celebrating Christmas in their homes tend to be conflicted about what to say in the workplace or at school. No one wants to offend anyone or make assumptions about people's religious beliefs, especially at work."[13]

text: Government-related controversies[edit]

text: United States[edit]

text: Christmas Day is recognized as an official federal holiday by the United States government.[48] The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State argue that government-funded displays of Christmas imagery and traditions violate the U.S. Constitution—specifically the First Amendment, which prohibits the establishment by Congress of a national religion. The debate over whether religious displays should be placed within public schools, courthouses, and other government buildings has been heated in recent years.[49]

text: Supreme Court rulings, starting with Lynch v. Donnelly in 1984, have permitted religious themes in government-funded Christmas displays that had "legitimate secular purposes". Since these rulings have been splintered and have left governments uncertain of their limits, many such displays have included secular elements such as reindeer, snowmen and elves along with the religious elements.[50] Other recent court cases have brought up additional issues such as the inclusion of Christmas carols in public school performances, but none of these cases have reached the Supreme Court of the United States.

text: A controversy regarding these issues arose in 2002, when the New York City public school system banned the display of Nativity scenes but allowed the display of less overtly religious symbols such as Christmas trees, Hanukkah menorahs, and the Muslim star and crescent.[51] The school system successfully defended its policy in Skoros v. City of New York (2006).[52]

text: Canada[edit]

text: In 2007, a controversy arose[11] when a public school in Ottawa, Ontario, planned to have the children in its primary choir sing a version of the song "Silver Bells" with the word "Christmas" replaced by "festive"; the concert also included the songs "Candles of Christmas" and "It's Christmas" with the original lyrics. In 2011, in Embrun, Ontario, near Ottawa, some parents were displeased when a school replaced the Christmas concert it had held in previous years with a craft sale and winter concert scheduled for February.[53]

text: United Kingdom[edit]

text: In the United Kingdom there have been some controversies, one of the most famous being the temporary promotion of the phrase Winterval for a whole season of events (including Christmas festivities) by Birmingham City Council in the late 1990s. This remains a controversial example of "Christmas controversy", with critics attacking the use of the word "Winterval" as being political correctness gone mad, accusing council officials of trying to take the Christ out of Christmas.[54] The council responded to the criticism by stating that Christmas-related words and symbols were prominent in its publicity material: "...there was a banner saying Merry Christmas across the front of the council house, Christmas lights, Christmas trees in the main civil squares, regular carol-singing sessions by school choirs, and the Lord Mayor sent a Christmas card with a traditional Christmas scene wishing everyone a Merry Christmas"...[55]

text: In November 2009 the city council of Dundee was accused of banning Christmas because it promoted its celebrations as the Winter Night Light festival, initially with no specific references to Christianity. Local church leaders were invited to participate in the event, and they did.[56]

text: Due to the changing religious landscape of the UK, Christmas cards featuring religious imagery, such as the Nativity scene or the Virgin and Child, have become less common in major retailers. However, they are still readily available from smaller shops, or those linked to church groups and charities. The Church of England complained in 2004 when religious images were removed from the annual tradition of special postage stamps around Christmas.[57]

text: South Africa[edit]

text: The Christian holidays of Christmas Day and Good Friday remained in secular post-apartheid South Africa's calendar of public holidays. The Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission), a chapter nine institution established in 2004, held countrywide consultative public hearings in June and July 2012 to assess the need for a review of public holidays following the receipt of complaints from minority groups about unfair discrimination. The CRL Rights Commission stated that they would submit their recommendations to the Department of Home Affairs, the Department of Labour, various Portfolio Committees and the Office of the Presidency by October 2012.[58][59][60] The CRL Rights Commission published its recommendations on 17 April 2013, including the scrapping of some existing public holidays to free up days for some non-Christian religious public holidays.[61][62]

text: Norway[edit]

text: The common practice of schoolchildren visiting local churches for Christmas masses in December is opposed by the Norwegian Humanist Association, the Children's Ombudsman and by the Union of Education.[63] There have been several local controversies over the issue. The political parties have mostly been in favor of this being decided by the schools themselves, but the government has underlined that schools who participate in Christmas masses must offer an alternative for pupils who don’t want to attend and that masses must not take place on the day that marks the closing of schools before the Christmas holiday. The Solberg's Cabinet says in its government declaration that it looks positively upon schools taking part in masses in churches before religious holidays.[64]

text: According to a 2013 poll by Norstat for Vårt Land, 68% of Norwegians support having school-arranged Christmas masses while 14% are opposed. 17% do not hold any opinion on the issue.[63]

text: Sweden[edit]

text: A school law in 2011, which explicitly stated that public schools should be non-confessional, led to debate over what this meant for the tradition that schools gather in churches in December to celebrate Advent, Lucia or Christmas. 80,000 Swedes signed a 2012 protest letter (Adventsuppropet) initiated by the newspaper Dagen to Minister for Education Jan Björklund, in which they demanded that school visits to churches should still be allowed to include religious rituals.[65] The minister clarified that church visits before Christmas might include singing of Christmas hymns and a priest talking about the Christmas gospel while on the other side common prayers and reading a Confession of Faith would violate the law.[66]

text: In 2012, Sveriges Radio reported that about one in six schools had changed the way they mark Christmas traditions as a result of the new law.[67]

text: Christmas tree controversies[edit]

text: Since the 1980s,[68] there have been several instances in both the United States and Canada when official public mentions and references to Christmas trees were renamed to "holiday trees". Reaction to such renamings has been mixed.

