Miranda also showed off his freestyle rap skills in the Rose Garden as POTUS held cue cards with words to prompt his rap.
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Obama was right; the video has been viewed more than 5 million times in less than ten hours on the White House Facebook page.
The White House performance marks a return home of sorts for the show’s creator, Latino performer and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda.
First Lady Michelle Obama recalled her and her husband’s reaction during Monday’s opening remarks, which introduced performances and a workshop by cast members of “Hamilton”.
First lady and Hamilton superfan Michelle Obama took advantage of the fact that Monday is Broadway’s day of rest and brought the cast to the capital to perform for high schoolers under the watchful eyes of George Washington and Martha Washington.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical marries hip-hop with history, drawing inspiration from when the star and author of the play was growing up in New York City in the ’90s.
In fact, Hamilton I’m pretty sure is the only thing that Dick Cheney and I agree on. And immigrants, we get the job done, this is so fun, POTUS is holding up the signs, I’m not done.
During the visit, Miranda broke away from the rest of the cast to join President Obama in the Rose Garden outside the Oval Office for a freestyle rap session. Alexander Hamilton, actually Lin-Manuel Miranda, who created the show and plays Hamilton, told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday that lawmakers must pass legislation that would let the USA territory restructure its $72 billion debt. “I think you are some of the luckiest young people on the planet”, she said, as they applauded. (Laughter.) That’s good. I mean, you’ve got to have confidence.
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“That was a really early and essential conversation that we had”, director Thomas Kail says. “We want to make these real people, flesh and blood people”, said Diggs.
