“Hamilton” debuted more than a decade ago. How is Chicago feeling about the musical now?

Eleven years after its New York premiere, “Hamilton” has returned to Chicago where it will run at the CIBC Theatre through April 26.

Chicago’s gain is the result of producer Jeffrey Sellers’ decision to cancel a performance run at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. That call came after President Donald Trump fired members of the storied venue’s board, as Sellers told the Chicago Tribune last week.

The show lands here in a different political climate than in previous runs, opening in Downtown Chicago the week that the United States and Israel fired missiles on Iran and just a few months after a monthslong federal immigration enforcement campaign dubbed “Midway Blitz” put the city on high alert.

Of course, Chicago has always loved “Hamilton.” The Tony Award-ward winning musical had a historic three-year run here from 2016 to 2020 with more than 2.6 million people seeing the show across 1,341 performances — a higher audience total than the original show’s numbers on Broadway.

And there is now a core fanbase that has aged a decade since Lin-Manuel Miranda first dazzled audiences as the titular character.

But how would audiences feel now? We attended the opening matinee last Thursday to find out. As some repeat fans filled out stickers that touted how many times they’d seen the show, we heard a mix of perspectives.

One veteran Hamilfan was seeing the show for the 23rd time. But there were plenty of new fans experiencing the musical for the first time — or live for the first time, as many younger audience members said they first watched the streamable Disney+ version.

There were fans like Clista, 35, from Winthrop Harbor, who became a mother since last seeing the show, and has returned this year with her son. (She did not give her last name.)

“When you were in my belly, I would always sing you ‘Dear Theodosia,’” she said to her nine-year-old son, Christian, as they sat in the vestibule during intermission.

Clista said seeing the show feels a lot different than it did 11 years ago.

“When I first heard the show, it was very impactful, very different,” she recalled. “And now, with everything that's going on with the world, I feel like it's a great message for young kids. He loves the show, and I'm of Mexican heritage. His father's Puerto Rican. So it's a great, positive message, and it's very heartfelt.”

Interviewing people on opening night, the message that America is a country powered by immigrants (“Immigrants, we get the job done!”) within the performance landed with many audience members.

A.D. Weaver, who plays George Washington, said the show feels heavy in this current run.

“It's no secret where we are in the world today,” he said after Thursday’s matinee performance, as he prepared for a second show Thursday night. “And to tell a story about what this country should be when we're moving in a direction that's so far somewhere else, I think what we provide for the audience is a glimpse into their hopes and their dreams. And just the hope that, as I said, if you put in the work, it doesn't matter where you come from, you can do anything — like build a nation.”

Weaver said his favorite song in the musical, “Wait for It,” delivers a message of hope.

“I love how it talks about the plight of being a person in society who just wants to do what they were called to do,” he explained. “It doesn't matter where you come from, your religion, your creed. It's just ‘I put in the work. I'm going to wait and I'm going to do what I have to do to get there.’”

May, a 21-year-old film student from Yorkville who declined to give her last name, has a long standing connection to “Hamilton.”

“I love ‘Room Where It Happens’ and I love ‘Wait for It,’ I’m a big Burr girl,” she said. “But I used to sing myself to sleep singing ‘Satisfied,’ so I think that may be my favorite.”

While she admits she loved the music, May also notes the inescapable context from recent headlines that seep into the story.

“With the way the United States is behaving right now, it reminds me of the imperialism that the British enacted on their colonies,” she said. “The way that we treat the people of Hawaii, and the way that we treat the people of Puerto Rico, and the way that we treat immigrants in our country is just without humanity.”

Tyler McKenzie is a swing in the show and plays multiple roles on stage, including Charles Lee on opening night. He first joined the production in 2017 on Broadway, then joined the national tour soon after.

“I've been able to grow up with the show,” he said. “I got married while doing the show. I got engaged while doing the show. I've discovered a lot about myself while doing the show, so that has also impacted how I perform the show. There's a redefined ego. There's a redefined maturity. Which the show does ask for a good, mature actor, dancer, performer, who is able to control energy and put it in the places that are necessary.”

McKenzie enjoys feeding off the energy of the audience, and his favorite number in the show is a fan favorite.

“‘Battle of Yorktown is my favorite song to perform,” he said. “I think the audience is super, super in it during that time, it's high energy. There's a lot of crisp movement that's really awesome. It's also really fun to teach as a dance captain,” he added, “so teaching that number is really fun.”