See How Broadway Smash ‘Hamilton’ Paid Tribute To 20 Years Of ‘Rent’

Anybody who is anybody in New York – or much of the rest of the country – has either seen the Broadway smash hit Hamilton by now or is pretending they’ve seen Hamilton by now for the sake of their social lives and musical theatre street cred’. The pop culture phenomenon has done everything from reignite musical theater’s popularity to get fans interested in Alexander Hamilton’s life and story more than 200 years after his death. Interest in the cast is also at levels previously unseen for this corner of the theater world. Cast members are tracked on Instagram and every hilarious Tweet is basically a news story of it’s own – especially for show creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Recently, the Hamilton cast paid tribute to Prince the day of his death with a rollicking dance party after curtain call set to “Let’s Go Crazy”. Now, they’ve honored another cultural institution – albeit in a manner that involves a little less dorky dancing. Rent, the 90’s musical that ignited an entire generation’s interest in sticking it to the man and singing about it while you do it, officially debuted on Broadway 20 years ago this week and on the night of the anniversary the entire cast of Hamilton lined up and paid their dues with an appropriate tweet. With one line of actors and actresses juxtaposed against another from two decades ago, the tweet references one of the most enduring and meaningful lyrics from Rent’s title song.

It’s a sentiment that, appropriately, could also apply to the founding fathers’ life as well. They might not have been living at the end of a millennium, but they certainly were not alone. Instead of a bougie landlord who demands a group of friends pay their rent, Hamilton just deals with political allies and enemies or are battling for a different kind of independence and freedom. Plus, in what is a great coincidence, Renée Elise Goldsberry plays Hamilton’s sister-in-law Angelic Schuyler in Hamilton and also portrayed Mimi in the 2008 cast of Rent.

(via Entertainment Weekly)