This concludes our program. I would like for you to join with me in one final applause in recognition for our honoree tonight who brings us great honor with his presence, great honor with his work, and great honor how he helps the next generation of americans. Thank you. [applause] this week on q a, historian ron chernow. Area he talks about hamilton and the consulting work he did on it. Linmanuel miranda based the musical on mr. Chernows biography of Alexander Hamilton. Brian ron chernow, when did hamilton, Alexander Hamilton first get on your radar screen . First get on your radar screen . Ron well, i started writing it back in 1998, brian. It seems rather comical because the reason that i chose to do Alexander Hamilton, aside from the fact that it was the most extraordinary personal story among the founding fathers, was that he seemed to be fading into obscurity. People were coming to regard him as a sort of secondtier founding father. Most americans knew he was on the 10 bill, maybe that he had died in a duel with aaron burr, but that was about it. It seems comical that i was, felt as if i was lifting him out of obscurity. Now his name is on the marquee of a broadway show. Brian where were you at the time . What were you doing . Ron i just finished writing my biography of john d. Rockefeller, titan, and what happened i had done a series of books about moguls of the gilded age, and i found that when i would go out to give lectures, people in the audience would start shouting out, do vanderbilt next. Do carnegie next, and i really felt that i was becoming terribly stereotyped as this biographer of gilded age tycoons, and i decided that i wanted to switch periods. And so, Alexander Hamilton was the perfect exit strategy because i knew there would be a lot of financial and economic history, but it would also expose me not only to a new era, but of foreign affairs, constitutional law, you know, military history, on and on and on, plus the most amazing story that i have ever written. Brian you probably dont like this question, i asked it before not of you, but of others, is there someone today that would come closest to the way Alexander Hamilton thought about government . Ron thought about government, thats a very difficult question, brian. I will say this, that Alexander Hamilton was the most verbal politician in our history. If he felt strongly about an issue, he would sit down and he would write a series of 25 essays over the course of a few weeks about it, and i think that hamilton would fit very uncomfortably into an era of tweets and soundbites. He was very rational, deeply intellectual and principled. And i cant think of anyone stylistically, certainly, who reminds me of Alexander Hamilton today. Brian 2014, your book comes out, its number one on the paperback bestseller list and on the combined New York Times list, its in the top 15 all of these years later. Ron actually, as we talk, six months on the paperback bestseller list and five straight weeks at number one for an 800page book that was published in 2004. I think it is safe to say that that is unprecedented. Its really quite extraordinary. Brian whats it done to your life . Ron well, its had a profound effect. This has been very much a through the Looking Glass experience for me. The greatest thrill, of course, has been having Linmanuel Miranda take this biography and translate it into a very vivid threedimensional life on the stage, but its also been deeply touching to me the way that i have been completely embraced and incorporated into the world of the show, not only the creative team, but the cast members, and because i had never been involved with the show before and maybe never will be again, i decided that i wanted to have every experience i could possibly go with a broadway show. I was at every workshop and theatre festival and rehearsal. I sat it on the recording of the cast album. I sat in one performance with the orchestra in this kind of black grotto under the stage, and i had been a lifelong theater goer. I never imagined that i would be on the other side of the footlights. So its just been an absolutely enchanting experience. Brian as you watched it up close be made, what was the most difficult part of it . Ron the most difficult part well, you know, in my book, i have hundreds of characters. One thing that i immediately realized was that history is long, messy, and complicated. Broadway shows have to be very short, coherent, and tightly constructed, and there is a conflict between that in a broadway musical. You have to have eight or 10 principal characters. Everything has to happen to them, by them, through them. You have to establish them early, keep on developing them. And so, there are certain places in the show where things happen accurately, but actually were done by or two other people. For instance, theres a scene in the show where Jefferson Burr and madison confront hamilton with the reynolds scandal. He actually was confronted by three jeffersonians, but not those three individuals. So lin, what i loved working with him is in those cases where he felt obliged to use dramatic license, he would always try to incorporate as many authentic elements into the scene as he could, even if he had changed something. Brian if you get on the website today, first of all, you cant buy tickets. Theyre sold out for how far are they sold out . Ron sold out as we talk, through january 2017. Brian so all of this year and then january of next year. Ron yeah. Brian but if you get on and get on these resale websites, 1000 might get you a ticket. Ron yeah, i mean, and people have been scalping tickets for 1500 to 2000, 2500 a ticket. They are certainly routinely scalping for 1000 or 1500 a ticket. Brian what do you think of that . Ron well, you know, its been frustrating for us because we didnt create this show exclusively for Hedge Fund Managers and private equity people, and we have been doing what is within our power to try to offset that. For instance, theres a lottery every night where the entire first row, people get tickets for 10 a piece if they win the lottery. We also have, starting in