"I met with [original Broadway producer] Jefferey Seller straight away and said he needed to bring the show to Australia and I wanted to be part of it." Lin-Manuel Miranda created Hamilton and starred as Alexander Hamilton in the show. Hamilton is one of the most successful theatrical productions in the world. Four years into its Broadway run the show is still grossing more than $3 million a week, over $1 million more than its nearest rival The Lion King, and double the other huge theatrical phenomenon, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, another show Cassel is producing in Australia. It is about Alexander Hamilton, an orphaned immigrant who was an ally of George Washington in the American revolution and went on to become the first treasurer of the United States. Every theatre and state government wanted to host the premiere of Hamilton and a fierce battle between the New South Wales government and the Victorian government has been taking place behind the scenes for years.

Australian producer Michael Cassel. Credit:Christopher Pearce "They bid very hard and we pipped them to the post and I apologise if Mr Andrews is upset with me as a result," Ms Berejiklian said, referencing Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Neither the government or Mr Cassel would go into detail about the actual content of the deal that brings the show to Sydney. The investment would be in the millions of dollars in terms of both cash investment and in-kind support through Destination New South Wales. Tourism minister Stuart Ayres said the return on that investment will come in the form of the anticipated 137,000 tourists who will visit the city to see the show. While they are here, the government anticipates they will inject around $84 million into the economy. "[People] will be travelling from all over the world to see the Asia Pacific premiere of Hamilton," he said. Beyond the tourism benefits, Mr Ayres said the additional jobs the production would create, both on stage and behind the scenes, would also be an injection into the economy.

With the challenge of securing Hamilton a home in Australia over, Mr Cassel and his producing partners in New York now face the challenge of honouring Lin-Manuel Miranda's commitment to racially-diverse casting for the production, which tells its story through hip-hop, rap and R&B rather than traditional "show tunes". Loading Mr Seller assured that the show's commitment to diverse casting would continue in Australia. "Hip-hop is a pure experience of the African American community, it made perfect sense to have the people playing these roles, singing R&B, singing hip-hop, to be from those communities because we were choosing people to serve the music and the lyrics." The London cast members are drawn from Asian, Middle Eastern and African backgrounds, and Mr Seller said he would love to see Indigenous Australians performing in the lead roles.