Hi, I'm Stage in Stages, Lynn Manuel Miranda, and you're listening to The Hamelcast.

Boots and cuts.

Boots and cuts.

Hello, friends. Hello friends, welcome back to the Hamletcast. I'm Jillian, and here's episode two with my friend Tyler McKenzie.

Well, it's kind of episode two. It's episode two of this series, because Tyler was first on the podcast back in 2017.

He joined Hamilton six months earlier, and he had one week in between Broadway and joining the Philip Company, which hadn't even started touring yet. He was leaving for rehearsals.

So he had one week in between, and he spent his first night off with me in my old apartment, like three apartments ago. He was also on the Vegas episodes in 2018 when Mike and I had that big party recording with some of the members of the Philip Company. Oh my god, it was so much fun. Tyler went from Hamilton Broadway to an original member of Philip, and during his time on tour, he went from a swing to a universal swing

to being a universal swing and the dance captain of the Philip company.

Oh, and during lockdown, he was a professor at Penn State. Unstoppable. In June of this year,

Tyler ended his eight-year run with Hamilton, and during his last week of the show, which just

happened to be in Vegas, full circle moment, he wanted to come back on the pod to reflect on this massively important chapter in his life. So we're picking up

today with Tyler continuing his super honest look back on everything he's learned while also

honoring the amazing work he did while he was there. So here we go, episode two of this series

with Tyler McKenzie.

We started this conversation earlier, you saying that in 2019, you took a break for your mental capacity.

You wanted to focus on other things, but also like your physical health in a show that's dense. So now we're talking about your universal swinging that show. Now we're talking about you dance captaining that show when just a few years earlier, you were so aware not in those roles. You were so aware of what the show, the toll a show could take said with love, but it's still taking a toll. Absolutely. It's a monster of a show.

Absolutely.

It all, the timing is brilliant, actually.

Now that I'm like, I think also me texting you is a little selfish because what these episodes do and these conversations with you do, especially with my longevity within the show is I'm now doing,

I haven't done, the mental organization of the little things that Hamilton has thrown at me.

And, you know, the timing is beautiful.

I think about what I've learned with Penn State and teaching,

...