WHAT more can be said about Hamilton, the genre-defying musical that broke all the rules and emerged as one of the most important pieces of entertainment in the past decade? Winner of 11 Tony awards as well as the Pulitzer Prize for drama, it has now made its debut in Singapore at the Sands Theatre in Marina Bay Sands – with style, sass and sizzle all intact. 

The nearly three-hour-long musical narrates the life of American founding father Alexander Hamilton and his involvement in the 18th century American Revolution. But it’s like no history lesson you’ve ever encountered: it thrums, buzzes and purrs, summoning the pulse of a political revolution in a swirl of hip-hop, R&B and jazz melodies. 

Although Hamilton became a Broadway sensation in 2015, not much about it feels traditionally Broadway. Its cast is beautifully diverse, with predominantly black, Latino and Asian actors playing white historical characters. Its set is fairly minimalist: a wooden backdrop with ropes and beams suggestive of a ship, but treated as every possible scenery from a ballroom to a presidential office.  And it eschews the usual musical theatre melodies to tell its story in hip-hop music and choreography. Debates over the establishment of the US political and financial system, for instance, are depicted as rap battles between opponents.