Sit Down, Ticketmaster, You Fat…!

Since mid-August, the Hamilton soundtrack has been playing in our house at an almost constant rate. Already fans of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work from “In the Heights,” our daughters were over the moon to see a matinee performance late this summer, soon after the smash hit musical opened. We saw the talented understudy, Javier Muñoz in the title role (causing a few tears at the opening curtain, which soon were forgotten one note into the show’s historical and constitutional genius) and the kids got to set their eyes at the curtain call when Miranda came out into the audience to hug Cornell West and wave to his adoring fans. No one moved. One had the obvious impression that this wasn’t merely entertainment but a kind of pop-culture prophecy. At intermission, another father of daughters leaned over and confided, “You seem like a history nerd, too. This is extraordinary.”

Indeed.

So extraordinary, in fact, that one kid has since gone off to college and decided to major in American history, while the other two have deepened their own interest in race, democracy, and of course, whether or not it would ever be possible to see the show again. Over many meals, we talk about the news with references to historical precedent which the kids were inspired to learn from the show’s music. The girls know the music and ideas related to Fiddler, Chicago, West Side Story, Into the Woods, Les Mis, and now Fun Home. But nothing holds a candle to Hamilton.

But something about the show’s success stings my sense of fairness and democracy and it has to do with the price-gouging that goes on, created in large measure by companies like Ticketmaster and Stubhub, as well as websites like Craigslist, which peddle in the human propensity to make profit off demand, a principle of any capitalist economy but one which drives a wedge between those who can see the show and those who ought to see the show but are prevented from doing so for lack of expendable wealth.

Michael Wilson’s heartbreaker in today’s New York Times about the rip-off scheme in Craigslist for Hamilton tickets only drives home this point — someones are getting rich off the work of the artists and the ideas they represent AND the door-opening cognitive dissonance of portraying the Founding Fathers as people of color in order to “disrupt” the narrative and see the values of the American Revolution in a whole new way is exactly what thousands of school kids around New York City deserve to see. This would be affordable if the theater could simply sell the tickets at face value. But with marketeering pirates controlling the ticket kitty, that’s not going to happen.

It ain’t right. And it puts a serious barrier between well-meaning non-profit education organizations that would proudly provide the chance for school kids to see the show but are prevented from doing so. It’s wrong.

If you can’t pay more than face value in front of a ballpark (that’s scalping, right?) why are these companies allowed to scalp? I never understood that.

No blame here on Lin-Manuel. There’s a long history of artists making art at the mercy of the market. But I would like to see our family’s current hero pen his letter — not to Aaron Burr or John Adams but to the heads of these greedy companies whose love of “ten dollar” forget the values of the “Founding Fathers.”

Hollah!

SIT DOWN, TICKETMASTER, YOU FAT MOTHERF*&#%R!

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