Javier Muñoz and Lin-Manuel Miranda. (Photo: Walter McBride via The Broadway Blog.)
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s alternate in the Tony Award-winning musical Hamilton on Broadway and the actor who portrayed Alexander Hamilton when President Barack Obama saw Hamilton last July – will step into the title role starting July 11 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre (226 W. 46 St.), it has been announced by Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller. Mr. Miranda’s final performance in the Broadway production is set for July 9.
Hamilton won 11 Tony Awards earlier this week, including Best Musical, Score, Book of a Musical, Direction of a Musical, Choreography and Orchestrations.
Mr. Muñoz has been the Hamilton alternate dating back to the musical’s early development and debut at the Public Theatre in January 2015, as well as throughout the Broadway engagement. He previously took over the role of Usnavi – again, replacing Mr. Miranda – in the latter’s Tony-winning Best Musical In the Heights.
He will perform the role of Alexander Hamilton seven performances a week. Mr. Muñoz’s alternate, who will perform the role once a week as Mr. Muñoz has done, will be announced at a later date along with the alternate’s performance schedule.
In his follow-up review of Hamilton on Broadway with Mr. Muñoz in the title role in November 2015, Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote, Muñoz’s performance maintains “the balance of a revolutionary show about a revolutionary era that seems better every time I see it,” adding, “His Hamilton is sexy with his penetrating stare and Don Juan smile. When he’s courting the ladies and other characters describe him as a tomcat, you know exactly what they mean.”
