Clark looked over at one of his students, Eddie Orsi.

“Eddie, this is your song,” Clark said. “I put this on for you.”

It may have been a little too early for Orsi to respond enthusiastically, but he did start lip-syncing, “Everyone give it up for America’s favorite fighting Frenchman.”

Lake Placid High School students are currently participating in the Hamilton Education Program. The curriculum from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History has students learning about the founding of the U.S. – Alexander Hamilton’s influence in particular – writing and performing original songs, raps or poems and attending Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical at the Richard Rogers Theatre in Manhattan.

“If you look at a textbook of our history, it’s not interesting,” Clark said. “I’m a history teacher, and the textbooks are not interesting. I think what (Miranda) is trying to do is to make sure that students understand that even though these things happened centuries ago, these are real people. These are their stories. These are flawed individuals, but they also did magnificent things. It’s not just the textbook version of, ‘He was the secretary of the Treasury, and he wanted a bank.'”

“Hamilton” was inspired by the 2004 Ron Chernow 700-plus-page biography of the same name, and it debuted in February 2015. The story follows the life of the first secretary of the Treasury, highlighting the Revolutionary War and the founding of America. The idea of a hip-hop take on American history may seem a little corny at first, like a cringy bit from a ’90s sitcom, but Miranda’s show was an instant cultural phenomenon. It’s one of the most successful Broadway musicals of all time. Songs from it have been performed at the White House for the Obamas, and the album won a Grammy and reached platinum status.

Two of the goals of the Hamilton Education Program are to give more audiences a chance to see the musical and learn about the history behind the show.

“Hamilton” has become so popular that good seats in the orchestra’s lower rows cost upward of $1,500.

“I think Miranda is definitely an ambassador of the arts,” Clark said, “and he realized that many of the people who go to musicals – it wasn’t necessarily a diverse crowd. This offers the opportunity to a lot of people who wouldn’t have the means to see a Broadway musical.”

Clark said he’s been trying for the past two years to get LPHS accepted into the program.

“I’ve been kind of pestering them with applications and emails, and we got picked right before Christmas.”

Firstly, the students study colonial American and the Revolution. Then the curriculum asks them to pick a topic based on a document, a historical moment or an influential figure, and to write a poem or song about the topic using primary sources as references. Finally, the students perform and record their projects. Every student gets to attend the musical, but some will get to perform their original pieces onstage at the Richard Rogers Theatre.

Clark said writing an original song or poem and then performing it can be daunting for high school students, but many of the kids are trying their best and getting more comfortable with the project.

“A couple of the kids had ideas for pieces before we really even started,” he said. “We have all levels of excitement. The kids that were apprehensive are still a little nervous but starting to get into it, and the kids who are already into it are trying to hone their ideas down. You’ll see kids in a lot of different places, which is, I think, typical for 11th grade.”

Senior Adalyne Perryman is writing a poem about the duel between Hamilton and former Vice President Aaron Burr, which fatally wounded Hamilton and led to his death the next day.

“I wanted to delve into the end of his life,” Perryman said. “I also wanted to get into him saying goodbye to (his wife) Eliza and his legacy and career after Burr. It just seemed like an interesting piece.”

Perryman has a background in theater and recently wrote and directed the annual murder mystery at the high school. She said she’s been listening to the soundtrack ever since came out but couldn’t really describe why it’s so good and popular.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I think it’s something that anyone can jam to. There’s a lot of variety.”

Another senior and active theater member, Aidan Mellin, is also writing a piece about Hamilton on his deathbed as somewhat of a reworking of one of the last scenes in the musical.

“It’s one of the most chilling moments,” Mellin said. “There was no music or instruments, and he’s just speaking into silence. It gives you goosebumps.”

Juniors James Flanigan and Remy Borden worked as a team and were thinking about doing a rap on the Whiskey Rebellion, a sometimes violent protest in response to a tax applied to all domestic distilled spirits in 1791 – the first product tax imposed by the newly established U.S. government. Hamilton supported the tax.

“Did they riot?” Borden asked Flanigan.

Clark came by to check on the two and ask what primary sources they were using. He gave a quick history lesson on the rebellion and the relationship between the primary writers of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, respectively.

After scrolling through his laptop for a few moments, Flanigan said to Borden, “Dude, they did riot.”