Department of Theatre, Film, and Digital Production

The two white male cosponsors, a Democrat and a Republican, dressed as King George and Hamilton, respectively, as they rapped the resolution in the state senate. InHamilton, chief creator Lin-Manuel Miranda stakes out space for an immigrant from the Caribbean who was in the room where the United States of America was founded. Based on Ron Chernow's biography,Hamiltonfollows the struggles and successes of Alexander Hamilton in a story largely told by his nemesis, Aaron Burr. The musical opened Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 2015 and subsequently moved to Broadway. With its Founders Chic historical approach, hip-hop aesthetic, and multiracial cast, this Broadway blockbuster has earned substantial commercial and critical acclaim from across the political spectrum. Former President Barack Obama joked, “Hamilton, I'm pretty sure, is the only thing Dick Cheney and I agree on.”

The 2008 premiere of In the Heights marked a significant moment in the history of American musical theatre, generating increased visibility for Latine artists while coinciding with the emergence of a rapidly expanding body of Latine and Caribbean musical theatre. Despite this growth, the field lacks a comprehensive record of its scope, development, and diversity. This project addresses that archival and scholarly gap through a living digital archive documenting more than 400 Latine and Caribbean musicals developed and produced since 2008, including works across the United States, the Caribbean, and the global diaspora. Rather than positioning Latine and Caribbean musical theatre as a discrete or unified genre, the archive conceptualizes it as a transnational and diasporic field shaped by migration, colonial histories, cultural memory, racial formation, and intersecting identities. Entries document artists, development histories, productions, and related contextual information, providing a record of the field’s linguistic, cultural, geographic, and aesthetic plurality. The archive further foregrounds the contributions of AfroLatine and Caribbean Black artists, Indigenous communities, and queer and trans creators, while tracing the diverse musical and theatrical traditions through which artists challenge and expand dominant conventions of musical theatre. By consolidating and preserving this dispersed body of work, the project establishes a resource for scholarly research, artistic practice, pedagogy, and future archival inquiry while contributing to a more comprehensive history of contemporary Latine and Caribbean musical theatre.