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Entertainment: Who’s Getting Rich Off of Broadway's Hamilton? Won 11 Tonys! ORIGINAL CAST RETURNS!

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Lin-Manuel Miranda Read A Moving Poem About His Wife and Tragedy At The Tonys
By Abraham RiesmanFollow @abrahamjosephShare4.8kTweet0Share2Email1Print


http://www.vulture.com/2016/06/read-lin-manuel-mirandas-moving-tonys-poem.html

Lin-Manuel Miranda won the award for Best Score for Hamilton, and in lieu of a traditional speech, he delivered a poem about love for his wife and the need for love in the wake of tragedy, no doubt responding to the horrific mass shooting in Orlando. By the end, he was in tears, and the crowd was cheering. Read the transcript below:

I'm not freestyling. I'm too old. I wrote you a sonnet instead.
My wife's the reason anything gets done.
She nudges me towards promise by degrees.
She is a perfect symphony of one.
Our son is her most beautiful reprise.
We chase the melodies that seem to find us
Until they're finished songs and start to play.
When senseless acts of tragedy remind us
That nothing here is promised, not one day
This show is proof that history remembers.
We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger.
We rise and fall, and light from dying embers
Remembrances that hope and love last longer.
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love;
Cannot be killed or swept aside.
I sing Vanessa's symphony; Eliza tells her story.
Now fill the world with music, love, and pride.
​
 
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Best PlayEclipsedThe Father
The Humans
King Charles III

Best Musical
Bright Star
Hamilton
School of Rock—The Musical
Shuffle Along, Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed
Waitress

Best Revival of a Play
Arthur Miller's The Crucible
Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge
Blackbird
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Noises Off

Best Revival of a Musical
The Color Purple
Fiddler on the Roof
She Loves Me
Spring Awakening

Best Book of a Musical
Bright Star
Hamilton
School of Rock—The Musical
Shuffle Along, Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed

Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre
Bright Star
Hamilton
School of Rock—The Musical
Waitress

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play
Gabriel Byrne, Long Day's Journey Into Night
Jeff Daniels, Blackbird
Frank Langella, The Father
Tim Pigott-Smith, King Charles III
Mark Strong, Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play
Jessica Lange, Long Day's Journey Into Night
Laurie Metcalf, Misery
Lupita Nyong'o, Eclipsed
Sophie Okonedo, Arthur Miller's The Crucible
Michelle Williams, Blackbird

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
Alex Brightman, School of Rock—The Musical
Danny Burstein, Fiddler on the Roof
Zachary Levi, She Loves Me
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
Leslie Odom Jr., Hamilton

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical
Laura Benanti, She Loves Me
Carmen Cusack, Bright Star
Cynthia Erivo, The Color Purple
Jessie Mueller, Waitress
Phillipa Soo, Hamilton

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play
Reed Birney, The Humans
Bill Camp, Arthur Miller's The Crucible
David Furr, Noises Off
Richard Goulding, King Charles III
Michael Shannon, Long Day's Journey Into Night

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play
Pascale Armand, Eclipsed
Megan Hilty, Noises Off
Jayne Houdyshell, The Humans
Andrea Martin, Noises Off
Saycon Sengbloh, Eclipsed

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
Daveed Diggs, Hamilton
Brandon Victor Dixon, Shuffle Along, Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed
Christopher Fitzgerald, Waitress
Jonathan Groff, Hamilton
Christopher Jackson, Hamilton

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
Renée Elise Goldsberry, Hamilton
Jane Krakowski, She Loves Me
Jennifer Simard, Disaster!
Adrienne Warren, Shuffle Along, Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed

Best Scenic Design of a Play
Beowulf Boritt, Thérèse Raquin
Christopher Oram, Hughie
Jan Versweyveld, Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge
David Zinn, The Humans

Best Scenic Design of a Musical
Es Devlin & Finn Ross, American Psycho
David Korins, Hamilton
Santo Loquasto, Shuffle Along, Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed
David Rockwell, She Loves Me

Best Costume Design of a Play
Jane Greenwood, Long Day's Journey Into Night
Michael Krass, Noises Off
Clint Ramos, Eclipsed
Tom Scutt, King Charles III

Best Costume Design of a Musical
Gregg Barnes, Tuck Everlasting
Jeff Mahshie, She Loves Me
Ann Roth, Shuffle Along, Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed
Paul Tazewell, Hamilton

Best Lighting Design of a Play
Natasha Katz, Long Day's Journey Into Night
Justin Townsend, The Humans
Jan Versweyveld, Arthur Miller's The Crucible
Jan Versweyveld, Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge

Best Lighting Design of a Musical
Howell Binkley, Hamilton
Jules Fisher & Peggy Eisenhauer, Shuffle Along, Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed
Ben Stanton, Spring Awakening
Justin Townsend, American Psycho

