By Jennifer R Jones | Posted on December 04, 2016 2:00 AM
Hamilton Is Set To Take Off On A National Tour, First Stop is San Francisco At The Shn Orpheum Theatre, Followed By Los Angeles And Many More Cities.
Record-Breaking Broadway Show Soon To Hit The Road
As of today, December 5, 2017, tickets are on sale for the first stop on the national tour of Hamilton. The first performance of this tour will take place on March 14, 2017 at the SHN Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, California.
After a five-month run in San Francisco until August 5, 2017, the show will head down the coast to Los Angeles. Hamilton will then play at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre from August 11 to December 30, 2017. Another extended run is set for Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center Opera House from mid-June to mid-September, 2018.
More Stops Expected To Be Announced
In between, the tour will take off around the country. While specific dates are not yet set, these stops are expected to include, in alphabetical rather than chronological order, Atlanta, Georgia; Boston, Massachusetts; Charlotte, North Carolina; Cleveland, Ohio; Costa Mesa, California; Denver, Colorado; Des Moines, Iowa; Houston, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada; Portland, Oregon; Salt Lake City, Utah; San Diego, California; Seattle, Washington; St. Louis, Missouri; and Tempe, Arizona.
There are sure to be more stops announced as well. At this point, those cities are set for sometime in the 2017 to 2018 season, but precise dates have not yet been scheduled.
Sit-Down Shows Along With A Tour
In New York, Hamilton has been redefining the Broadway box office, with its most recent accomplishment of breaking the $3 million weekly gross mark, even while playing in a theatre that is by no means the largest on Broadway.
That being said, the producers have the option to be creative with how they schedule the national tour. With demand for Hamilton at an outrageous level for months on end, it is presumable that the tour will also be a hot ticket, although perhaps less so than the original Broadway production. Nevertheless, it is yet to be announced whether there will be multiple tours running simultaneously, like other shows such as The Book of Mormon have done in the past.
Hopes To Reach Wider Audiences
What we do know now is that there will be longer engagements in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. along the way. In addition, there are “sit-down” productions running in New York and Chicago, and a London production is also expected to open in 2017 at the Victoria Palace Theatre.
It is a careful balance to strike to share the magic of Hamilton with audiences far and wide, allowing the show to reach those who may not be able to travel to a major metropolis, while keeping demand at healthy levels to allow the New York and other sit-down productions to run indefinitely. As the tour winds on, perhaps the Broadway tickets will not be as impossible to get for a reasonable price, but if The Book of Mormon is any indication, the Broadway production of Hamilton will likely continue to be a hot ticket for some time.
An Award Winning Hit And Box Office Phenomenon
It is well known that Hamilton swept the 2016 Tony Awards. With an impressive 16 Tony Award nominations, the show took home 11: those for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Best Original Score also for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Best Actor in a Musical for Leslie Odom, Jr., Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Daveed Diggs, Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Renée Elise Goldberry, Best Costume Design, Best Lighting Design, Best Direction of a Musical for Thomas Kail, Best Choreography for Andy Blankenbuehler, and Best Orchestrations for Alex Lacamoire.
"Hamilton" Is Once-In-A-Lifetime Experience
In addition, the show won Lin-Manuel Miranda the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the ensemble took home the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. In addition to its outstanding box office performance from the very beginning of the Broadway run, it is clear that Hamilton is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and this tour will allow it to reach a broader audience.
