Ari Afsar entered the world of musical theater with a bang – taking on the role of Eliza Hamilton in the Chicago production of Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Hamilton. But long before this spotlight, Afsar was writing songs and performing. After appearing on American Idol at the age of 16, the singer went on earn the Miss California title, compete in the Miss United States pageant, and release the 2019 EP Somewhere I Thought I’d Be.
Read the earlier article:
Hamilton Alumna Ari Afsar Writes & Stars in New Musical “Jeanette”
Afsar’s next project draws on all of her skills and interests, from musical theater to songwriting to politics. The project: Jeanette, a musical about the life of Jeanette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress in 1916. Hayat spoke to Afsar about the musical, how the pandemic has affected the project, her family in Bangladesh, and where art and politics meet.
Interview with Ari Afsar
Can you tell me a little bit first about where Jeanette is now in terms of how the pandemic has changed the production plan, how things have changed since you began…is there still a plan for live shows in the future, I hope?
There’s so much that is unknown. But, we are really excited – in the alternate universe I always say, we were on our way with a huge New York workshop, going to Canada and Arizona and Montana…but the most exciting thing we were going to do was perform at the Library of Congress for the Chiefs of Staff and cabinet members. However, as soon as that was canceled, I thought “what is the show really about?” Because in my opinion, art is something that changes culture, and you have to change culture before you can change policy.
So what we’ve been doing is offering a 25-minute virtual musical, through story-telling, through narration, and through music. We have been offering this to any Progressive candidate in any local, state or federal office that is running, and we had the privilege to endorse and support and fundraise for Corey Bush in Missouri, Mark Kelly in Arizona, Doug Jones next week and Tammy Duckworth in Illinois – some really amazing folks. So that’s been the most exciting thing in my mind, that we’re able to actively participate in. We just finished reading a Zoom reading with some incredible Broadway actors, so Karen Olivo and Beth Malone and Jessica Vosk…so we’re continuing to develop but in terms of like what exactly is the next step… who knows.
Yeah, who knows about anything right now…but that’s super exciting. A lot of projects like this would be kind of stalled with the pandemic, so it’s great that you have found ways to make it count. So tell me a little bit about Jeanette Rankin – what really stood out to you, that made you decide to write this musical?
Well, definitely being the first female Congress member elected into office, four years before the ratification of the 19th amendment is crazy to me. Being the first and the last woman from Montana to be in the house or the Senate – there has not been another female identifying Congress member from Montana. Which hopefully will change this election – there’s an awesome candidate running in the House. And then of course, her being a queer woman, which actually took a year to discover, that was really hidden. I didn’t know that piece of information and of course that’s not taught – the only folks you know who Jeannette Rankin is are Montanans, and [her sexuality] is just not taught. And I think that it is the responsibility of the next generation, to be able to retell the history in a way that is equitable and just and authentic, and not rewrite it in a way that is untrue.
So you first started this in 2017?
17, yeah.
So when did you really start working with Lauren M. Gunderson and really developing it into what it is now?
Yeah, so I essentially discovered who she was with just a Google Search, I just asked: “Who is the first woman to be elected to congress?” An interesting question that popped into my brain. And I started researching the fact that nobody knew who she was, and then I first wrote a concept album about her because…that’s just I guess what you do, is you write an album about a woman in history.
Perfectly normal.
Yeah, exactly…so then I started performing it a lot. We Won’t Sleep I wrote really early on, and performed it at the United State of women in Chicago and LA where I open for Michelle Obama, and at the Women’s March, and got the whole cast of Hamilton to come up and do it. Then I sent the album to Lauren [Gunderson], a mutual friend connected us. So June or July in 2017 we had a call, and by the end of the call she was like “so we’re writing a musical” and I was like “okay, I guess that’s what we’re doing!” And then we just collaborated from three thousand miles apart.
We Won’t Sleep by Ari Afsar
So by that point you had already written a concept album…so how many of the songs had you already written by then, how much of the creative work had been done by that point?
Only like six or seven songs. Which we actually are dropping a concept album at the end of next month, which is really exciting. But only six or seven songs, so kind of just the sound of the music has been written. And then Lauren and I created an outline, and then I went to Nashville for a month and wrote like 15 songs just from the outline.
So you’ve starred in Hamilton and you’ve obviously written tons of songs in your career, but you’d never written songs for a musical, or written a musical before.
No, no, for sure – I definitely identify as a songwriter before an actor, ever since American Idol that’s just been my kind of main thing to go to. But yeah, writing a musical is completely different than songwriting.
Were there any particular songs or areas or genres in the musical that came less easily, or did it all kind of fall into your personal style and sound easily?
Well I think that’s the blessing of being in Hamilton. When the idea got instigated, by no stretch of the imagination am I a similar composer to Lin at all, but his influence from outside of musical theater is obviously reflected, so having that established notion gave me the freedom to actually bring my songwriting style – I mean I’ve developed a sound just as a songwriter because I’ve been writing since I was 16 years old, so being in that show allowed me to have the freedom to really just be 100% in with my own sound.
Ari Afsar on American Idol
You grew up in California, but your father is from Bangladesh, right? Have you visited there, do you have family there?
Yeah, yeah – I’ve visited there, I actually have a lot of family there. I just recently went after a very long time of not going there in December, which was such an incredible experience to be back there. It had been really, really long and I was there for three weeks in Dhaka and I also went to my family’s village in Noakhali. We were supposed to go back in ‘21 but that’s clearly not going to be happening…
At least you got in there you know right at the last chance you could have had to travel – and also return.
Exactly, exactly. But yeah, my father is Bangladeshi. I identified as Muslim growing up, but in the sense more of not eating pork and celebrating Eid every once in awhile.
Okay so one final kind of question – so you’ve done this whole project about Jeanette Rankin, and you played Eliza Hamilton, one of the most impressive women in American history… so do you have anyone else in mind that you think deserves the musical treatment that you might consider in the future for another musical?
Oh, goodness yes! There are so many women, and there are so many women that are not even told at all – especially women of color in the suffrage movement, black women. I don’t know if I’ll ever do a musical again, I guess never say never but writing a musical is freaking hard, it’s so hard. So I don’t know about a musical, but I’m very interested in women in politics, and that’s kind of really where my passion lies right now. So there are tons of women and I think that they all should be lifted up and raised and I’d love to see a world in which all of the shows on Broadway and/or TV shows that are about women in history.