april every wednesday, theres going to be a matinee for new York City School children, actually 11th graders who are in so called title i schools, free lunch schools, so they would be mostly black and white teen and latino audience, 1300 kids, wednesday matinees, will be sitting there for 10 a piece, and not only will they see this extraordinary show where it is impossible to get tickets, theyre going to have a q a with the cast afterwards. Their teachers have been supplied with curriculum materials so that the teachers can use the show actually as a vehicle for teaching more about American History. So were trying to broaden out the audience. We are well aware of this problem. Its a nice problem to have, but it is a problem. Brian youve got the washington prize for which book . Ron i got the washington prize for Alexander Hamilton. Brian and so did lin . Ron 10 years later, right. And they asked me to get up there and pay tribute to him at the awards ceremony, which was brian hold on. I want show you a piece of tape right now from that award ceremony. Ron ok. Brian heres ron chernow. [video clip] ron i know that you are all expecting me to stand up here and start snapping my fingers and breaking into rhymed couplets, but im afraid im going to disappoint you. Although, i have to say one side of me is dying to do exactly that, and im going to do it. [laughter] how does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgo no, im not going there, lin. Im not going there. Im not going there. [laughter] [applause] in the caribbean by providence impoverished in squalor grow up to be a hero and a scholar . Someone save me. [laughter] no, ive told kind of like adam, ive had this fantasy about going on the stage, and ive told lin that id like to go on and just do the opening number. They could then pull me off with a hook afterwards, but for some mysterious reason, lin has decided not to throw on my unique theatrical talents. [video clip ends] brian how hard was that to do . Ron ive never seen lin laugh as hard. He and his family were sitting in the table right in front of the podium, and he just doubled over with laughter, and when he got up on the stage to receive the award, he said, i cant believe it. We have ron chernow rapping on cspan. So its been a quandary that i actually did it, but that has been a fantasy of mine to go on for the opening number. Brian as you know, its a twohour and 55minute show. Ron yes. Brian and the music, you can buy all the music. How much of this can you do by memory . Ron oh, i can do most of the first song. I know lots of different portions of the show. I mean, brian, i have seen the show about 50 times, and of course, i was very intimately involved over a six or sevenyear period with the creation of the show. In fact, when i first started working with lin, as he wrote each song, he would send it to me via email. I would just hear lin at the keyboard singing, and he would send them with these kind of psychedelic screams as i heard him singing and i was absolutely astonished. In fact, he came over and he sang the opening number. He came over to my apartment and started snapping his fingers. He was sitting on my living room couch, and he started singing, how does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore, and when he was finished doing it, he said, what do you think . This was my first exposure to it, and i said, i think thats the most extraordinary thing. Youve taken the first 40 minutes of my first 40 pages of my book and condensed them accurately into a 4. 5 minute song. What i didnt say to lin, but i was thinking it, saying, boy, i write very tight and very long. And so it was a little embarrassing that he had distilled the 40 pages down to a 4. 5 minute song and had done it so accurately. Brian we had a photo of Linmanuel Miranda with your book in hand, and he is in the water. Is that when he first got this book . Ron yes. What happened, when i met lin in november 2008, he was still starring in his first show, in the heights. He invited me to a sunday matinee, and i went backstage, and i had heard from a mutual friend that he had read the book on vacation and made enormous impression. And he said to me, ron, i was reading your book on vacation in mexico, and as i was reading it, hiphop songs started rising off the page. And i said, really . And then he started telling me, he said, you know, hamiltons life has a classic hiphop narrative, and i was thinking, what on earth is this guy talking about . I think that lin quickly picked up the fact that he had a worldclass ignoramus about hiphop on his hands. And he said to me on the spot, because my first question to him was, can hiphop be the vehicle for telling this kind of, you know, very large and complex story . And he said, ron, im going to educate you about hiphop. And he did on the spot. He started pointing out that hiphop, you can pack more information into the lyrics than any other form because its very, very dense and rapid. He started talking about the fact that hiphop not only has rhymed endings, it has internal rhyme, it has word play. He started educating me in all of these different devices that are very, very important to the success of the show. So im not a complete ignoramus about hiphop anymore. Just mostly. Brian is there anything in the show that you directly had an impact on . Ron oh, absolutely. In terms of the relationship between hamilton and washington, for instance. I was having lunch with lin one day, and he said to me, he was trying to figure out whats the dramatic essence of that relationship, which is very central to the show, and he said to me, would washington, when he met hamilton during the revolutionary war would washington have seen hamilton as a younger version of himself . And i said, absolutely, because washington, when he meets hamilton, hamilton is 22. Well, when washington was 23, he was the head of all the armed forces in virginia. Led his men into a terrible massacre in a place called fort necessity, and in fact, theres this beautiful song in the show where washington sings, let me tell you what i wish i had known when i was