The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda

By Ishmael Reed

“That’s a lot of horse hockey, Hamilton.”

Described by the New York Times as “classic activist theater” and “a cross between ‘A Christmas Carol’ and a trial at The Hague’s International Criminal Court.”

"In this, his latest work, the protean Ishmael Reed--the legendary artist and prolific writer--continues to burnish his already sterling reputation by dismantling the 'Creation Myth' of the founding of the U.S., as represented in the incredibly profitable play and musical, Hamilton.  Reed, a verbal acrobat of global renown, demonstrates here why he is widely considered to be the leading intellectual in the U.S. today."
 
-Gerald Horne, author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776:  Slave Resistance and the Origins of the USA

This powerful play, originally produced at the Nuyorican Poets Café, comprehensively dismantles the phenomenon of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Hamilton. Reed uses the musical’s crimes against history to insist on a radical, cleareyed way of looking at our past and our selves. Both durable and timely, this goes beyond mere corrective – it is a meticulously researched rebuttal, an absorbing drama, and brilliant rallying cry for justice.

The perfect tie-in to both the success of and backlash to Hamilton, it is the major voice in contrast to the recent movie. It captures both the earnest engagement that fans of the musical desire, as well as the exhausted disbelief of those who can’t stand it. Teachers, students and fans of drama, literature, and history will find much to love. It is written by one of America’s most respected and original writers, who is eagerly promoting it, and who is long overdue for a renaissance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Editions
• Release date: Apr 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781576875513

Ishmael Reed

Ishmael Reed (b. 1938) is an acclaimed multifaceted writer whose work often engages with overlooked aspects of the American experience. He has published ten novels, including Flight to Canada and Mumbo Jumbo, as well as plays and collections of essays and poetry. He was nominated for a National Book Award in both poetry and prose in 1972. Conjure (1972), a volume of poetry, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and his New and Collected Poems: 1964–2006 (2007) received a Gold Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California. Reed has also received a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Blues Song Writer of the Year award from the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame, a Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the National Institute for Arts and Letters, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Reed taught at the University of California, Berkeley, for thirty-five years and currently lives in Oakland, California.      

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Text © 2020 Ishmael Reed

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic or mechanical (including photocopy, film or video recording, internet posting, or any other information storage and retrieval system), without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in the United States by:

Archway Editions, a division of powerHouse Cultural Entertainment, Inc.

32 Adams Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201

e-mail: [e-mail]

website: www.archwayeditions.us

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020943627

ISBN 978-1-57687-551-3

Printed by Friesens Corp.

First edition, 2020

Design intern: Emily Bluedorn

Interior layout by Robert Avellan

Book design by Francesca Richer

Dedicated to:

Rome Neal, Dan Gallant, Carla Blank,

Mary T. Browne, Robert Miner Anderson,

Ford and Toni Morrison, and Maxx Mann

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda

Characters

Act 1, Scene 1

Act 2, Scene 1

Act 2, Scene 2

Act 2, Scene 3

Act 2, Scene 4

Act 2, Scene 5

Photos

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

Most of those who define the Black experience in the United States, whether it be in literature, theater, television or film, have not spent a second as a Black person. This is why theaters like the Nuyorican Poets Café and the Berkeley Black Repertory Theatre Group are important. Both have done my plays since 1988.

Audiences attending these plays have an opportunity to see my plays and plays by others that challenge the official corporate delineation of the minority experience. Outsiders have a monopoly on how the Black experience is discussed. About half of the books in my library are written by White authors, including three by my spouse, but these books inform. It’s in the field of entertainment where we run into difficulty: theater, film and television. These media have made only tiny efforts to diversify. Newspapers provide the public with a one-sided view of Black life, which, throughout history, has led to hate crimes and riots.

Black and Puerto Rican theaters permit us to portray how we feel about our position in American life and to challenge the views of us held by outsiders. For example, in my stage play, The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, we have Roslyn Fox, an African American actress, playing the role of the Harriet Tubman. The African actress, Cynthia Chinasaokwu O. Erivowho, who plays Harriet Tubman in the recent film directed by Kasi Lemmons, showed that she was eligible to perform in Comcast’s conglomerate’s version of Harriet Tubman’s life when she co-signed a tweet claiming that in order to register Black voters voting booths should be placed in Popeyes’ restaurants. Joy Reid and others have commented about how some Africans share the same prejudices toward Black Americans as White Americans. They seemed to be getting roles in which they play African Americans. The role of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma was played by an actor with an English accent.

Hollywood, Broadway and television view traditional Black Americans as difficult, which is the word that Lou Gossett Jr. used when he explained to me why he’s been blackballed by Hollywood.

I’ve hired both traditional Black Americans and African, Native American, Indian and Pakistani as well as Italian and Irish actors on the basis of their acting abilities. Not because I am engaged in a cynical divide and conquer strategy or was hiring people on the basis of their not being difficult.

In Comcast’s Harriet movie her enslaver saves Harriet from a brutal Black bounty hunter, the most brutal male in the movie. The action takes place during the period of slavery, mind you. Their Harriet is backed by Comcast/NBCUniversal and their 30 billion dollars. The marketers learned from the O.J. trial that the public has an unquenchable need for such a Bogeyman, which young scholar C. Leigh McInnis says sells better than sex. According to Chicago film curator, Floyd Webb, the Black bounty hunter is the most brutal character in the film:

After seeing Harriet last week, I cannot stop myself from saying it is the most insidiously anti-Black shit I