In another of those coincidences that occur in this life, it did not take long for Lin Manuel Miranda to enrich us all. Please see the following segment from the March 15, 2016 PBS NewsHour and be bemused
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/acclaimed-musical-hamilton-visits-the-white-house-and-obama-joins-in/
As for his innovative predecessor, well the 20 year old wunderkind that created the 1936 "Voodoo" Macbeth was none other than Orson Welles and the movie he would direct five years later was the critically acclaimed Citizen Kane, a movie deemed by many to be the greatest movie of all time.
By the way, in another of those coincidences that I so enjoy, the script for Citizen Kane was written by Herman Mankiewicz and John Houseman (remember Professor Kingsfield in The Paper Chase?) during a three month stint in a dusty desert town that is dear to my heart. The script was written in the town of Victorville, California, ... a town that I still do call home.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
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It is not lost on many of us, in this year of a seeming lack of diversity in the Oscar nominations, that there is a phenomenon on Broadway that utilizes a very diverse cast to tell history in a very unusual way. The phenomenon is called "Hamilton" and it has taken Broadway by storm.
Being currently immersed in the 1930s, the Hamilton story harkened back to a time some 80 years ago, when a young phenom director put on a new version of Shakespeare's Macbeth. As Wikipedia describes it, the young phenom
"adapted and directed the production, moved the play's setting from Scotland to a fictional Caribbean island, recruited an entirely African American cast, and earned the nickname for his production from the Haitian vodou that fulfilled the rôle of Scottish witchcraft. A box office sensation, the production is regarded as a landmark theatrical event for several reasons: its innovative interpretation of the play, its success in promoting African-American theatre, and its role in securing the reputation of its 20-year-old director."
I do not know what will become of Lin Manuel Miranda, the creator of the hip-hop Hamilton, but it is notable that the 20 year old director the "Voodoo" Macbeth went on, five years later, to direct what most critics consider to be the greatest movie of all time. May the Theater Gods shine on Lin Manuel Miranda so that he too may one day similarly enrich us all.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
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