For a musical that made its Broadway debut nearly five years ago, “Hamilton” has had quite a week or so. (And we’re not even talking about the $2.6 million in weekly box office that the New York production continues to pull in.)
First came ex-national security adviser John Bolton’s suddenly prominent role in the recent impeachment drama via his pending memoir “The Room Where It Happened” — a book apparently titled after a song from writer-composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda’s megahit musical about a former U.S. treasury secretary.
Then came some news centered more directly on “Hamilton” itself: The announcement that a filmed version of the Broadway production will hit theaters in October 2021.
Jeffrey Seller, the lead producer on “Hamilton” and a longtime collaborator of Miranda’s, had a little something to say about both when we caught up with him during a recent rehearsal break at La Jolla Playhouse, where he’s directing the West Coast premiere of the (potentially Broadway-bound) musical “Fly.”
Of the Bolton book and its title, Seller said: “I don’t even know how to describe it; it’s just strange.”
But the fact the show continues to resonate in the political sphere? That doesn’t seem strange to him at all.
“When Hamilton came out, it felt like such a beautiful manifestation of all the great attributes of the Obama era, which I loved so much,” Seller said. “It was a show that was about the history of America, told by all of us.
“And after the election of 2016, ‘Hamilton’ seemed even more important (as a way) to embody the greatest values of our democracy, in a moment when so many of those values were being demolished.
“And now to see the number
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