Best Direction of a Play
Rupert Goold, King Charles III
Jonathan Kent, Long Day's Journey Into Night
Joe Mantello, The Humans
Liesl Tommy, Eclipsed
Ivo Van Hove, Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge

Best Direction of a Musical
Michael Arden, Spring Awakening
John Doyle, The Color Purple
Scott Ellis, She Loves Me
Thomas Kail, Hamilton
George C. Wolfe, Shuffle Along, Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed

Best Choreography
Andy Blankenbuehler, Hamilton
Savion Glover, Shuffle Along, Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed
Hofesh Shechter, Fiddler on the Roof
Randy Skinner, Dames at Sea
Sergio Trujillo, On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan

Best Orchestrations
August Eriksmoen, Bright Star
Larry Hochman, She Loves Me
Alex Lacamoire, Hamilton
Daryl Waters, Shuffle Along, Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed
 
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat...ktown_the_world_turned_upside_down_video.html

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Lin-Manuel Miranda Thinks This Year's 'Amazingly Diverse' Tonys Was a Fluke

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After this year's #OscarsSoWhite controversy, in which no actors of color were Oscar-nominated for their performances, it was thrilling to see a significantly more inclusive Tony Awards, in which 14 nominees were people of color. Broadway's favorite son, Lin-Manuel Miranda (whose notably diverse Hamilton picked up 16 nominations, and took home 11 awards), was wowed by this year's results, but isn't so sure we're due for a repeat anytime soon.

“I think our incredibly, amazingly diverse Tonys season that just ended was a fluke,” Miranda said, while sitting down with The Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin this week. “We lucked into one of the most extraordinarily diverse seasons we’ve ever seen in the history of Broadway, from Allegiance to Shuffle Along to the revival of The Color Purple to Hamilton. That was a very nice contrast that happened this year. That being said, next year could be a very different year, depending on what comes in.”



Still, Miranda is galvanized by the effect that his landmark musical continues to have on the entertainment industry at large.

“The exciting lesson, that I hope people are taking away from Hamilton, is that you don’t need a white guy at the center of things to make it relatable,” he said. “Hamilton is a story very deliberately told to reflect what America looks like right now. We have every color represented — white, black, brown, and everything in between, and it’s making a killing. And that’s what makes sense to Hollywood. They go, ‘Oh, they’re making a killing.’ And so that hopefully will change minds. And I’ve actually heard from studio executives and people in charge in very high places sayingHamilton has changed their view of what they can put on schedule, and that makes me very happy.”
 
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Here’s What It Was Like at Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Final Hamilton Performance

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A Meowth on 46th and 6th almost made me miss a historic night on Broadway, the last performance of Hamilton for star/creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, as well as Tony winner Leslie Odom Jr. (Aaron Burr), Phillipa Soo (Eliza Hamilton), and ensemble member Ariana DeBose. I was blocks away from the Richard Rogers Theatre, with my head down, looking at myPokémon Go screen, and out of nowhere, one of my favorite Pokémon shows up. I needed to get to the theater, because I knew the scene outside would be a biblical shit-show, but this was Meowth. So I turned and walked the opposite direction from the theater, in an attempt to catch it.

It took seven Pokéballs, one slight stumble off the curb, and dirty looks from a family that thought I was creepily taking pictures of them when in reality they were just standing right behind this beautiful Pokémon, but I got it.

Celebrating with no one but myself, I remembered that Hamilton was happening in 20 minutes. And upon arriving on the block of the show, I realized that my seven-minute detour might have been a mistake. Because it was packed.

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The scene outside felt like a red-carpet premiere. "Look who I'm with," one man said looking into his phone, as a famous woman walked by, briefly crossing his screen. After she left, he stopped shooting video and asked his friend who she was. The friend didn't know.

It was Mariska Hargitay, which made me want to take his phone and stomp it out for not knowing the Queen.

Before I went in, I saw Jane Fonda, Spike and Tonya Lewis Lee, Rosie O’Donnell, and many people who looked like Adam Levine but weren’t. By the time I made it to my seat, I’d already heard four people say versions of "We're actually in the room where it’s happening,” a reference to the song “The Room Where It Happens,” in which Aaron Burr describes the envy of not being part of the power circle, in the room where the big decisions are made. Under any other conditions, moments like this would bring out a slight bit of eye-roll, but not tonight. The excitement was understood and it was clear no one was attempting to play it cool, which was oddly refreshing for New York City.

Some people were pajama rich, dressed down like they were going to the movies, others glammed out as though they’d just come from the Met Gala. The spectacle was real, and the lights were still on, with six or seven minutes until the show was set to begin. Apparently Jennifer Lopez was there, which certainly gave her the belt for “most famous person here.” But it made sense — she and Lin-Manuel recently made a song together, “Love Makes the World Go Around,” a tribute to those affected by Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub shooting.

