Arts & Culture

Where were you the first time you heard ‘Hamilton’? The actors remember.

Curator John Overholt (left) shows historical documents to members of the cast of “Hamilton.” Photos by Veasey Conway/Harvard Staff Photographer

Eileen O’Grady

Harvard Staff Writer

October 31, 2025

6 min read

Touring cast visits to offer students insights into theater and representation, gain some into U.S. history around campus

Both A.D. Weaver and Tyler Fauntleroy remember exactly where they were in 2015, the first time they heard the “Hamilton” soundtrack.

Weaver was working a shift at Best Buy. He wasn’t supposed to be listening to music on the sales floor, but he’d snuck a headphone into one ear instead of his work-issued walkie-talkie. Fauntleroy was in his college dorm. By the time the soundtrack got to “Helpless,” the love song in the first act, he was lying down, completely floored.

“I remember ‘My Shot’ had me like, ‘OK, this is something else,’” Fauntleroy told a group of students over a campus lunch on Tuesday. “By ‘Wait for It’ I just was like, ‘I have surrendered to this album.’ It was one of those times where you’re like, ‘I’m engaging with something that’s going to change my life.’”

Weaver now plays George Washington and Fauntleroy plays Alexander Hamilton in the North American touring cast of “Hamilton.” They were joined by fellow actors Marja Harmon (Angelica Schuyler), Lauren Mariasoosay (Eliza Hamilton), and Christian Magby (Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette) at the ArtsBites Luncheon hosted by the Office for the Arts at Harvard.

The cast members told students about their journeys from being fans of the musical to getting the offer to play in it. For Fauntleroy, who first auditioned in 2015 and was cast in 2023, playing Hamilton feels like a hard-won victory.

“It was a long, long, long road of ‘You did everything great, nothing you could do differently,’” Fauntleroy told students, describing the audition process. “For whatever reason, they go the way that they go. Now there’s something about [performing] the end of ‘Yorktown’ and seeing the feeling of victory wash over all of us. The awe of, ‘Oh, my God, we’re here. We did it.’”

The cast of the Tony-award winning musical has been performing at the Citizens Opera House since September as part of the 25/26 Broadway in Boston Season. Their last local show is Nov. 2.

Earlier in the day, the actors visited Houghton Library, where they were welcomed by Drew Gilpin Faust, president emerita and Arthur Kingsley Porter University Research Professor.

“It really matters so much that you all are carrying on the tradition and that you’re here to see some of the original materials on which the whole story is based and have been passed down to our generation of Americans,” Faust said. “Thank you for bringing these ideas and these principles to wider audiences, because we need desperately to understand where we come from and who we are, and what our values are as a nation.”

At Houghton Library, John Overholt, curator of the Donald and Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson and Early Books and Manuscripts, showed the cast an array of rare documents dating back to the Revolutionary War.

Lauren Mariasoosay (center), who plays Eliza Hamilton.

Marja Harmon, who plays Angelica Schuyler (from left), and Tyler Fauntleroy (who plays Alexander Hamilton).

George Washington’s handwritten rebuttals to James Monroe are seen in the margins of Monroe’s book detailing his time as ambassador to France.

Among them were an original Boston printing of the Declaration of Independence, a first edition of the Federalist Papers, and a “Reynolds Pamphlet.” Hamilton wrote the pamphlet, which figures famously in the musical, to defend himself from embezzlement accusations by confessing to an extramarital affair with Maria Reynolds, whose husband was a blackmailer and scam artist.

The actors clustered around the document, turning its 250-year-old cotton fiber pages and scanning the text. “And he wrote it down right there,” Magby exclaimed, quoting from the musical.

The cast took turns reading aloud an English translation of a Latin honorary degree — the first Harvard ever bestowed — presented to George Washington in 1776.

Faust and Marc Goodheart, vice president and senior adviser to the president and provost, led the cast members on a tour of some of the historic sites in Harvard Yard, including Massachusetts Hall, which once housed founding fathers Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, and Elbridge Gerry as students, as well as Hollis Hall and Holden Chapel, which (like Mass Hall) housed Continental Army soldiers during the Revolutionary War.

At the Office for the Arts, the cast answered student questions about favorite moments from the show, navigating an uncertain theater job market, and representation.

Harmon recalled the first time she saw actress Renée Goldsberry playing Hamilton’s sister-in-law Angelica Schuyler and thinking, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen myself on stage, represented,” Harmon said.

“What auditioning looked like pre-‘Hamilton’ and what it looks like now, even though it still has a long way to go, it’s night and day,” she said. “The difference is the opportunity and trusting that brown and Black people can lead shows and be successful.”

Each cast member shared a different approach to handling the stress of nightly shows on tour. Weaver said getting enough sleep is key. Fauntleroy said sitting in silence for at least 15 minutes every day helps him handle some of the fast-paced show’s more exhausting numbers, including “My Shot,” which he said feels like a “flash grenade.”

Harvard Opportunes singer Kaylor Toronto ’27 (right) performs a solo.

A.D. Weaver, who plays George Washington (from left), and Fauntleroy applaud the surprise performance by the Harvard singing group.

“The show is just super stimulating. You have to pace your brain throughout the day,” Fauntleroy said. “I’ve learned if I’ve already overstimulated myself during the day, of course it’s gonna be crazy, it’s gonna feel more intense than it is. If I’ve grounded myself then I have even more to give and more places to go.”

At the historic Wadsworth House, the cast were delighted by a surprise a capella performance of “Wait for It,” by the Harvard Opportunes.

“I think for lot of us — at least for me at 14 — our lives were changed by ‘Hamilton,’” Opportunes soprano Gabby Medina ’26 told the cast as they hugged and posed for photos after the performance. “We don’t really get to sing a lot of musical theater like this, so this is really healing.”

“It’s healing for us too,” Mariasoosay said.