Producers of the Grammy
Awards telecast typically leave Broadway production numbers to their brethren
who stage the annual Tony Awards, but this year they are making an exception.
The opening number from the Grammy-nominated hip-hop musical
"Hamilton" will be among nearly two dozen performance numbers slated
for the Feb. 15 show this year, executive producer Ken Ehrlich told the Los
Angeles Times. "It's such a radically innovative show, because of the use
of hip-hop music," Ehrlich says. "I was reading things about it
before I ever saw it. Credible writers were saying this show has changed the
face of Broadway musical theater. I know we've all read that before. I was
somewhere in my 20s when I saw 'West Side Story,' which is my first memory of
reading about a show that was said to change the face of Broadway.
But when you see this
show, Ehrlich says, "even though you have a few references to what
Broadway musicals have been, you're basically wiping the slate clean and you're
looking at something so totally different than what you've seen. And it's good
different. ... We have opportunities to do a number from a Broadway show every
year because there are always five nominated shows. For me, this one stood out
a little more than others have." Rather than being adapted to the Staples
Center stage in Los Angeles, where the vast majority of this year's Grammy
performance numbers will take place, the "Hamilton" sequence will
emanate via remote from the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway where it has
been holding forth since August. "I went to New York last year with the
intent that we should do it here," Ehrlich says. "But when I saw the
staging, and how fragile the lighting conditions are, how important the stage
set itself is, I realized we probably would not have been able to copy it well
here. The control they have over the lighting, the comfort factor of having a
cast that's done it X number of times, those things made it easier for us to fit
into their world than trying to have them fit into ours."
Hamilton is nominated
in the musical theater album category along with "An American in
Paris," "Fun Home," "The King and I" and
"Something Rotten!" "This show's real introduction to the
television audience will be our show," he says. "I'm sure it will
also be on the Tonys and they'll do a great number on their show. But ours is a
music show, and aside from the staging and the brilliant choreography, the
music in this show is unique, and it's special. I'm thrilled we're going to be
putting it up first to millions of people."
