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Every night, Leslie Odom Jr. kills Lin-Manuel Miranda. To be precise, Odom plays Aaron Burr opposite Miranda's Alexander Hamilton in the Broadway musical _Hamilton_. The Pulitzer
Prize-winning musical has become a phenomenon by using hip-hop and a racially diverse cast of black and Hispanic actors to tell the story of the early Republic. And night after night, Odom
laments the infamous duel between Burr and Hamilton. "I really do feel bad about killing him every night, I really do," he tells _Ask Me Another_ host Ophira Eisenberg at The Bell
House in Brooklyn, NY. While _Hamilton_ is undoubtedly Odom's most high-profile show to date, it was not Odom's Broadway debut. A 17-year-old Odom skipped class to audition for
_Rent_, and to his surprise, he got the part. But the lure of Broadway did not keep him for long: Odom returned to finish high school and continued his studies at Carnegie Mellon University.
Since then, Odom has appeared on Broadway's _Leap of Faith_ and on TV shows like the musical drama _Smash_. Playing Aaron Burr in _Hamilton_, however, has challenged the performer to
unlearn his studies. "We want to see passion. We want to see where it's ugly and scary. We want to see you do the things we're too afraid to do on stage. That was the
unlearning process. And _Hamilton_ offers me the opportunity every single night to go to places that are scary and to be vulnerable," Odom explains to Eisenberg, "We were given
permission every single day to fail." While on the _Ask Me Another_ stage, the Broadway star gave the audience a sneak peek of the musical by singing "Dear Theodosia,"
accompanied by _Hamilton's_ guitarist Robin Macatangay, as well as a song from his debut self-titled album. And if that wasn't enough, Odom joined Jonathan Coulton to lead a music
game to the tune of Taylor Swift's hit, "Shake It Off." _This segment originally aired on April 21, 2016._ ------------------------- HIGHLIGHTS: ON HOW MUCH HE KNEW ABOUT
ALEXANDER HAMILTON I knew as much as Michael Bay put in that commercial. I knew that Aaron Burr shot him in a duel. I knew that he was on the ten-dollar bill. I knew he wasn't a
president. I knew that little tidbit, some people get that confused, but I didn't know much. People don't teach the nuance of this history in school. That's a shame. Hopefully
this will change that. ON THE WRITING OF _HAMILTON_ It's an incredible achievement in writing from Lin Manuel Miranda. I think it's just beautifully written. It kind of came out
of him like a fever dream. A six-year fever dream. It really poured out of him. I'd get a new piece of music in front of me--I just gotta tell you, this is so rare--it was finished. You
work on something in the development usually there's a development process. We would get stuff that we were doing exactly the way we got it on the first draft. Because it was perfect.
That never happens. ON AUDITIONING FOR _RENT_ AS A HIGH SCHOOLER I was in eleventh grade. I cut school and went to the audition. I did not go into that audition thinking I'm going to be
in _Rent_ anytime soon. But, I was just plucked from high school--the things that a 17-year-old is thinking about--into the center of my wildest dreams. I did the show for a very short time
and then went back to finish high school and went to college. My parents did a good job; they were like, "Congratulations, you're in a Broadway show. So, what college are you
going to go to. Because that's still the plan!" _Heard on Leslie Odom Jr.: Aaron Burr, Sir_ Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.