Month: January 2016

Leaders of the nonprofit [Graham-Windham] have been stunned by a surge of donations due to the spotlight from “Hamilton,” and delighted by a bond with the performers that keeps getting stronger.

Two dozen members of the cast and crew wrote to the agency’s children over the holidays to become pen pals. Phillipa Soo, a 25-year-old who plays Mrs. Hamilton, is recruiting fellow singers to give some of them lessons in acting, dancing and rap in what she calls “The Eliza Project.”

“What better way to make a connection to her legacy?” she said.

[…]

In 1902 the agency built the Graham School, now a residential-treatment center in Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester County. Sitting high on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River, it has more than 300 students in kindergarten through 12th grade trying to overcome traumas, behavior issues and learning problems.

Natalie, a 17-year-old from Brooklyn who asked to be identified by her first name, said living at the campus turned her life around. “If it weren’t for this place, I would be in the street, dead or in jail, or not finishing school and having babies,” she said. “I wouldn’t want that for anybody.”

The school’s students who saw “Hamilton” said hearing an allusion to their home from stage was a thrill.

“I felt special,” said Dymond, a 13-year-old who loves writing poetry. Although she often skipped school back in Brooklyn, she said the musical motivated her to tackle Ron Chernow’s biography, “Alexander Hamilton,” with a dictionary by her side.

Dymond said that Mr. Hamilton’s declaration in the show that “I’m not throwing away my shot” spoke to her: “He was telling me not to give up, to keep moving forward, making my dreams come true.”