text: One of the most prominent Christmas tree controversies came in 2005, when the city of Boston labeled their official decorated tree as a holiday tree, and the subsequent response from the Nova Scotian tree farmer who donated the tree was that he would rather have put the tree in a wood chipper than have it named a "holiday" tree.[9]

text: In 2009 in West Jerusalem, the Lobby for Jewish Values, with support of the Jerusalem Rabbinate, handed out fliers condemning Christmas and called for a boycott of "restaurants and hotels that sell or put up Christmas trees and other 'foolish' Christian symbols".[69]

text: The Brussels Christmas tree in the Belgian capital sparked controversy in December 2012, as it was part of renaming the Christmas Market as "Winter Pleasures".[70] Local opposition saw it as appeasement of the Muslim minority in the city.[71]

text: Reclamation of the term "Christmas tree"[edit]

text: Efforts have also been made to rename official public holiday trees back to Christmas trees. In 2002, a bill was introduced in the California Senate to rename the State Holiday Tree the California State Christmas Tree;[72] while this measure did not pass, at the official lighting of the tree on 4 December 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger referred to the tree as a Christmas tree in his remarks and in the press release his office issued after the ceremony.[73] Schwarzenegger had previously ended the secular practice of calling it a "holiday tree" in 2004 during the 73rd annual lighting. The name change was in honor of the late Senator William "Pete" Knight. Schwarzenegger said at Knight's funeral that he would change the name back to Christmas tree. Knight had lobbied unsuccessfully to change the name after Governor Davis decided to call it a holiday tree.[74]

text: The Michigan Senate had a debate in 2005 over whether the decorated tree in front of the Michigan Capitol would continue to be called a holiday tree (as it had been since the early 1990s) or named a Christmas tree. The question was revisited in 2006, when the bipartisan Michigan Capitol Committee voted unanimously to use the term Christmas tree.[75] And in 2007, Wisconsin lawmakers considered whether to rename the tree in the Wisconsin Capitol rotunda, a holiday tree since 1985, the Wisconsin State Christmas Tree.[76]

text: Retailer controversies[edit]

text: Since at least 2005, religious conservative groups and media in the United States, such as the American Family Association (AFA) and Liberty Counsel, have called for boycotts of various prominent secular organizations, particularly retail giants, demanding that they use the term "Christmas" rather, than solely "holiday" in their print, TV, online, and in-store marketing and advertising. This was also seen by some as containing a hidden anti-Jewish message. All of the major retailers named denied the charges.[77][78]

text:
The Sears Holdings Corporation (which owns Sears and Kmart) altered their marketing policies from using the term "holiday" to using the term "Christmas". The change of policy included the distribution of "Merry Christmas" signs to stores nationwide, and the changing of the term "holiday" to "Christmas" on their website and in stores.[79][80]
In 2005, Walmart was criticized by the Catholic League for avoiding the word "Christmas" in any of their marketing efforts.[10] The company had downplayed the term "Christmas" in much of its advertising for several years.[81] This caused some backlash among the public, prompting some groups to pass around petitions and threaten boycotts against the company, as well as several other prominent retailers that practiced similar obscurations of the holiday.[10] In 2006, in response to the public outcry, Wal-Mart announced that they were amending their policy and would be using "Christmas" rather than "holiday". Among the changes, they noted that the former "Holiday Shop" would become the "Christmas Shop", and that there would be a "countin' down the days to Christmas" feature.[10]
In 2005, Target Corporation was criticized by the American Family Association for their decision not to use the term "Christmas" in any of their in-store, online, or print advertising.[82] The AFA initiated a nationwide boycott of the Target Corporation, resulting in over 700,000 petition signatures. Within a week of initiating the boycott, the AFA received an official letter from Target which indicated that they would begin incorporating the term "Christmas" in their advertising: "Over the course of the next few weeks, our advertising, marketing and merchandising will become more specific to the holiday that is approaching—referring directly to holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah. For example, you will see reference to Christmas in select television commercials, circulars and in-store signage." [83]
When it was revealed in November 2006 that Wal-Mart would be using the term "Christmas" in their advertising campaign, an article about the issue initiated by USA Today pointed out that Best Buy Corporation would be among the retailers that would not be using "Christmas" at all in their advertising that year. Dawn Bryant, a Best Buy spokeswoman, stated: "We are going to continue to use the term holiday because there are several holidays throughout that time period, and we certainly need to be respectful of all of them."[84][85] The AFA launched a campaign against Best Buy's policy.[86] In reaction to the same policy, the Catholic League placed Best Buy on its 2006 Christmas Watch List.[87]
In 2005, despite other promotional material using the term "Christmas trees", an Austin, Texas location of the U.S. hardware retailer Lowe's used the term "Holiday tree" on a bilingual banner advertising its Christmas trees. However, the Spanish text underneath it inconsistently used the term "árboles de Navidad", which translates to "Christmas trees". Following complaints by the AFA, the company stated that it would remove the offending banners, and that "to ensure consistency of our message and to avoid confusion among our customers, we are now referring to the trees only as 'Christmas Trees.'" In 2007, the AFA complained that the chain's holiday catalog contained references to the term "Family trees" instead of "Christmas trees", despite all other promotional material using the term "Christmas tree". Lowe's admitted that the usage of "Family trees" was a proofreading error that had not been caught before the catalog was published.[88][89]
In late October 2008, U.S. hardware retailer The Home Depot was criticized by the AFA for using terms such as "holiday" and "Hanukkah" on their website, but avoiding the term "Christmas".[90] The retailer responded by saying they will be adjusting their website to make references to Christmas more prominent.[91] It was later claimed by Snopes.com that the AFA's characterization of Home Depot's advertising was false, as the retailer's advertising had initially included several references to the word "Christmas".[92]
On 11 November 2009, the AFA called for a "limited two-month boycott" of Gap, Inc over what they claimed was the "company's censorship of the word 'Christmas.'"[93] In an advertising campaign launched by Gap on 12 November, the term "Christmas" was both spoken and printed on their website at least once, and a television ad entitled "Go Ho Ho" featured lyrics such as "Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanzaa, Go Solstice" and "whatever holiday you Wanna-kah".[94] On 17 November, AFA responded to this campaign by condemning the ads for references to the "pagan holiday" of solstice, and declined to call off the boycott.[95] On 24 November, the AFA ended the boycott, after learning from Gap's corporate vice president of communications that the company planned to launch a new commercial with a "very strong Christmas theme".[96]

