It is great to be a white actor on Broadway. In fact, it's highly recommended that if you want to make it big on the stage, you should be white. Any role you want is yours – French revolutionaries, deformed tenants of an opera house, Disney characters, 1960's businessmen, William Shakespeare himself. There's so many roles out there on the Great White Way for us white men. We've got it made out there. That is, until you're looking to be in the biggest show on Broadway in years. Then, despite the Founding Fathers all being white ex-British men, you're unable to audition for the part of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, or Alexander Hamilton. You're stuck with the minor character of King George III. You get three songs that are all under four minutes. But why can't you have one of the lead roles? What makes you different? It's simple really – us white actors have had it too good for too long.

When I was in my sophomore year of high school, I was involved in the musical Once On This Island. The show is about a peasant community an unnamed but heavily implied Haiti. Now, I attended a school where the student body was whiter than a Happy Days convention in Dallas. So a bunch of white kids were running around in traditional Haitian clothing, singing Caribbean music and trying to get an audience to believe that we were the poor, lower-class citizens. This did not work at all. In fact, one of the first lines in the script is “And the peasants, black as night, eternally at the music of the wind and the sea...” We had to use the alternative lines throughout the show that removed references to race and color. A show designed for a non-white troupe was being performed by all white actors.

Enter Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2015 magnum opus. Miranda has stated that the show is “the story of America then, told by the America now.” Using a rap/hip-hop influence, Miranda's score is written for minorities in major roles – the only white actor in the original cast was Jonathan Groff, who plays King George III. The show received its share of controversy in early 2016, as the casting call asked for non-white actors for the principal roles. The production was being declared racist and discriminatory, with sources such as Fox News going so far as to say that casting Daveed Diggs as Thomas Jefferson is true racism, as the real Jefferson was a white slave owner. At the time of writing this article, Hamilton has just won eleven Tony awards, a Pulitzer, a Grammy, and countless other awards. For a show that is supposedly racist towards the struggling white actor, it's doing pretty well with the rich white men who run it all. Tickets are currently selling for thousands of dollars, with the lines for the daily ticket lottery and cancellation tickets stretching around the block. When tickets went on sale after the Tony Awards on June 12, 2016, they were sold out through that next May by morning. The people seeing it are everyone from the rich millionaire celebrities to people from the poorer side of town, trying to see what this is all about.

Hamilton is important because for once, the leading roles are not open to white actors. The roles are designed and written for minorities, not the general acting population. While this does destroy the historical accuracy of the show (to which Miranda says is up for debate), it does not affect the viewing of the show itself. And it's not just about the life and times of the man who created our financial system, but also about representation in a field that has none. Most of the leading actors on Broadway are white, and it is much more likely for a white actor to be given an iconic role over an actor of color.

When the late Kyle Jean-Baptiste stepped in for a few evening performances of Les Miserables, the news reported him as being the first black actor to play Jean Valjean on Broadway. Most sources did not also report that he was also the youngest Valjean in the show's professional history, at the age of 21. Jean-Baptiste's race was brought in by the media instead of age to show how Broadway is evolving and opening, all of which was untrue until Miranda brought Hamilton to the Richard Rogers Theater. His race was not what mattered to those viewing his performance - it was the talent and ability that won over the crowd. It is worth noting that Hamilton and Les Miserables are performed virtually next door to each other, and have at times worked with each other – Jean-Baptiste appeared in a short performance outside the Richard Rogers Theater before the drawing for winners of the Hamilton lottery, and Miranda played the part of the Loud Hailer for one night.

As a white actor, it is slightly disappointing that I will never have the opportunity to play Hamilton, Burr, or any real lead in this show, except for a minor supporting character. But at the same time, I am glad that there is a major show on the Great White Way that is not all white guys playing other white guys. The struggling black actor, the Latino man performing on the streets, the Asian-American who can belt out emotionally charged lyrics like second nature now all have a chance to audition and be seriously considered for the roles. Finally, there are roles that are more than just the token minority available to them. In ten years time, there will be a second, third, and maybe even fourth new cast for the show. Us white actors trying to make it big have more than enough shows to audition for and fight to get our names out there. All the young actors who wouldn't have a shot at a lead because of their race now have something to audition for and not be worried about someone else taking the part. The world has been turned upside down - and much like the Battle of Yorktown, this massive change will only make things better for the unknowns rising to the top.