Miguel Cervantes is helping bring Broadway’s hottest musical to the Windy City.
The Latino actor has landed the lead role of Alexander Hamilton for the upcoming Chicago production of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning musical Hamilton.
Cervantes previously appeared on Broadway in If/Then, American Idiot and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
Karen Olivo, a Tony winner for the 2009 Broadway revival of West Side Story and an original castmember of Miranda’s breakout musical, In the Heights, will play Anjelica Schuyler. The role of King George III will be played by stage veteran Alexander Gemignani, who starred as Jean Valjean in the 2009 revival of Les Miserables and has also appeared on Broadway in Violet, Assassins, Sunday in the Park with George and Sweeney Todd.
The Chicago staging of Hamilton will feature former American Idol contestant Ari Asfar as Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, Chris Lee as Lafayette and Jefferson, Joseph Morales as Cervantes’ alternate, Jose Ramos as John Laurens and Phillip Hamilton, Wallace Smith as Hercules Mulligan and James Madison, and Samantha Marie Ware as Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds. Both Lee and Morales are alumni of the In the Heights national tour.
Casting for the joint lead role of Aaron Burr in Chicago has not yet been announced.
Performances of Hamilton begin Sept. 27 at Chicago’s PrivateBank Theatre, marking the first production of the show beyond New York.
A separate touring production kicks off next March in San Francisco, while a London production will also begin in 2017.
Hamilton has been the biggest smash to hit Broadway in decades, winning 11 Tony Awards and selling out for months in advance. The show’s cumulative box office since it began performances at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on July 13 last year has hit $88 million.
