'Hamilton' is 9th musical to win Pulitzer

When Hamilton won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama on Monday, it became the ninth musical in the award’s 100-year history to earn the honor. Here’s a roll call of its predecessors:

• Next to Normal (2010)
• Rent (1996)
• Sunday in the Park With George (1985)
• A Chorus Line (1976)
• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1962)
•  Fiorello! (1960)
•  South Pacific (1950)
• Of Thee I Sing (1932)

Now you know.

In honoring Hamilton and creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Pulitzer judges called the work “a landmark American musical about the gifted and self-destructive founding father whose story becomes both contemporary and irresistible.”

In July 2008, the story of Hamilton‘s creation goes, Miranda was vacationing in Mexico, where he read Ron Chernow’s 800-page New York Times best-selling biography, Alexander Hamilton, chronicling the life of the first Treasury Secretary of the United States. Hamilton’s story, Miranda says on his website, captivated him and demonstrated how the very human struggles of the American Revolution continue to manifest themselves in today’s society.

Hamilton‘s Pulitzer is no surprise — the show is widely expected to sweep this season’s top theater awards — but it wasn’t alone in earning Pulitzer praise. The Humans by Stephen Karam and Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins were recognized as finalists.

The Humans, which details a fractious family’s Thanksgiving gathering, is described as “a profoundly affecting drama that sketches the psychological and emotional contours of an average American family.” The show began off-Broadway with the Roundabout Theatre before moving to Broadway.

Gloria concerns an ambitious group of editorial assistants at a notorious Manhattan magazine. It began in Chicago and was then staged off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre. The Pulitzer panel called it a “play of wit and irony that deftly transports the audience from satire to thriller and back again.”

Look for both in a regional theater near you in the next two or three seasons. Hamilton, while still selling out on Broadway, has announced plans for an open-ended run to begin Sept. 27 in Chicago. A separate national tour will start in March 2017 in San Francisco (a 21-week run), and then move to Los Angeles (Aug. 11-Dec. 30, 2017) before visiting other cities. A London tour is also possible.

When might Atlanta see Hamilton? Broadway in Atlanta has announced that it will play the Fox Theatre sometime in the 2017-18 season.