For the better part of a year, Broadway sensation Hamilton’s free #Ham4Ham performances have delighted the #HamBoys and #HamGirls who line the internet and the sidewalk outside the play’s Richard Rodgers Theatre. The minishows have taken many forms, from poetry readings to ballet recitals to trivia talks to quirky collaborations with show creator Lin-Manuel Miranda’s deep roster of superfriends. And for his latest #Ham4Ham, Miranda recruited a bona fide theater legend: actress and singer Patti LuPone.
You may know LuPone as Eva Perón from the original Broadway run of Evita or Fantine from the original London run of Les Misérables, or maybe you just know her as the mom from TV’s Life Goes On. On this day, she performed George M. Cohan’s sentimental standard “Give My Regards to Broadway,” whose narrator sings to a friend getting ready to sail to America. LuPone’s casually commanding rendition earned loud cheers from the crowd, but the best reaction of all was Miranda’s smiling, doe-eyed awe. Apparently, no amount of success can keep a guy from slipping into smitten fandom before a childhood hero.
