Hamilton opens in Melbourne: Jason Arrow goes to the heart of the hit musical

For Jason Arrow, finding out he had won the lead role as Alexander Hamilton in the musical Hamilton came exactly at the right time.

It was August 2020, right in the middle of Melbourne’s second and longest COVID-19 lockdown, when the world seemed like a different place.

Musical theatre and other arts performers suffered more than most when it came to the lockdowns as shows shut up shop, some never to open again.

“I was in between gigs at that point,” Arrow, 32, says of the moment he found out he had won the role.

“I was auditioning for a role in a musical called Waitress at the time, that didn’t end up happening because of COVID, and I assumed the same would happen with Hamilton.

“When I got the call I was beside myself but, to be quite honest, it was a weird experience because of the lockdown. You usually go out and celebrate with friends, but I couldn’t do that.

“However, it really gave me something to look forward to in what was a tough time; I latched on to that, and it was a beautiful thing.”

Hamilton opened its Australian run in Sydney last March, just as Australia thought it had beaten COVID, only to close again for four months when Sydney’s Delta wave struck in the second half of the year.

It could have been a demoralising time for the cast and crew, but they soldiered on with some high-profile support.

At the beginning of the shutdown, Arrow remembers being inspired by a Zoom chat the cast and crew had with Hamilton’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

“The last time we chatted he was just sitting there in his little Zoom square eating his cereal and listening to what everyone was saying,” he says. “He is such a nice person and a beautiful soul.”

The cast eventually finished the season in Sydney and are relieved to be staging it in Melbourne at Her Majesty’s Theatre.

The industry is as back to normal as is possible, Arrow says.

“The only difference now is we wear masks and people have to be vaccinated,” he says. ”Other than that, audiences are really full, and people are coming back to see shows.

“There are a number of new shows coming to Melbourne this year and it is starting to look promising again.

“There is a real buzz in the industry in Melbourne.”

Born in South Africa, Arrow arrived in Australia when he was six to settle with his family in Perth.

In his early school life, he always showed an interest in the arts and studied ballet before getting into sport, including football. He discovered musical theatre in year 8 at his school in the Perth suburb of Rockingham.

“The school had a great arts program, and still does, and they used to do musicals and plays, and I thought that looked like fun,” Arrow says.

“I played lots of different sports and liked being active, and musical theatre is exactly that.

“The first show I did was Little Shop of Horrors, and I knew I had found my passion.

“My parents were fine with it, and it went from there.”

Arrow ended up studying musical theatre at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), which has become a rite of passage for many actors and musical theatre performers.

While at WAAPA he noticed something that was a bit off about the industry – a lack of diversity.

“I’m lighter skin in terms of my look, but I noticed that I was hiding away from my ethnicity a lot to try to blend in, which I think is a terrible thing to think you have to do,” he says.

”It took me a while to own that part of me.

“I felt like in our industry there was a stereotypical look for a man or a woman to look like, and I didn’t quite fit into that.”

Arrow believes the diverse cast of Hamilton has changed the musical theatre industry in Australia.

“I think the timing of Hamilton in Australia couldn’t have been better in terms of how it shifted how the industry viewed things,” he says.

“The diversity was such a celebrated thing at the time when the cast was announced, and everyone was so happy.

“But now, moving forward I think it will become a normal thing and it will feel strange to celebrate something like diversity.

“We are now seeing casts in shows that represent what Australia looks like on the streets of Sydney or Melbourne or Perth or wherever, which is great.”

Hamilton premiered on New York City’s Broadway in 2015, with Lin-Manuel Miranda starring in the lead role in the musical he created.

With the unique score and a stirring story of American history – Alexander Hamilton was one of the country’s founding fathers – it soon became a smash hit.

Arrow remembers the chills down his spine when he came out on stage a year ago, in Sydney, for that very first show, following Miranda’s impressive stint in the leading role.

He soon settled into the role and has impressed everyone in the massive musical machine that is Hamilton.

“Jason’s understanding and interpretation of the musicality of the show are remarkable,” says Hamilton associate and supervising director Patrick Vassel.

“He wields the rhythms, rhymes and lyrics as the weapons, emotions and bricks that Alexander Hamilton forges as he fights a war, falls in love and begins to build a nation.

“The fire and intensity Jason generates drives the story forward and ignites the tremendous energy every person brings, every moment on stage.”

And Arrow, in turn, is enjoying every moment on the stage.

Hamilton \ Now playing at Her Majesty’s Theatre
● hamiltonmusical.com.au