‘Hamilton’ Returns to Pantages Theatre With Performance for L.A. Public High School Students

variety.com:

Wyatte Grantham-Philips editorAfter almost a month and a half with no performances, Broadway on Hollywood’s production of “Hamilton” returned to the Pantages Theatre on Wednesday with a special audience: 2,600 Los Angeles public high school students.“I can’t imagine a better way to start our last six weeks here in the Pantages,” James Viggiano, company manager for the Los Angeles company of “Hamilton,” told Variety — adding that the return also marks the production’s last leg at the Pantages. “The cast always looks forward to having a house full of students because it’s an energy unlike anything else.”As countless theaters across the country know all too well, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant delays and uncertainties for bringing live performances back to the stage.

According to Viggiano, the current Los Angeles production of “Hamilton” was originally set to begin in March 2020 — but the show was shut down that month (on March 12, the day that was supposed to be the company’s first preview performance) due to public health concerns.

Rehearsals didn’t start again until July 2021, with “Hamilton” performances finally taking the Pantages stage in August. But on Dec.

24, another layoff began due to the omicron variant. “Starting and stopping is never easy, but fortunately the folks in and around the show are wonderful and really thoughtful about how we do that,” said Jeff Loeb, general manager of the Pantages. “We’re kicking off this restart with an ‘EduHam’ performance, so we have [over] 2,000 Title I LAUSD students in the building — all of which were required to do a performance art piece based on a source from the Founding Era — and so we don’t have 2,000 students, we have 2,000 performers in the.