Hamilton will mark the 10th anniversary of its Broadway opening this summer, and they’re going to celebrate by bringing back Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr for a 12-week limited run. Odom originated the role of Burr during the off-Broadway production of Hamilton at The Public Theater. He remained with the Broadway show for the first years of its run, winning a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
“Returning to Hamilton is a deeply meaningful homecoming,” Odom said in a press release. “I’m so grateful for the chance to step back into the room — especially during this anniversary moment and to revisit this brilliant piece that forever changed my life and the lives of so many.”
Odom first encountered Hamilton when he saw a workshop version of Vassar. He was especially moved by “The Story of Tonight” where Alexander Hamilton and three friends share a drink on the eve of the Revolution. “That’s the one that made me a puddle, because it was four men of color onstage singing a song about friendship and brotherhood and love, and I had never seen that in a musical,” Odom told Rolling Stone in 2016. “I had seen white guys do it, in Jersey Boys, in Les Miz. Never seen a Black guy. So I was a mess, and from that point, I was along for the ride.”
The enormous success of Hamilton provided Odom with numerous opportunities once he stepped away from the show. He’s appeared on the small screen in Love in the Time of Corona, Abbott Elementary, and The Good Wife; and the big screen in The Many Saints of Newark, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and The Exorcist: Believer, and back on the Broadway stage in Purlie Victorious, and Gutenberg! The Musical!.
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His return to Hamilton kicks off Sept. 9 and wraps up Nov. 23. “You don’t get shows that run 10 years,” Odom said on The Today Show. “There are a lot of shows we love, great shows, that they come and they go — that’s the nature of the theater. So for something to be embraced by the public and the culture, and the way that Hamilton has and the way that Rent was — it’s twice in a lifetime.”
Hamilton is one of the most successful productions in the history of Broadway. It has grossed more than $1 billion, and continues to play to packed houses after over 3,380 performances. Only The Lion King, Wicked, and the Phantom of the Opera have grossed more. And Hamilton crossed the billion dollar mark in significantly less time than those other three.