tag: ul

text:
On 24 November 2010, the branch manager of Chase Bank in Southlake, Texas told Antonio Morales that a Christmas tree he had donated to the branch had to be taken down per JPMorgan Chase's policy to use only decorations supplied by the company. Bank spokesperson Greg Hassell stated that the company-provided decorations are designed to be "something everyone is comfortable with, regardless of how they celebrate the season."[97]
Also in 2010, Wachovia Bank was briefly rumored to have banned Christmas trees from its local branches in favor of poinsettias. In response to complaints, the company affirmed that Christmas trees were permitted to be displayed and decorated by branch employees.[98]
In November 2010, the word "Christmas" on two signs at Philadelphia's Christmas Village was removed by the organizers after complaints, but restored three days later after the mayor intervened.[99]
According to NetEase, on the Christmas Day of 2014, a "Boycotting Christmas" campaign launched in downtown Changsha, Hunan Province, China.[100] Also in 2014, Northwest University closed the campus completely on the Christmas Eve, and all of the requests for leave were rejected by the school officials.
In November 2015, the coffee shop chain Starbucks introduced Christmas-themed cups colored in solid red and containing no ornamentation besides the Starbucks logo, contrasting previous designs which featured winter-related imagery, and non-religious Christmas symbols such as reindeer and ornaments. On 5 November, a video was posted on Facebook by evangelist and self-proclaimed "social media personality" Joshua Feuerstein, in which he accused Starbucks of "hating Jesus" by removing Christmas-oriented imagery from the cup, followed by him "tricking" a barista into writing "Merry Christmas" on the cup, and encouraging others to do the same. The video became a viral video, spurring discussions and commentary: businessman and Republican 2016 president-elect Donald Trump supported Feuerstein's claim by suggesting a boycott of Starbucks, stating that "If I become president, we're all going to be saying 'Merry Christmas' again." Many social media users, including other Christians, perceived the criticism to be an overreaction.[101][102][103]

text: Religious controversies[edit]

text: Christian churches, organizations and communities that reject the observance of Christmas for theological reasons include Jehovah's Witnesses; some adherents of Messianic Judaism; most Sabbatarian denominations, such as the True Jesus Church and the Church of God (7th-Day); the Iglesia ni Cristo; the Christian Congregation in Brazil; the Christian Congregation in the United States; and certain reformed and fundamentalist churches of various persuasions, including some Independent Baptist,[104] Holiness, Apostolic Pentecostal,[105] and Churches of Christ congregations.[106][107][108][109][110][111]

text: The celebration of Christmas has occasionally been criticized in countries which are predominantly Muslim.[citation needed] Turkey, whose population is 99.8 percent Muslim, has adopted a secular version of Christmas and a Santa Claus figure named Noel Baba (from the French Père Noël). During the 2013 holiday season, a Muslim youth group launched an anti-Santa Claus campaign, protesting against the celebration of Christmas in the country.[112] In December 2015, political and religious activists organized protests against the growing influence of Christmas and Santa Claus in Turkish society.[113]