What’s the one thing that could stop the Broadway world from turning upside down? A new song from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash musical Hamilton, hopefully.
On Thursday night, after all musicals and plays were suspended for 32 days, until April 12, due to coronavirus concerns, Miranda released an apparently never-before-heard song that was cut from the musical. The composer, lyricist and actor tweeted out a link to “I Have This Friend” on Soundcloud, explaining his reasoning like this:
Wish I could send you peace of mind via this app.
Alas.
But I can send you music no one's heard. Here's a cut Hamilton/Washington tune called I Have This Friend. No one's heard it, not even Kail.
Funnier if you picture me and @ChrisisSingin singing it.https://t.co/lhkLP0jQeT— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) March 12, 2020
As Miranda wrote on Soundcloud, where the song is available to stream, the tune was supposed to be a duet between Alexander Hamilton (originally played by himself) and George Washington (originally played by Christopher Jackson).
“This was my first draft of the song before The Reynolds Pamphlet. With Hamilton & Washington. I don’t think I even showed it to Tommy Kail. It would go where Hurricane is now. Stay safe out there. Love you,” he wrote.
Here’s the song in full, with Miranda singing both parts:
As veteran Broadway writer Michael Riedel notes in the New York Post, “several shows will not be able to recover” the month-long theater closure. While sell-out successes like Hamilton will be back when the Broadway ban is lifted, new plays like The Minutes and old stalwarts like The Phantom of the Opera may not be able to weather the storm.
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