#475: Jonathan Dinklage // Hamilton Broadway's Concertmaster // Part One
The Hamilcast: A Hamilton Podcast
Gillian Pensavalle
4.5 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
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Summary
Grab your Rush t-shirt and your record collection because Jonathan Dinklage, Hamilton Broadway’s concertmaster, is here to blow your mind. He’s one of the coolest dudes ever and has stories for days, so buckle up.
Concertmaster is a very fancy way of saying that he’s the first violinist in the pit and he’s the direct liaison between the musicians and the conductor. Jonny tries to downplay it (and yes, the term “concertmaster” sounds stuffy and has a lot of weight to it because it’s from the 1870s) but it’s a VERY important role. It’s a gig he almost didn’t take because when Alex Lacamoire called him to do a reading Jonny was like, “I don’t know, man, a reading?” But Jonny heard something in Alex’s voice that made him think that this was something he shouldn’t pass up.
In addition to Hamilton, Jonny’s a world class musician, arranger, composer, and producer. He’s worked on Broadway for over 30 years - both in the pit and on original cast recordings, he has about a zillion film and tv credits, and he’s played all over the world with legendary musicians, including and most importantly: Rush.
Imagine really, really loving a band for your entire life, spending hours rocking out in your living room (or in the woods with a boombox), fantasizing about being on stage with them, and then one day… there you are… on tour with your idols, ACTUALLY living out your dream. It is the coolest story and like most cool stories, Paul Rudd is involved.
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Stage in Stages, Lynn Manuel Miranda, and you're listening to The Hamelcast. |
| 0:05.1 | Boots and cuts. |
| 0:06.4 | Boots and cuts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hey, hey, everyone. |
| 0:19.0 | Welcome back to the Hamelcast. |
| 0:20.0 | I'm so excited because today I'm here with Johnny Delcast. I'm Jillian. |
| 0:23.7 | I'm so excited because today I'm here with Johnny Dinklage. |
| 0:24.6 | Hey, Jillian. |
| 0:25.3 | What's happening? |
| 0:26.0 | Hey, Johnny. |
| 0:27.2 | So good to see you again. |
| 0:27.8 | How are you? |
| 0:28.1 | Great. |
| 0:28.4 | Good. |
| 0:29.5 | Really good today. |
| 0:30.4 | It's my day off. |
| 0:31.5 | So I'm always good on the day off. |
| 0:40.6 | Well, I'm always so appreciative when people come to talk about their job on their day off. So thank you very much for doing that. Of course. Before we do anything else, can you just let the listeners know your pronouns, please? |
| 0:45.8 | Sure, he, him. Thank you. Okay, so it would take me like an hour to read all of your accomplishments, |
| 0:50.0 | but you are a world-class musician. You play the violin, you play the viola. You're an arranger, |
| 0:54.5 | you're a composer, you're a producer, you're the concert master of Hamilton, and we will get into exactly what that means. But, I mean, you're like the busiest guy. I mean, you're working at |
| 0:59.4 | Hamilton on a regular basis, right? Yeah. I mean, now that it's been 10 years, I'm there, you know, |
... |
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