What a weird thing Hamilton became, that it made sense for J.Lo to be in attendance. Unreal.

Sitting there, thinking about J.Lo in the building, and then J.Lo in The Wedding Planner, and then J.Lo and Jane Fonda in Monster-in-Law, and then wondering what Michael Vartan has been up to, I must have missed a crew of men in suits with earpieces enter my area. Snapping out of my analog Wikipedia dive, I cased the room and saw four of these men, two by a doorway, two walking up a staircase. Moments later, Secretary of State John Kerry.

One person started clapping, and then more people started clapping, and then a few people stood up, and then the entire room was giving John Kerry a standing ovation. Sorry, Ms. Lopez, but it looks like there’s a new belt-holder in town. And I don't know why, but I felt great for Kerry in this moment. He’s not really hurting in any way, but it was nice to see him get some public respect. It’s easy to forget about Yung Swift Boat, so this was great.

I wondered if he’d seen the show before. I wondered if there were parts of this that might get a bit real for him. I mean, he always kind of wanted to be in the room where —

Okay, I now understood how painfully easy it was to make that annoying joke. It was embarrassing, but who cares.

A few minutes later, after being thrilled for Secretary of State Kerry, I felt terrible for him, as things turned into a meet-and-greet, clogging up a staircase. People were talking to him and asking for pictures, and if you weren't in the actual line, you were standing in front of him, getting that massive head and granite hair of his in your rudely unauthorized selfie.

But then I felt good again, because he bent over to talk to a little kid in a backwards Hamilton hat. This was all so weird, and again, the show hadn't even begun.

And then things got really good. The Kerry meet-and-greet picked up steam again, with the long-armed Kerry now taking the selfies himself, again crowding the staircase.

Which made it comically difficult for Aaron Paul to get where he needed to go.

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When this happens, you have to break your “no photos of celebrities” rule. Is Aaron trying to talk to Secretary of State John Kerry? Did he sign up for this meet-and-greet? Is John Kerry a Breaking Bad fan, and if so, will he say something to Aaron? Is Aaron just trying to test his July 2016 swag by walking by Kerry, catching his eye, and seeing what happens?

Unfortunately, we’ll never know, because someone thought this was the moment to dim the lights and start the musical. Moments later, “How does a bastard, orphan …”

***

Intermission was wild, mainly because I walked around and finally spotted Jennifer Lopez. It wasn’t hard to figure out where she was, there were throngs of people standing around, near her as well as up on the balcony, just staring at her. The room was buzzing, after being extremely fired up through the whole first act. Miranda received a standing ovation for the first number, “Alexander Hamilton,” and the cheers sounded more like what you’d hear at a sporting event than a Broadway show. It was exciting, and almost everyone behaved perfectly, except for that one lady.

That lady.

The thing about Hamilton is that it’s a triumph, easily one of the great musicals, an extremely transformative experience. The other thing aboutHamilton is that some people like it too much, and these people are terrifying and must be destroyed, because they might challenge you to a duel and shoot you between the ribs if you interrupt them while they’re singing “Wait for It.”

I had one of these people in my section, and not only did she sing along, she repeatedly raised her arms and screamed, and would drum on things that weren’t drums, and any time there was a progressive line about immigrants, slavery, or equal rights, she would either clap, or stand up and then clap.

During “The Schuyler Sisters” — the fifth number — her presence had already been felt. And throughout that song, in her honor, I mentally changed the word “work” to “woke” in the lyrics.

Because she was so woke. The woke god. But it made sense, there were groups in this country that helped build it, groups that were treated unfairly and not properly credited. And she wanted you to know that she knew that. God bless her.

Anyway, after about 20 minutes, the lights dimmed again.

***

Hamilton will go on in a powerful, important way — both in New York and on tour — but this was certainly the end of an era.

While the crowd was in a frenzy, what happened on stage was like any other night. There was one moment when Rory O’Malley (King George) blew Odom (Burr) a kiss, making Odom laugh, which delighted the crowd. And both Odom and Christopher Jackson (George Washington) received standing ovations for “The Room Where It Happens” and “One Last Time,” respectively. But when it wrapped up, there wasn’t a ten-minute Lin-Manuel speech, no one rolled out a cake, Barack and Hillary didn’t show up — there was no self-initiated hoopla.

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After bows from the full cast, the four actors who were leaving stepped forward, and then Jackson pushed Miranda to the front of the stage for more solo applause from the crowd, which was very much deserved.

