Hi, I'm Stage and Stage's Lynn Menwell Miranda and you're listening to The Hamlet Cast.

Bootsing, cuts and bussing.

Hello friends, welcome back to The Hamlet Cast.

I'm Jillian and this is the third and final episode of Fergie Philippe's long-awaited return

to the podcast. Over the last two weeks, we've been all over the map. Fergie reflected on

stepping away from his role as Mulligan Madison after being with Hamilton for five years.

But if you think about it, the story starts long before that when you consider he was a fan of

the show since it was at the public, and he was tweeting at the creatives, as well as this very

podcast, talking about how he'd be in it one day. He started Hamilton in 2018 as a full stop

Mulligan, and in 2023, he walked away from it very much in Madison. That got us talking about

how the context of the show continues to evolve. The world is always changing and the way we perceive

art is going to change with it. And while Hamilton started a lot of conversations we weren't having

back in 2016, it's led to an even bigger and more layered dialogue about race,

privilege, and systemic issues that still need to be addressed. Part of that, not all of it,

but part of it, is how performers are treated. So Fergie walked us through the different types of

contracts and the ongoing negotiations with the unions, which of course led us to the writer's

strike. And because we are two very enthusiastic neurodivergent people talking into microphones,

we also laughed a lot and covered a lot of ground. It's been a wild ride, and as I assured you

last week, this is a very fun, very frenetic episode. Do we have the ever-clear in the whiskey

to blame? Perhaps. Is it because we were just so excited to do this and catch up? Absolutely.

But yeah, I mean, the ever-clear in the whiskey undeniably played a part in this. Let's get

real. All this to say, I really hope you've enjoyed these episodes as much as I have. And at the

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