Interview: A.D. Weaver of HAMILTON at Ohio Theatre
Actor feels comfortable in Washington's skin
By: Paul Batterson Jul. 01, 2025
Like many young actors and performers, A.D. Weaver moved to New York City because of the entertainment industry. What’s different about Weaver’s story is he bit into the Big Apple to get away from Broadway instead of running towards it.
“In 2023, I decided I was done performing,” said Weaver, who plays George Washington in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s HAMILTON, which runs July 8-20 at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State Street in downtown Columbus). “I was just exhausted of trying to steer things my way. I wanted to do that whole big corporate job thing.”
In an ironic twist, Weaver’s first job in NYC was on Broadway, selling WICKED t-shirts in the lobby of the Gershwin Theatre.
“I was going to use that story in my memoir, but you can go ahead and use it,” Weaver said with a hearty laugh. “Not to be too deep, but I am a man of faith. I wholeheartedly believe God had my life chronologically set up in the way it was supposed to be set up. I can remember having this literal moment where I said, ‘God, I submit to whatever Your will is.”
The next day Weaver got a call to audition for LIEUTENANT, an Off Broadway production. Two months later, he landed the audition for HAMILTON.
When the curtain opens each night, Weaver takes a deep breath and whispers to himself, “You’re in the biggest musical in the world.”
“That opening number is so iconic, right?” he said. “Right before we say that final, ‘Alexander Hamilton,’ I talk to my 16-year-old self who was always dreaming about what it’d be like to be in the big city, being in shows, and having all of these dreams fulfilled.”
Weaver didn’t get to see many touring Broadway shows growing up in Merrillville, Ind., 10 minutes outside of Gary, Ind. (the town immortalized in THE MUSIC MAN). Yet he remembers having a seed planted in his subconscious after seeing a Tyler Perry play when he was 5.
Weaver was a standout performer in the church choir but it was his show choir teacher, Melinda Reinhart, who watered that seed. Reinhart’s family owned and operated the Ross Music Theatre, where he honed his skills and became “the theater kid I’ve always wanted to be.”
“The thing about the church is if you’re talented, no matter how old you are, you’re going to be put on the frontline,” Weaver said. “I was 15-16 years old but I was put in charge of the music and teaching people who are in their 30s and 40s, how to sing. You start to think, ‘Oh I’m talented. I can teach. I can sing. I know what I’m doing.’
“(Reinhart) taught me not to rest on my laurels. She talked about the value of a rehearsal and to be better than anybody would expect me to be. If I had a moment where I was, you know, feeling my greatness for a second, she would quickly pull on my coattails and say, ‘Hey, you're great, but you’re not that great.’”
Weaver’s childhood helped prepare him for the demands of being on the road. The Angelica company has performed over 185 shows in 12 different cities since Jan. 1, 2025, but Weaver said his first national tour hasn’t been that much of a strain.
“When I started out, I was in a touring gospel choir so we were always traveling or in a studio somewhere,” he said. “We’d get home late at night and I had to get right back up and go to school the next day. Even our school show choir was always traveling. There were a lot of times when I didn’t have a full day of school because I was singing somewhere.
“As a professional actor, I started my career in Chicago, but I still lived in Indiana. A lot of the theaters were an hour away, so I’d drive an hour or so to get to practice or to the show. I’d get home around 1 or 2 a.m. and then be at my desk by 6 or 7 a.m. for my day job. I was paying my dues.”
Unlike some of his castmates, Weaver said travel days, when the troupe leaves one city for another, are “my favorite days.”
“When it’s me and the bulk of the traveling company at an airport, it feels like it’s us against the world,” he said with a laugh. “We arrive like the Avengers.”
Weaver distinctly remembers the day he surreptitiously listened to the HAMILTON soundtrack for the first time. He was at his day job at Best Buy and was required to communicate via walkie talkie with co-workers on the sales floor. Weaver had one ear listening to the original cast recording when he was supposed to be hearing his co-workers.
“That show was all the rage,” he said. “I was just taken aback by what I was hearing. I was like there’s no way this is on Broadway. Is this going to last?”
Ten years later, Weaver feels blessed to be a part of the show’s legacy while playing George Washington. Although he doesn’t have any sort of resemblance to the traditional image of the nation’s founding father, he feels comfortable in Washington’s skin.
While many revere Washington as the commander in chief in the Revolutionary War and the nation’s first president, Weaver said at the end of the day, he is merely a mortal struggling under the burden of leadership.
Weaver’s favorite part of the show is when he’s singing “History Has Its Eyes on You.” Washington explains to Hamilton his role in the Battle of the Monongahela during the French and Indian War. Washington was part of a failed campaign that left 456 soldiers dead and 422 wounded.
“That’s the most vulnerable moment for Washington,” Weaver said. “In order to cut through all those noises and the chaos in Hamilton’s head, he must reveal the thing that he’s least proud of and how that (defeat) is what makes him tick.
“Washington still lives with that memory. He tries to get Hamilton to understand he can’t make all these wild decisions because this is how it can end up.”
Weaver paused a second when he was asked to compare Washington to LES MISERABLES’ antagonist Javert, a character he portrayed in a production at the Ross Music Theatre. He said Javert paints the world in black and white, where there’s clear absolutes of right and wrong. Washington sees the gray around him.
“Washington understands sometimes you're going to be right, sometimes you're going to be wrong, sometimes you're going to have right with a little bit of wrong mixed in,” he said. “You must weigh what the pros and cons are and what the collateral damage might be to get what you're trying to achieve.
“Every time you watch HAMILTON, you can’t choose who's the villain and who's the hero. These people are just human beings going through life moment to moment.”
In the song, “One Last Time,” Washington warns this growing country about the dangers of being divided and calls for America to be a collection of United States.
Weaver believes that message is just as poignant in 2025 as it was in 1796.
“This country is a melting pot for all people to grow and prosper,” Weaver said, his voice breaking. “I hope when people leave (HAMILTON) … they feel the unity and the humanity to lift their brother up. Hopefully we can be a nation who stands for what we said we stand for on paper.”
The fallibility of Washington and the importance of his message are only part of the reason Weaver loves his character.
“I’ve spent so much of my career portraying people who didn’t look like me or who came from a different culture than mine,” Weaver said of Miranda’s script. “(In HAMILTON) I play a part I feel was written for me.”
Finding those parts for a person of color is difficult. Finding one that matches Weaver’s 5-foot-10, 250-pound frame can be next to impossible. The actor said that larger men are often shoehorned into comedic roles rather than being cast as the leading man.
Weaver’s mission is to find roles where he can use his skills to make audiences cry, be moved, and most importantly, make them think.
“A lot of times when I am doing the show and I’m tired, I think back to when I was a teenager. I was a 16-year-old, chubby kid who would watch professional actors on the stage and try to figure out what my role would be if I were in that show,” Weaver said. “When I play Washington as this triumphant character who is like a superhero in a way, I’m doing that for that chubby, awkward 16-year-old who has never seen himself in those kind of roles.”
Videos