Headin’ to New York: Actor Daveed Diggs Visits Cornell for a Masterclass on Adaptation

“I’ll give you one hint: Thomas Jefferson’s coming home.” 

These words from Performing and Media Arts Department Chair Dr. Samantha Sheppard left the audience buzzing with excitement at the department’s Projects and Participation Kick-off for Fall 2024. Could it really be true? Was Daveed Diggs, the Tony Award-winning actor who originated the roles of the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton, coming to Cornell? On Sept. 25, that excitement became reality when Diggs arrived on campus as the 2024 Heermans-McCalmon Distinguished Guest Artist.

Recipes For The People: A Hot Plate of Food When It’s Needed Most

Two weeks ago, I came across a video on Twitter called #RecipesForThePeople. It was a cooking video posted by José Andrés, a Spanish-American chef and founder of World Central Kitchen, a non-profit devoted to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters. In this six minute clip, Andrés and his daughters made angel hair pasta and tomato sauce as they sang and danced their way through Hamilton. The internet went crazy — from, “I did not think I could love José Andrés more. I was wrong.

TEST SPIN: Various Artists — The Hamilton Mixtpe

Hamilton… a mere mention of its name opens a bevy of conversation. But really, what more can be said about ten-dollar founding father, that has not already been said? Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Broadway behemoth already has a Grammy Award-Winning soundtrack that reached #1 on the Rap Albums chart (apparently the first cast album to ever do so), and its shows have been consistently sold out, with some re-sale tickets going upwards of $2,000. Yet Miranda’s involvement with recent films like Star Wars The Force Awakens and Moana, seemed to signal his departure from the musical.

DOOLITTLE | Sit Down, 1776

“Does anybody care?” John Adams inquires of an empty congress chamber at the climax of 1776, but he may as well ask the same of a modern, post-Hamilton audience settling for the second best founding fathers musical to grace the Broadway stage. It’s impossible to talk about 1776 today without drawing immediate comparison to the groundbreaking hip-hop musical that I have tried so hard to avoid talking about in a column but oh well, there it is. It was a comparison that City Center Encores! attempted to lean into with their latest revival of the classic 1969 musical, setting it in a modern context and boasting a “multi-racial” cast. But is that a comparison anyone should wish to invite?

The Sun’s Top 10 Albums of 2015

1.) To Pimp A Butterfly — Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar’s follow-up to 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city was perhaps the most anticipated album of the year. It seemed impossible that Lamar could equal the accomplishment of his perfect debut. Instead, he blew it away in scope, ambition and depth. Across 16 tracks and nearly 80 minutes, Lamar burrows into complex issues, using his dexterous voice to produce an astounding variety of tones and emotions, from anger to false bravado to introspection to drunken sobbing. The music itself is a history lesson in modern African-American music, blending jazz, funk, soul and classic hip-hop into one omnivorous, fluid sound.

DOOLITTLE | I’m Mad as Hell, and I’m Not Going to Take This Anymore

Throughout my tenure as a writer, editor and now columnist for the Arts & Entertainment section, my favorite tradition has remained the end-of-year lists we publish, in which we lowly critics gerrymander and jockey our favorite albums, films and TV shows for a shot at proving that our opinions are objectively correct and yours are wrong. We do this on the assumption that you care about the art about which we spend the year opining; that our recommendations and ratings may encourage you to see a play or listen to a track that you may have otherwise ignored; that, somehow, we are enriching the arts on campus and providing a necessary service to the reader. The critic’s dream. But if there is anything I have learned since coming to Cornell, it’s that you don’t care. Don’t feel bad.

DOOLITTLE | History Has Its Eyes on You: Revisionism on Stage

By SEAN DOOLITTLE

On the eve of the Battle of Yorktown, George Washington sang a few words of advice to the newly promoted Alexander Hamilton: “You have no control, who lives, who dies, who tells your story.” Or, at least, that’s what Hamilton composer-star Lin-Manuel Miranda thought George Washington should have said, because it’s a really great thematic through line for a musical about their lives. The scene itself is an introspective, even self-referential moment for a show that literally tells a story about people who have no control over the narrative. Yes, I’m talking about Hamilton in another column. Get over it. Ponder the phrase “historical fiction.” It sounds like an oxymoron, an innate paradox at first glance.