When North River High School sophomore Georgia Clark crossed the stage to perform her original song at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre two weeks ago, she was understandably nervous. She had never performed for a crowd before, let alone 3,000 people (including the cast of “Hamilton”), and was coming from a tiny school where graduating classes can sometimes be counted on one hand.
“Right before I walked on stage, I was shaking. But once I started singing and got to the chorus of my song, I felt right at home,” said Clark. “I was so comfortable, and it was amazing, there were so many people there. I couldn’t see all of them.”
Clark was the final performance out of 15 Washington students chosen from thousands to perform an original piece related to Alexander Hamilton or the founding era at the theater prior to a performance of the mega-hit musical “Hamilton.” Most of them were skits with several actors. Clark was one of the few who performed by herself.
In the audience were 13 classmates (comprising North River grades 10 through 12), as well as the school principal and a couple of teachers who drove up to Seattle for the day. Clark was selected to perform as part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s Hamilton Education Program, which allows select schools’ students a chance to purchase tickets to “Hamilton” for just $10 each.
In addition to seeing the musical, this program asks that teachers spend time studying Alexander Hamilton and the country’s founding era, culminating in a final performance project, where students compose a skit, rap or song that uses primary sources as a guide. English and drama teacher Kariana Aldrich then sent in Georgia’s and one other student’s piece for consideration, and was surprised to find out she won.
“I was a little surprised, because we were going up against bigger schools,” said Aldrich. “There were some there that brought 200 to 300 kids for their 11th grade only. When the email came in, I almost didn’t even open it. ’”
At first, Clark didn’t realize she would be performing, thinking it would simply be a chance for the cast to view a video recording of her performing her song.
“When they told me and explained it to me a few times, I started crying,” she said. “I was really scared and really nervous.”
Her original recording of the song was performed with ukulele, which she has been playing for over three years. The song details a letter from Aaron Burr to Alexander Hamilton before Burr kills Hamilton in a duel, which she researched in preparation.
“There was dialogue going back and forth, where Hamilton would say bad things about Aaron Burr, and vice versa,” explained Clark. “So Aaron Burr wrote a letter to Hamilton saying, if you don’t respond to my letters and explain why you’ve been saying these things and acting this way, I will challenge you to a duel.”
Clark said her song was inspired a bit by groups like 21 Pilots and Cavetown, and that she is always writing songs.
Before and after the performance, Clark got to meet the “Hamilton” cast, and got a better front-row seat to the show than her classmates who were up in the mezzanine.
When Aldrich first explained to her students that they would see “Hamilton,” which typically has tickets selling for hundreds of dollars, not all of the students knew about it. But she said studying the topic got most of them pumped up for it. And after having a good performance where the audience was clapping along mid-way through it, Aldrich thinks Clark will be performing more in the future.
“It got the performance bug in her, she’s now asking around ‘Are there open mics around Aberdeen or somewhere?’”
