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‘Hamilton’ Is a Must-See for Treasury Chiefs, Too

Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, left, with Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator and star of “Hamilton.”Credit...Michael Paulson/The New York Times

AMONG the parade of power players flocking to see “Hamilton” on Broadway, there is a tiny subset with a special connection to the show’s protagonist: men who have held the job Alexander Hamilton pioneered, secretary of the Treasury.

Early in the musical’s Off Broadway run at the Public Theater, Timothy F. Geithner — the nation’s 75th Treasury secretary (2009-13) — showed up. And on Wednesday night, two more Hamilton successors were in the Broadway audience: Robert E. Rubin, the 70th Treasury secretary (1995-99), and Jacob J. Lew, the current one (since 2013); they were at the same performance by coincidence, each drawn by an interest in their shared predecessor.

“If you’re secretary of the Treasury, in your outer office is a big picture of Alexander Hamilton, and there is a strong sense of Hamilton in the building,” Mr. Rubin said Thursday in a telephone interview. “His sense of fiscal responsibility is still alive in the Treasury — people do identify with Hamilton.”

Mr. Lew went to the show in large part to celebrate his wedding anniversary; he said he bought the tickets online himself. He is not the most popular figure in Hamiltonland, because he is championing an effort to redesign the $10 bill to feature a woman, which would most likely mean downgrading Hamilton’s prominent position on the currency. (Mr. Lew has said that Hamilton’s image will continue to appear on the $10 bill, but exactly how has not yet been determined.)

But he was greeted warmly by the cast after the show, and was exuberant in describing his reaction on Thursday, praising its creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the rest of the cast as “impressive both on and off the stage.”

“The show was excellent — an inspired way to bring to life for so many people an important part of our history,” Mr. Lew said by email.

He echoed Mr. Rubin’s observations about Hamilton’s influence, saying: “Alexander Hamilton left an enduring mark on our nation, and all of his successors, including me, are indebted to him. You cannot work in the Treasury building, much less in my office, without looking at his picture and thinking about the contributions he made to our nation, both in terms of our economy and our democratic system.”

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Past Treasury secretaries, from left, Robert E. Rubin, Hamilton and Timothy F. Geithner.Credit...Kevin Lamarque/Reuters; New-York Historical Society; Mario Ruiz/European Pressphoto Agency

But what does that mean about Hamilton’s place on the currency? “I am committed to honoring him,” Mr. Lew said. “We have many exciting options, and we are continuing to listen to the American people about how we honor Hamilton and honor women and the countless contributions they have made to our country. Our currency is a reflection of our values and should rightfully represent our inclusive democracy.”

Hamilton partisans opted not to argue the issue on Wednesday night.

“When I met him, I said, ‘Well, I’ve made my case,’ ” Mr. Miranda said after greeting Mr. Lew postshow. “What am I going to say that the show hasn’t already said? Let him sit with it, and see what happens.”

Ron Chernow, the Hamilton biographer whose 2004 book, “Alexander Hamilton,” inspired the musical, also declined to bring up the currency redesign. “We decided tonight was about theater, not politics,” he said.

Mr. Rubin, whose wife, Judith, is active in the theater world as chairwoman of the board of trustees at Playwrights Horizons and as a member of the Tony Awards Administration Committee, is enamored enough with Hamilton that, after leaving the federal government, he helped found the Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative at the Brookings Institution, and he is planning to see the musical again this fall with 30 people from that organization. “We talked about who we thought best symbolized a seriousness of purpose around economic policy, fiscal responsibility and support of the central government doing what needed to be done, and the figure that most seemed to symbolize this was Alexander Hamilton,” he said.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Rubin said Hamilton’s place on the currency is the decision of Mr. Lew. But he echoed the arguments of those who think efforts to feature a woman on a bill should focus on the $20 note, which features Andrew Jackson, rather than the $10 note, given Hamilton’s foundational role in the nation’s financial history. “It is interesting — it was Jackson, after all, who vetoed the charter for the Second Bank of the United States,” he said. “There is a question of why you would take Hamilton off, but that’s up to Jack.”

Mr. Geithner, who is now president of the investment firm Warburg Pincus, declined to respond to questions about the show or the currency, according to a spokeswoman, Mary Zimmerman.

Mr. Chernow said it made sense that the nation’s economic stewards would come to see the show. “It’s not surprising that they have come to pay their respects to Alexander Hamilton, who set the benchmark against which all subsequent Treasury secretaries have been measured,” he said. “He remains the patron saint of the Treasury Department with good reason.”

And, he said, Hamilton would have been “delighted by all the attention.”

“He was not a shrinking violet, as the show demonstrates,” he said. “He was very preoccupied with his place in history, and how posterity would see him, and how he would be remembered, so he’d be very happy.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Must-See for Treasury Chiefs, Too. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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