Marilyn Lester***The ground-breaking Broadway production, Hamilton: An American Musical, premiered Off Broadway at the Public Theater in February, 2015, opening on Broadway in August that year. Writer, director, lyricist and composer Gerard Alessandrini was ready. Since the dawn of the Forbidden Broadway revues in 1982, 
his inexhaustibly fertile mind had been pumping out parody after parody with nary a break in hilarity. And Hamilton was the perfect target for something more. Sung and rapped, with music, lyrics and book by Lin-Manuel Miranda, its anachronistic mix of hip hop, R&B, soul, pop and traditional show tunes was fertile ground for spoofing. Spamilton debuted on July 19, 2016, also to become an instant hit.
Spamilton: An American Parody 10th Anniversary Concert at 54 Below was, as Allessandrini declared in his introduction, all about having fun. And plenty of that was had in 23 songs, with dialog, packed into 70 
minutes, the same run time as the original. (As a matter of record, Spamilton is currently on tour, and there have been slight modifications, all to the hilarious good). A hugely talented cast powered through with abandon, making the most of every inch of their tiny cabaret stage (the original played at the slightly more commodious Triad Theater on the Upper West Side).
To the energetic piano of music director Nick Stamatakis, Kristina Asriyan, Glenn Bassett, Jorge Blakely, Jason Denton, Justin Parker and Miles Davis Tillmam hit every humorous nail on its head. A cameo appearance by Christine Pedi (a Forbidden Broadway stalwart) as Liza Minnelli, singing “Down with Rap” was priceless. The two opening numbers, “Lin-Manuel as Hamilton” (with Blakely looking as if Miranda had been cloned) and “Aaron Burr, Sir, Nervous-er” (Tillman) introduced those two main characters with gusto.
Asriyan, as all three Schuyler 
Sisters in “Look Around (The Schuyler Puppets),” offered a satiric gem, holding up two hand puppets on either side of her head. She later appeared cloaked, to be revealed as Bernadette Peters, and later to be de-cloaked as Barbra Streisand in “Barbra Streisand Presents the Award. ” Indeed, Streisand did present Hamilton with its Best Musical Award at that year’s Tony outing. A distaff character was celebrated in “Annie” with Parker sporting the iconic red frock. As a fey King George III, Bassett offered “Straight Is Back” in an English accent worthy of Jonathan Groff’s in “You’ll Be Back,” substituting, “ gay, gay,, gay” for the scat lyric of the original.
A Stephen Sondheim segment included “Another Hundred Syllables,” which so perfectly captured all things Sondheimian. “Rap Batttle” to West Side Story’s “Cool” 
had Hamilton/Blakely and Burr/Tillman dueling with water pistols, in which Hamilton is shot; and Denton and his full mane shone in “Daveed Diggs – The Fresh Prince of Big Hair.” “Lin-Manuel’s New York City” gave Blakely the opportunity to showcase his soft shoe and tapping talents. In the “Finale: Raise a Glass to Broadway,” the riffs included a la Camelot, a line about a show “that was known as Spamilton.”
Spamilton: An American Parody 10th Anniversary Concert was produced by John Freedson and David Zippel. Co-direction was by Gerry McIntyre. The pacing and flawless staging kept the energy up and the laughs coming. And the talented cast so beautifully brought the music, lyrics and narrative of Allesandrini to life. With luck, they’ll be back.
Photos by Marilyn Lester
