‘Hamilton’ star ready for next chapter

Associated Press

New YORK

Many theater-lovers are looking at Saturday with dread. That’s the day key members of the Broadway cast of “Hamilton” play their last performance. But Leslie Odom Jr. can hardly wait.

Odom, who just won a best leading man Tony Award in the show, is ready for the next chapter in his life to start. It’ll be filled with his songs, choreography and costumes.

While acknowledging his last show will be “bittersweet for sure,” Odom added: “I’m very excited to go out and find something new and to pour energy into my music; to go around the country and around the world with this music and meet people and connect with people, which is what I love to do most.”

Odom, who has signed a four-album deal with S-Curve Records/BMG, this summer released his first, a self-titled collection of 10 classic songs including Jerome Kern’s “Look for the Silver Lining,” Jule Styne’s “The Party’s Over” and “Joey Joey Joey” from Frank Loesser.

Odom whittled the list down from some 200 possibilities, picking tunes he felt right singing with his warm, expressive voice.

“We wanted to create a 10-track experience that was pleasurable, that was something you could put on for a dinner party or something you could put on for a long drive – that was certainly in our minds,” he said.

“But also I wanted to sing songs that might encourage you, that might make you smile.”

Odom plays Aaron Burr in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton,” the hip-hop-flavored biography about the first U.S. treasury secretary.