Title
Recognizing and congratulating Leslie Odom, Jr., for his Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for his role as Aaron Burr in Hamilton.
Body
WHEREAS, Leslie Odom, Jr., was born in New York and grew up in East Oak Lane in Philadelphia, where he sang solos in the church choir at Germantown's Canaan Baptist Church. Mr. Odom attended Masterman, where he honed his skills in writing and reciting speeches. He received arts scholarships and attended theater classes, workshops, and plays across the City, including at the historic Freedom Theater, Pennsylvania's oldest African American theater; and
WHEREAS, In 1998, Mr. Odom attended an open audition for Rent as a 17 year-old 11th grader and landed a small role, making him the youngest actor ever cast in the show. After Rent, he returned to finish high school, and then spent four years attending Carnegie Mellon University's theater program and nine years acting on television in Los Angeles; and
WHEREAS, Mr. Odom has been working with Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, for almost three years. In the summer of 2013, Mr. Odom saw a workshop of what was then called the Hamilton Mixtape as part of a festival of new work at Vassar and New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse Theater. A few months later, Mr. Miranda asked Mr. Odom to join the next workshop in fall 2013; and
WHEREAS, Hamilton is a Pulitzer Prize-winning musical that has become a phenomenon by using hip-hop and a racially diverse cast of black and Hispanic actors to tell the story of the early Republic and life of founding father Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton has become one of Broadway's all-time biggest hits, with eight shows a week. President Barack Obama and celebrities including Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and Oprah have all attended the performance, and tickets have become notoriously difficult to get. Hamilton received a record 16 Tony Award nominations, including Best New Musical...
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