Beauty To Broadway (Hamilton)

Chapter One

Chapter One: Ham 4 Ham

I started acting when I was sixteen. If you're thinking this is where I tell you I've been acting for 30 years, you're wrong, it's been two. Yes, I know, 18 years old living in New York trying to be an actor. But I've jammed a lot of projects into my short two years. I've been in Annie, Romeo and Juliet, Le Mes, School of Rock, Psych the Musical, and I even wrote and directed my own piece about a romance during the Great Depression, it was for my school, but it did really well. I'm from Arizona. I moved to New York City a few months ago with my high school boyfriend Brandon. Brandon is going to NYU for music. He just started a band called the Heathens, they're doing pretty good. Out of the two of us, he's the famous one. And me, I took a summer acting program at The New York Film Academy, no luck at any acting gigs, to make money, I work at the Starbucks on the corner of West 46th and Broadway. So When I tell people I'm working on Broadway, I'm not entirely lying.

It was a normal day. I woke up and got ready for work like I always did. Brandon and I's apartment is down the road about a mile. It was July 14th 2014 as I started my walk to work. I had my headphones in listening to music. As I grew nearer and nearer I noticed a large group of people outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre. I took my headphones out and stood next to the crowd.

"What's going on?" I asked. A young man turned to me and replied,
"A raffle to win ten dollar tickets to Hamilton for opening night."
"Hamilton?" I asked.
"This super amazing new musical about Alexander Hamilton by Lin Manuel Miranda," he replied.
"Like the founding father Alexander Hamilton? The guy on the ten dollar bill? How does someone make a musical about that?" I asked.
"I don't know, but apparently it's incredible," he replied.

The theatre doors opened and the crowd started cheering. I couldn't see who they were cheering so loudly for. He started talking about how thankful he was and how we shouldn't be upset if we didn't win but that we should enter. And then the guy started to rap something about congress and fighting and stuff. It was weird, but it was so intriguing. I decided to enter. So I put my ballot in and stood around the theatre doors along with everyone else. There were a couple of hundred people here and I was crammed in between loads of them. The guy with long black hair in a ponytail started naming names and people cheered as they won.

"There's one more ticket left and the winner of this one is..... Saint Ayala," the guy with the black ponytail said. I was kind of shocked as the guy read my name. I went to the front of the crowd and stood with the other winners. Some other guy came up to me and gave me a ticket, I handed him ten dollars. People snapped pictures, I stood right next to the guy with the black ponytail. He said goodbye to the crowd and turned around, running into me.

"I'm so sorry," he said.
"You're fine," I replied.
"Congrats on winning. I guess I'll see you in the front row tonight," he said.
"Um yeah, I guess. I've never even heard of this play. What kind of weirdo writes a musical about a founding father? It's just strange," I replied.
"Oh yeah, I heard the guy who wrote it is a total wackjob. I also heard he cast himself as Alexander Hamilton a little bit narcissistic if you ask me," he said with a loud chuckle.
"You know my name, what's yours?" I asked.
"Lin," he replied. Lin sounded familiar, I couldn't put my finger on it. I looked down at my phone and freaked.
"Shit! I'm so late!" I exclaimed.
"For?" He asked.
"Work!" I yelled back as I pushed my way through the crowd.

That Lin guy was super nice. I hope his seat is next to mine.