young and dreamed of glory. Well, that was very thrilling to me when we had that discussion, and then the next time, i saw a new version of the show to see that scene and that song and realized that it came directly out of it. But even, brian, you know, very late in the game for instance, even when it was at the Public Theater where it originated off broadway, i said to lin one day, i said, you know, theres one big policy point that is missing from the show, which is that when hamilton became treasury secretary, the country was bankrupt, and by the time he left five years later, we were as credit worthy as any other country in the world. An amazing feat. And so what he has in the closing scene of the show, madison comes out and says, he took us from bankruptcy to prosperity, and you know, for that, well forever be in his debt, and he doesnt get enough credit for all the credit that he gave us. Well, that was a direct response to what i had said, and that was actually pretty late in the off broadway run of the show. So, it was great. I mean, the beautiful thing about working with lin is that hes always prepared to listen. He was very good at filtering out whatever ridiculous or asinine things that i would say, he had very good instincts. If i said something that really hit home to him, he was always fully open to it, and he was diplomatic, because if i said something that he thought was completely absurd, he wouldnt disagree. He would simply stare at me wordless, and then i would realize that i had goofed. Brian you were born where . Ron i was born in brooklyn. Brian and mr. Miranda was born where . Ron lin was born in new york, i assume, on the upper west side. Brian and Alexander Hamilton was born where and where was he raised . Ron hamilton was born on the island of nevis in the caribbean. He spent his adolescence on st. Croix, one of the virgin islands, and around the age of 17, a killer hurricane hit the island. He wrote this very brilliant letter that was published in the island newspaper describing in almost shakespearean terms this hurricane. He was an illegitimate, you know, orphaned, impoverished clerk at that point. The local merchants suddenly recognized that they had this young genius in their midst, and they took up a collection to send him to the north american colonies to be educated. He came armed with a fuel that is of introduction, but he didnt know the soul. So hamilton is not only the original immigrant, but a completely selfmade, really selfinvented figure. You know, all the other founding fathers, they were either virginia printers or boston lawyers. They were all born in the original 13 colonies. Hamilton was the outsider and started out life with as many disadvantages as most of those figures had advantages. Its an amazing story. Brian we can only use obviously a little bit of the music, but heres about 20 seconds, and its Alexander Hamilton. The tune is stay alive, and the reason i run this is it shows about his relationship with general eisenhower at the time. At the time he was an aide to general eisenhower, how would he have been . Ron talking about general washington. Brian yeah. General eisenhower. [laughter] brian one of your next books down the road somewhere. Ron well, hamilton is 22 when he meets washington. Washington would have been 45 at that point. Brian lets just listen to a little bit so we can get a flavor. [video clip] i have never seen the general so despondent i have taken over writing all his correspondence congress writes, george, attack the British Forces i shoot back, we should have resorted to eating our horses local merchants deny us equipment, assistance they only take british money, so sing a song of sixpence [video clip ends] brian thats it for the moment, but what do you think . Ron accurate, in fact, because all of these farmers, this was the valley forge winter there. The Continental Army was actually sitting there amidst plenty. The problem was not the availability of food. The problem was that the farmers were selling the food to the British Forces in philadelphia. And i remember lin had actually sent me very beautiful, sad, mournful music for valley forge, and you can hear the words of thomas paine over the music, and those were the only words that survived from that original draft of that scene. But lin is extraordinary in terms of, you know, plucking out exactly what he needs for a scene. He is selfcritical, and he is a very disciplined writer. Its always very hard for a writer to strike out a beautiful line that he has written. Lin has the ability to do it. Im not sure i do, but he does. [laughter] brian he is about what age right now . Ron lin is 36. Brian and when the Constitutional Convention was held, and Alexander Hamilton was there and James Madison, they were what . 30 . 36 . Ron lets see because hamilton was born by my count, 1755. So he would have been 32 and then 34 when he became treasury secretary. Brian so all of this is except for your case had been done by really young people. Ron yeah, and this is actually a very interesting point, brian, because i think that so much of the attention about the show has concentrated on the fact that its this black and latino eurasian and biracial cast, and of course thats a great novelty for a show about the founding fathers, one that startled me at the beginning. But i think that the thing that has not been sufficiently emphasized is how young the actors are. You know, i grew up with the musical, i am sure you did, 1776, and it was a bunch of latemiddleaged white actors and wigs and buckle shoes. Here, there are very few people in the cast who are over 40, and so i think in the same way that this black and latino cast enables the audience to enter into this experience. It provides a kind of bridge for the audience between the sensibility of today and the sensibility of then. But i think that the fact that the show reminds us that the american revolution, like revolutions throughout history, are made by young people, and i think that thats very exciting, and it really hasnt been talked about. Brian as you know, at that ceremony when lin miranda got th