As Hamilton Tour Rolls Into Miami, Three South Florida Natives Are Part of Its History

From the spark of its concept to red-hot stagings, Hamilton, a musical about American history, has been making theater history since 2015. South Florida talents have helped propel that success from the start, with Alex Lacamoire — a Miami-raised Cuban-American and New World School of the Arts graduate — prominent on the team.

The national touring company of Hamilton comes to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami March 13-24.

The biographical, political, and social strata of the mountain that is Hamilton are cemented by mold-breaking dramatic elements. Most striking has been the casting of African-Americans as War of Independence leaders and — rap in prominence — today's musical idioms taking possession of a revolutionary spirit. The championing of racial and cultural inclusivity trumpets the message that all folks — to echo a standout song in the musical — should see themselves in the rooms where history happened.

As the brainchild of Lin-Manuel Miranda — a New Yorker of Puerto Rican background who already had a breakout hit about el barrio with 2005's In the Heights — Hamilton has let Latinos lay claim to the very American musical from the get-go. In 2016, Lacamoire — arranger, orchestrator, coach, conductor, and all-around master at turning notes into the molecules of sonorous stage life — won a Tony Award for "Best Orchestration" and a Grammy Award for "Best Musical Theater Album" for Hamilton, the teamwork enthroning him alongside author Miranda and other collaborators as a 2018 Kennedy Center Honoree.

"My introduction to Hamilton was when we were working on In the Heights, and Lin-Manuel came into my dressing room to tell me about the opening number," says Lacamoire. He praises Miranda's bull's-eye aim in a 2009 performance — with Lacamoire at the piano — of selections from the musical-in-formation at the White House during Obama's presidency. Nerve-racking? You bet. But the arranger holds that memory among his dearest.

But that was just the beginning of Lacamoire's thrill ride. "My favorite part in mounting a production is the beginning," he confesses. "At rehearsals for a Broadway show, you're in there for eight hours a day, six days a week. I like that immediacy of working with singers. An hour ago, they didn't know how a song would go, and then I've helped them learn it. I love it when I create a vocal arrangement and get the chance to hear it back from them. Bringing something from your computer into the real world is very special. I thrive on it."
Such agency is not lost on Buenos Aires-born, Miami-raised Emmanuel Schvartzman, the music director of the Hamilton tour since 2019. He says, "Though my favorite song from the show depends on what I'm going through in my life, I always tell my friends that 'Yorktown,' with the line that immigrants get the job done, always resonates with me."

"Yorktown" refers to getting ready for the decisive 1781 battle in Virginia, which handed the revolutionaries a final victory. It features commander Hamilton, born in the English Caribbean island of Nevis, and the Marquis de Lafayette, among French allies of the American cause. But their going into the unknown stresses Schvartzman, and achieving through drive and skills success against all odds characterizes not just personages of record but also the legions of workaday warriors who, coming from elsewhere, realize the promise of their adopted land.

"My family has the typical immigrant story," says Schvartzman, who arrived in Miami when he was 7 years old. "We had little of what others enjoy. So I had to prove my worth. But that fire in my belly helped a lot. When musicals were introduced to me, they were like an all-American game. I wondered if I was really going to do this, knowing we have to be twice as good just to be accepted."

But Schvartzman also thinks the vibrantly resurrected protagonists and tumultuous period in Hamilton can connect with us all — a universal humanity of foibles and virtues, triumphs and loss, reflected in the song list.

Honoring the baton Lacamoire passed to him, Schvartzman keeps the roadshow on an impeccable pitch. "We wear a lot of different hats," he says. "Our job is 33 percent being a really good musician, 33 percent being a good manager, and 33 percent being a good person."

Like Lacamoire, Schvartzman cultivated his artistic side early on in the local community. "I did theater all over South Florida, where I learned what a musical is," he says, lauding magnet school Coral Reef Senior High School and Florida International University, where he earned a master's degree in classical piano. "And my family's quite artistic. My mother being an actress, I was always begging her to take piano lessons. My most memorable childhood moments included playing keyboard in my aunt's studio — plain little melodies I'd teach myself."
When a friend asked him to pitch in as a pianist for a high school musical, Bach, Beethoven, and their brethren stood aside for Broadway tunesmiths. From then on, Schvartzman says, "There was no turning back."

Throughout his career — starting as assistant music director for On Your Feet, the Gloria Estefan jukebox musical — Schvartzman has recognized the importance of harmonious relations on the job. "That's a big deal when we manage people on tours since we can't be home every day, going together from airports to hotels, city after city. My tasks include making sure everybody is in a good place. But that's easier with this level of professionals who know the game."

According to drummer Quinton Robinson (AKA Q), born in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami and now Atlanta-based, Schvartzman "provides the show's connective tissue." In a musical that's particularly percussion-driven, Robinson sees himself as the quarterback and the music director as head coach. The Miami Northwestern Senior High graduate, educated at the University of Miami, has spread his own spicy South Florida jam throughout the nation as a pit player on the tour.

Nearing 500 curtain calls, Robinson asserts, "Every night is a new show." His love of theater binds him to Schvartzman and Lacamoire, who have South Florida roots.

Gold-starred on his resumé, work on the Motown musical Ain't Too Proud landed him the Hamilton gig. No wonder his favorite song on the show is "My Shot," with the lead intoning, "Hey yo, I'm just like my country/...Scrappy and hungry/And I'm not throwin' away my shot." Be assured, beat by beat, Robinson hits every musical target.

– Guillermo Perez, ArtburstMiami.com

Hamilton. Wednesday, March 13, through Sunday, March 24, at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; 305-949-6722; arshtcenter.org. Tickets cost $39 to $299.