NEW YORK — Christopher Jackson, a member of the original cast of Broadway’s blockbuster musical “Hamilton,” is returning to the show to once again play George Washington.
Jackson, who received a Tony Award nomination for his performance alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Alexander Hamilton, is set to rejoin the production at the Richard Rodgers Theatre from Sept. 8 through Jan. 3.
“I wanted to reconnect with the thing that, in many ways, made me feel like an artist unlike anything I had done before,” Jackson told The Associated Press. “I wanted to experience that again.”
He becomes the second original cast member to step back into the production, following Leslie Odom Jr., who returned last year as Aaron Burr. Odom’s run helped propel “Hamilton” back to the top of the Broadway box office, with the show taking in more than $4 million in a single week for the first time since 2018.
Jackson said the idea of returning took shape after he reunited with fellow cast members during the musical’s 10th anniversary celebrations last year.
“There’s a different kind of energy and aliveness in this show,” he said. “The timing felt right and, honestly, I needed that spark and that challenge again.”
Before landing “Hamilton,” Jackson played Simba in “The Lion King,” Benny in “In the Heights” and Delray in “Memphis.” He also was in “After Midnight,” “Bronx Bombers” as Derek Jeter and “Holler If Ya Hear Me,” the musical that used Tupac Shakur songs. He was a composer and songwriter for the children’s television programs “The Electric Company” and “Sesame Street.”
After “Hamilton,” Jackson had a role in the CBS drama “Bull” and HBO Max’s “And Just Like That,” returned to Broadway in “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Freestyle Love Supreme,” and sang in the hit animated movie “Moana.”
“I haven’t stopped working since I left ‘Hamilton.’ I’ve been very fortunate,” Jackson says. “But there’s nothing that I have done that has challenged me in the way that show does.”
Jackson left the show in November 2016 after having been with “Hamilton” since it began performances in early 2015 off-Broadway. The Broadway show won 11 Tony Awards, including best new musical, best book and best score. The cast album was a blockbuster and the show has toured to packed houses.
Jackson calls the Richard Rodgers Theatre his “favorite building in New York” and the site of the “greatest, most profound artistic moments of my life. I want to see if I can go in there and have new ones.”
Many in the cast alongside Jackson were relatively unknown to the wider world when they hit the stage: Daveed Diggs, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jonathan Groff, Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos and Phillipa Soo. Even Miranda wasn’t yet a brand name.
Jackson — the subject of the song “Washington on Your Side” — will return to sing such songs as “Right Hand Man,” “History Has Its Eyes on You” and “Yorktown.”
He says he’ll have to recapture the muscle memory of the show but there are benefits, like that his children can see him play the role as young adults. Plus, he knows his way around the theater.
“I just don’t have to look for where the bathrooms are. I know where all the bathrooms are. I know how to get into the stage door. I know where to park, how long it takes me to go from Point A to Point B.”
