The revolution is returning to Philadelphia.
The highly-anticipated, Tony Award-winning, hip-hop blockbuster musical ‘Hamilton’ hits the stage at the Academy of Music on Oct. 29, and the title role will be played by Tyler Fauntleroy.
“I love Philly as a theater town, and I love Pennsylvania as a theater region,” says Fauntleroy, a Virginia native who has worked with local playwright James Ijames on ‘The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington’ and has been a part of the beloved Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. “I’m over the moon to be back in town.”
Fauntleroy is famous for working with Black playwrights and Black conscious theater experiences, new and old, such as David Harris’ ‘Tambo & Bones’ and the late August Wilson’s ‘Fences’ at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Fest.
“As a Black artist, these plays and playwrights are home,” he says. “You learn early on in your career, even in college, that we are the only people who can truly tell our story, and give it the due that it deserves. Black theater has taken me in, and is always exciting. More than that, it helps develop me as an artist unlike anything else that I’ve done.”
Fauntleroy has performed in dramatic classics such as ‘Henry IV’, ‘The Tempest’ and musicals such as ‘Next to Normal’, along with television gigs on ‘Succession’.
“I’m a Black artist telling our stories, and everyone else’s stories, too, because there is a place for us, everywhere. We have a seat at all tables,” said Fauntleroy.
‘Hamilton’ — winner of 11 Tony Awards, a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama — is an aspirational musical for any artist… and a dream come true for Fauntleroy.
“I was a shy kid growing up, so once I decided that musical theater was something I wanted to do, there wasn’t many musicals I could connect with,” Fauntleroy says. “I think every Black and Brown kid felt the same way. I didn’t feel as if musical theater loved me as much as I loved it, and the shows I did audition for often felt more like mental gymnastics than they should. ‘Hamilton’, however, changed the game.”
The language of Hamilton, and the vehicle through which it’s told – hip hop – makes it viable for Fauntleroy.
“I speak that language,” he says. “I can see other people like me speaking that language, too. Seeing ‘Hamilton’ on Broadway, and seeing people seeing ‘Hamilton’ on Broadway – that was captivating. Sign me up. What do I have to do be a part of that?”
Working within a modern-day retelling of the Founding Fathers’ deeds and its righteous rhythms is the first step.
“The beautiful thing about how the ‘Hamilton’ character raps, what he says, is a love letter to hip hop and history,” says Fauntleroy, who actually chooses the in-your-face ‘We Know‘ as the perfect mix of drama, tall-tale-telling and musicality.
“And the bars on ‘We Know’ are sick,” he says. “’My Shot‘ is cerebral, and intense. But getting to throw back in Jefferson’s face, I love to do that nightly. Other Hamiltons might not agree, but that’s the biggest blast for me. Getting to chew on such intricate rhymes and complex verses and harmonies… all that makes my job easier. You get to see the totality of who Alexander Hamilton was through that music. I can take that remarkable journey every night because of its raps and rhythms. Passion flows differently this way. It’s writing that sticks to your ribs, and it’s crazy that I get to spit like this every night.
“And the show pulls at all of humanity’s strings – I can bring my experience to that role because I know what it’s like to sacrifice a personal life for work, to want to be heard, to love and lose, to make giant mistakes, to blow our lives up,” Fauntleroy finishes. “My life has its own harrowing details, so I can make that ‘Alexander Hamilton’ my own.”
Hamilton is on stage at the Academy of Music from Oct. 29 through Nov. 23. For information and tickets, visit ensembleartsphilly.org.
