arts & life

theate r

Digg It

Alice Burdick Schweiger | Special to the Jewish News

The electrifying
Hamilton star chats
with the JN.

details

The Tony Awards will
air Sunday, June 12,
at 8 pm on CBS.
For more about the
awards, see “ Tony Time ”
on the next page.

W

hen Daveed Diggs
first heard the hip-
hop music written
for Hamilton, he knew this was
going to be something special.
Turns out, he was right. It just
earned 16 Tony nominations —
the most ever for any show on
the New York stage. And Diggs,
34, who plays both Thomas
Jefferson and the Marquis de
Lafayette, is nominated for Best
Featured Actor in a Musical.
It’s a perfect fit for the actor,
who grew up writing rap and
performing warp-speed rhymes
as a hip-hop artist in his home-
town of Oakland, Calif., before
studying theater at Brown
University. Following graduation,
Diggs returned home to Oakland
to teach middle school, develop-
ing a rap curriculum for seventh-
graders in the Bay Area. The
prolific musician also performed
with his hip-hop group, Clipping.
His dad, Dountes Diggs, is
African American and his mom,
Barbara Needell, is white and
Jewish. Diggs was raised Jewish
and went to Hebrew School; his
name, Daveed, means “beloved”
in Hebrew.
In a recent interview with the
Jewish News, Diggs dishes on his
Tony nomination, what it’s like to
be a part of Hamilton history and
his Jewish roots.
JN: Where were you when
they announced your name as a
Tony nominee?
DD: I was in my bed asleep.
My brother [Malcolm] and my
best friend broke into my house
and came running in with a
bottle of champagne and jumped
on my bed. I knew they were
announcing the nominees, but I
thought someone would text me.

JN: You had a longtime
friendship with Lin-Manuel
Miranda, the show’s creator,
but how did you wind up get-
ting these plum roles in the
show?
DD: I was doing a freestyle
show with another group and
the director, Tommy [Kail], said
they were writing a new musical
and asked if I would be inter-
ested. I had never done a musical
before — or been in a show in
New York. They kept calling me
to come back. I never auditioned,
but I assumed I would do this
and they would replace me at
some point — but they didn’t! It
opened Off-Broadway and when
it transferred to Broadway, they
kept me in the show.
JN: At the very beginning,
when Hamilton first opened
Off-Broadway, did you ever
anticipate it would turn out to
be such a phenomenon — or
cause such a frenzy to get tick-
ets?
DD: No, we really didn’t think
about it. It was never about
ticket sales for us — although I
am sure the producers thought
about it. We were all just dedi-
cated to making the best show
we could and honoring the
works of Lin-Manuel. We fell in
love with the music even before
it became a show. Soon after it
opened downtown it sold out and
people couldn’t get in, but I just
remember going to work every
day and trying to make it better
and better.
JN: Do you have long-lost
relatives and friends contacting
you for tickets?
DD: People contact me on
social media — if I don’t remem-
ber them, I don’t respond if they

Daveed Diggs is nominated for a Tony for his roles in Hamilton,
produced by native Oak Parker Jeffrey Seller.

are requesting a ticket. But I am
happy to reply to fans and aspir-
ing actors about the show.
JN: What has been the most
surreal moment?
DD: Probably meeting the
president the third time, when
we [the entire cast] went to the
White House and he let us hang
out and run all over making
crazy videos and performing
with the Marine Corps Band.
That speaks a lot to the wild
journey of this show, but also it
speaks a lot about this president
and family in the White House
and the environment they cre-
ated for us.
JN: What was it like seeing
President Obama in the audi-
ence in New York?
DD: That was nerve-wracking.
The Secret Service had been
sweeping the theater for two
weeks; there was press every-
where outside and we knew
which seat he was sitting in. We
wanted everything to go well.
JN: Aside from Obama, has
there been anyone in the audi-
ence who has made you star
struck?
DD: Tina Fey. She came to
see the show when we were still
Downtown. She is kind of the
funniest person alive and when
she came back stage, I didn’t
know what to say.

JN: Your mom is Jewish.
When you were growing up, did
you identify as being Jewish?
DD: Yes, and I still do. I cel-
ebrated all the Jewish holidays,
and we lit the Shabbat candles
every Friday night when I was
young. My mom wanted to make
sure I felt a connection to my
religious heritage. If I remember,
I still light Shabbat candles. My
mom has a lot of family in New
York, and she came here for
Passover and we went to a seder.
JN: How often do you get to
see your parents?
DD: My mom comes here a
fair amount. She retired about
a year and a half ago. My dad
drives a bus in San Francisco. My
mom ran a child-welfare research
center out of UC Berkeley. She is
dedicated to the foster-care sys-
tem and researching data about
race issues and how race plays
out in the foster-care system.
Both my parents will be coming
out for the Tony’s.
JN: Did you write an accep-
tance speech for the Tony’s?
DD: Everybody is talking
about the Tony’s but I don’t have
time to really think about it — I
just go from one event to anoth-
er. So I didn’t write a speech and
I’m not worrying about Tony
Awards — which is probably the
best way to go!

*

June 9 • 2016

51