Every Monday, Salt Lake City teacher Galen McCallum asks her first graders to write their own personal “Weekend News.” Students are supposed to write three sentences that answer the following questions: “What did you do for the weekend? How was it? How did it make you feel?”
Recently, 7-year-old Stevie Ryan wrote this Weekend News update: “For Lent, I gave up listening to ‘Hamilton’ songs. It’s hard. I’m never doing it again.”
When Stevie’s parents, Dr. John Ryan and Jeanna Tachiki Ryan, saw what their daughter had written, they knew it was too funny to keep to themselves. John, a cardiologist, passed the image to his colleague Dr. Martha Gulati, an honorary aunt for his three daughters.
Gulati shared Stevie’s paper on her Instagram account on March 20. It generated almost 400,000 likes and one very special comment … from “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Quoting second act song “Wait For It,” Miranda wrote, “There are things that the homilies and hymns won’t teach ya…❤️❤️❤️”
When her parents shared the news with Stevie, she was over the moon … and also frustrated because it made her want to hear the music all the more.
This was the first year Stevie learned about Lenten sacrifices in her Communion class. She was initially stumped on what her sacrifice should be.
“‘I love fries, but I’m never going to be able to give up fries,'” John remembers his daughter saying.
Her religion teacher suggested giving up chocolate or candy, but Stevie doesn’t have a sweet tooth. Finally, she ended up deciding to sacrifice the thing she loves slightly less than French fries, but slightly more than everything else in the world: listening to the original Broadway cast recording of “Hamilton.”
Stevie’s older sisters each went through a “Hamilton” phase, John says. And that may be why the first grader — who just happens to share a birthday with Alexander Hamilton himself — fell in love with the music. She even dressed up as the founding father for Halloween last year.
Stevie Ryan, 7, loves “Hamilton” so much that she sacrificed it for Lent. Courtesy John Ryan
How often had Stevie been listening to “Hamilton” before Lent began? “All the time,” says her dad even before he hears the end of the question. “When I get my end-of-year Spotify Wrapped, my most played song is always ‘My Shot.'”
Stevie has been extremely dedicated to her Lenten promise, making sure her parents skip songs from the show when they happen to play music on the drive to school.
John suspects, however, that once Lent ends, Stevie will immediately start listening to the cast recording once again.
“I anticipate at 7 o’clock in the morning when she wakes up on Easter Sunday, she’ll be ready to go,” laughs John. “I think it’ll be playing on her Alexa before any of us get up.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
