Lawrence graduate Erin Ramirez lands Broadway role in Hamilton
A Lawrence move to Fort Leavenworth put Erin Ramirez at Free State, where choir and drama helped launch a path from Lawrence to Eliza in Hamilton.
Free State High School’s choir and drama programs gave Erin Ramirez a launch point in Lawrence after a childhood spent moving among military bases in Europe and starting high school in Tbilisi, Georgia. When her father was reassigned to Fort Leavenworth, the family came to Douglas County, and Ramirez found the school experiences that helped carry her from Lawrence to Broadway. She is now performing in Hamilton, where she has stepped into the role of Eliza as part of the production’s ensemble and understudy structure.
Ramirez’s Broadway credits are built on years of steady work rather than a single break. The Internet Broadway Database lists her Hamilton roles as ensemble, with understudy and replacement coverage for Angelica Schuyler, Eliza Hamilton and Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds. Hamilton opened on Broadway on Aug. 6, 2015, and Ramirez’s own bio says she is NYC-based, of Peruvian ancestry and earned a BFA in musical theatre from Emerson College. Before joining the Broadway company, she performed on the Hamilton Philip Tour and toured nationally in SIX: The Musical in 2023 as an alternate queen covering Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr.
The path to Hamilton also shows the kind of adaptability that understudies and ensemble members have to maintain night after night. A January 2024 profile said Ramirez joined Hamilton’s touring cast in October 2023, was fitted for costumes on Oct. 16, joined the company in Chicago on Oct. 23, completed blocking on Oct. 28 and made an emergency Peggy debut on Oct. 29 after a COVID-related cast shortage. Broadway In Chicago later highlighted the journey in a video titled Hamilton | First Audition to Emergency Debut!, underscoring how quickly a performer can be called on to switch tracks.
For Lawrence and Douglas County families, Ramirez’s story ties local schools, military family life and professional theater into one line. She had already told herself, after hearing the Hamilton soundtrack years ago, that she would one day play Eliza Hamilton, and that goal became real through the kind of preparation that Free State, college training and touring work all demanded. Her Broadway debut was in Hamilton, and she has already played Eliza multiple times while working in the ensemble, turning a Lawrence start into a role on the biggest stage in American musical theater.
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