Who Stays, Who Goes, Who Gets Sold
by Natalie Murray ‘18
In the hit Broadway musical, “Hamilton,” Alexander Hamilton declares that he will “not throw away his shot.” Following in the footsteps of her idol, senior Me- lissa “Millie” Price decided to take any and every measure nec- essary to not waste her shot—that is, her shot to see the award-win- ning musical.
A longtime theatre fan, Price had been dying to see Hamilton, but with such the cheapest avail- able tickets being over $400, she simply couldn’t afford to see the show. “I asked my mom if I could get a ticket, but she said that ” said Price. “She said that if I bought the tickets myself, she’d let me go, so I got a job at Harris Teeter and just saved up.”
However, when the news broke that Anthony Ramos, the actor playing John Laurens and Philip Hamilton, would be leav- ing in November, Price decided to step up her game so that she could see her all-time favorite actor.
“I knew that, aside from sell- ing organs on the black market, I’d never get the money I need- ed to go before Anthony left the show,” remarked Price, “and I’m really squeamish, so selling or- gans was not something I wanted to do. Then I realized that I had two annoying, useless siblings ly- ing around, and that a whole hu- man is probably worth more than one little organ, so I decided to sell them instead.”
Her measures may seem a bit extreme, but Price claims that she doesn’t regret her decision. “I made sure they weren’t sold into sex traficking or anything—I’m not that terrible of a person,” said Price. Rather, her brother William is a now ranch hand in Kansas, and her sister, Maria, is being used as a test subject for a make- up company.
“Yeah, I thought both of them were really good cases of poetic justice, because Maria always used to steal my stage makeup, and William always told me I sang like a dying cow. Now they get to experience both of those things!” says Price.
The ten thousand dollars that Price made has certainly helped her accomplish her goal, as she
saw Hamilton on November 21, the last day that Anthony Ramos performed. After seeing the show, she con rmed that she has no re- grets about selling her siblings for the tickets.
“It’s been really nice with- out them around. I can eat ice cream straight out of the contain- er because they aren’t there to complain, I can watch whatever I want without having to wrestle for the remote, and I get all of my siblings’ college funds, so I can afford to go to Julliard!” Price gushes. “I’d de nitely do it again if I could, but I obviously don’t have any siblings left.”