Hamilton and Me: An Actor’s Journal by Giles Terera

You most likely won’t realise this but when I first started this blog 8 (!) years ago I used to do a lot of book reviews.  In fact, my first ever blog post back in July 2013 was a review of Terry Pratchett’s The Light Fantastic.  I soon realised that reading was one of the things best left for fun (well and work, have I mentioned on here much that my day job is in book publishing?) and so for many years now, I’ve stuck to only reviewing books on my Goodreads account.  However, I recently got asked to review a book I just knew I had to make an exception for Giles Terera’s Hamilton and Me: An Actor’s Journal.

Now usually on here (well pre-pandemic anyway) I do a lot of theatre reviews so hopefully, this isn’t coming too out of left field.  However, one thing you might not know is that I actually used to work in theatre also.  Yes before my publishing days I worked for several years as a lighting and stage technician and reading Hamilton and Me really brought me back into it.  The hard work, long hours, tears, stress, happiness, and true joy that comes from putting together a new performance.  In Hamilton and Me Giles (who plays Burr in the hit musical Hamilton) shares with us his journal from his time just before he found out he’d landed one of the Westend’s most sort after parts, throughout the rehearsal process, to the tech rehearsals, opening nights and onto the opening shows.  You can feel his emotions flow from the page in bursts of revelation, joy, exhaustion, and excitement.

The daily journal was written in real-time so while some entries are short, self-deprecating, and sometimes unfinished while others flow long and deep as he analyses the smallest details in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s text.  Pulling out individual lines in relation to each other and casting it back to his own research to delve deep into his character and pull out all that was necessary to create his fantastic performance in the role of Arron Burr.

I am lucky enough to witness Terera’s performance in this role back in the Spring of 2018 when I saw the show and I can attest to the fact that it is awe-worthy to watch and he was a force throughout that drives the tragic story forward.  In Hamilton and Me we get a valuable peek behind the curtain to see the inner workings of a world-class performer and just how shows of this scale and magnitude come together at a relatively quick speed.  I can honestly say this is a book I couldn’t put down and should be on the shelf of every theatre lover and Hamilton fanatic.

Hamilton and Me is available in book shops from the 1st of July priced at £16.99.