Official White House Photo: President Barack Obama Visits On Stage With HAMILTON Company

Chief Official White House Photographer Pete Souza has presented his annual gallery of photos chronicling the year for President Barack Obama.

It includes a wonderful glimpse of the president on stage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, greeting the cast and crew of Broadway's Hamilton after enjoying the July 18th matinee performance with his daughters, Malia and Sasha.

The president and his children were treated to the performance of the title role's alternate, Javier Muñoz, whose turn it was to go on. The musical's author/star Lin-Manuel Miranda enjoyed the matinee from the audience.

The president attended Hamilton a second time, this time with Miranda in the lead role, on November 2nd, when a special Monday night performance served as a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.

In a conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Marilynne Robinson, published in The New York Review Of Books, President Obama had lavish praise for Hamilton, not just as an entertainment but as a work that can encourage creativity in teaching history to America's kids.

"It sounds initially like it would not work at all," he says of the concept of telling the story of the founding fathers using hip-hop. "And it is brilliant, and so much so that I'm pretty sure this is the only thing that Dick Cheney and I have agreed on-during my entire political career-it speaks to this vibrancy of American democracy, but also the fact that it was made by these living, breathing, flawed individuals who were brilliant. We haven't seen a collection of that much smarts and chutzpah and character in any other nation in history, I think."

First Lady Michele Obama had previously attended the show during its Off-Broadway run at The Public Theater.

Click here for the full gallery.

The new musical Hamilton has book, music and lyrics by Tony and Grammy Award-winning composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also plays the title role. The musical is directed by Thomas Kail, with choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler and music direction and orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire. Hamilton is inspired by Ron Chernow's biography "Alexander Hamilton."

$10 front row seats for Hamilton - the new musical about the $10 Founding Father, AlexanderHamiltonare on sale for each show by lottery. THE LOTTERY begins two and half hours prior to each performance when patrons may enter their name at the Richard Rodgers Theatre (226 W. 46 St.) for a chance to buy up to two front row tickets for $10 each -Hamilton for "Hamilton." The winner's names will be drawn 2 hours before show time. Entrants must present photo ID, and the winners must pay with cash at the box office.

The cast of Hamilton is comprised of Lin-Manuel Miranda (Alexander Hamilton), Daveed Diggs(Marquis De Lafayette,Thomas Jefferson), Renée Elise Goldsberry (Angelica Schuyler),Christopher Jackson (George Washington),Jonathan Groff (King George), Jasmine Cephas Jones (Peggy Schuyler, Maria Reynolds), Javier Muñoz (Hamilton alternate), Okieriete Onaodowan(Hercules Mulligan, James Madison), Leslie Odom, Jr. (Aaron Burr),Anthony Ramos(John Laurens, PhilipHamilton) and Phillipa Soo (ElizaHamilton).

HAMILTON is the acclaimed new musical about the scrappy young immigrant Alexander Hamilton, the $10 Founding Father who forever changed America with his revolutionary ideas and actions. During his life cut too short, he served as George Washington's chief aide, was the first Treasury Secretary, a loving husband and father, despised by his fellow Founding Fathers and shot to death by Aaron Burr in their legendary duel.