But right when it seemed to be over, suddenly the orchestra started playing the theme song from The West Wing, a show Miranda has cited as an inspiration. I expected many things on this night, but getting slightly choked up at watching Lin-Manuel Miranda laugh at the surprise, while thinking about my heroes Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn, wasn’t one of them. But this wasn’t a normal show, and this wasn’t a normal night, so it was a fitting way for it to end, triumphantly abnormal. What a run.
 
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‘Hamilton’ and the implosion of the American left

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Hey Democrats, want help to rally the country around Donald Trump? Here’s a great idea: Have a crowd of wealthy, out-of-touch Manhattan liberals (who can afford $849 tickets to “Hamilton”) boo Vice President-elect Mike Pence while the cast of the Broadway show lectures him on diversity.

The Democratic Party’s alienation from the rest of America was on full display at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Friday night. And the left seems completely oblivious to how ridiculous it looks to the rest of the United States. Professors at Yale and Columbia universities and other elite schools postpone exams and cancel classes for students who could not deal with the election results. Kids in Washington schools cut class with tacit approval from administrators to march in protest of the results of a free and fair election. School officials in Montgomery County offer grief counselors to “help students process any concerns or feelings they have about the election.” (Funny, I don’t recall anyone canceling exams or offering my kids grief counselors when Barack Obama was elected).

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People in the American heartland see all this, and they shake their heads in disgust. Today’s Democrats have become a party of coastal elites completely disconnected from the rest of America. Doubt it? Take a look at a county-by-county map of the 2016 presidential election. You can drive some 3,000 miles across the entire continental United States — from sea to shining sea — without driving through a single county that voted for Hillary Clinton.

[Trump thinks artists owe him respect. They don’t.]

At the national level, the Democratic Party has been wiped out. Trump won five states that voted for Obama twice — Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida — pushing Democrats even further toward the coastal peripheries. As a result, Republicans now control the House, the Senate, the White House, and (after President Trump picks a new justice to replace Antonin Scalia) there will be a restored conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

'Hamilton' cast member delivers message to Vice President-elect Mike Pence
Play Video1:22

The cast of "Hamilton" delivered a message to Vice President-elect Mike Pence from stage after he watched the show at Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York on Nov. 18. Pence was booed by some audience members when he first walked in.(Twitter/Hamilton via Storyful)
But that is nothing compared with the utter devastation Democrats have suffered in the states. On President Obama’s watch, Democrats have lost a net grand total of 939 state legislative seats, 30 state legislative chambers and a dozen governorships. When Obama first took office, Republicans held just 3,223 state legislative seats. After Tuesday’s vote, the number stands at 4,162. There are now more Republican state legislators than at any time since 1920. And if Gov. Pat McCrory holds on in North Carolina, Republicans will match their all-time high of 34 GOP governors last seen in the 1920s.

Or consider this: Today, Democrats control both the governor’s office and the legislature in just five states — Oregon, California, Hawaii, Connecticut and Rhode Island. By contrast, Republicans have total control of state government in 25 states — half the country.

One Democrat who understands the need to for his party to reconnect with working-class voters in middle America is Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who has challenged Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for the post of House minority leader. “What we are doing right now is not working,” he wrotein a letter to his colleagues. “Under our current leadership, Democrats have been reduced to our smallest congressional minority since 1929. . . . We have the fewest Democrats in state and federal offices since Reconstruction.”

If Democrats are smart, they will listen to Ryan. His district includes hurting industrial areas such as Youngstown and Akron — so he understands how to win the very voters Democrats lost in 2016 and need to win back. Do they have a better chance of winning back those voters by electing him or an aging, coastal San Francisco liberal such as Pelosi? Ryan is young and dynamic — just 43 years old. The House Democratic leadership, by contrast, is old. The Post recently reported that the average age of the House Democratic leadership is almost 65 years old. And Pelosi is 76 — a year older than Bernie Sanders. Perhaps Democrats should take the advice of John F. Kennedy and pass the torch to a new generation.

[Trump voters — it’s not me, it’s you]

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The long-term problem for Democrats is that much of that new generation has been wiped out at the polls. We saw the impact of the Democratic collapse in the states during this year’s presidential primaries. The Republican field was brimming with candidates, while on the Democratic side Clinton struggled to defeat a disheveled 75-year-old socialist from Vermont, and the rest of the field — Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee — could not crack the low single digits.

Eight years of losing statehouses and governors’ mansions have left Democrats with no bench. They are like an NFL team with aging stars who are long past their prime and few prospects in the pipeline.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence gets booed at "Hamilton" show
Play Video0:09

Some audience members booed Vice President-elect Mike Pence as he walked to his seat at a "Hamilton" show, held at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York on Nov. 18.(Storyful)
Democrats may believe that the way back from the periphery is to follow the advice Aaron Burr offers Hamilton: “Talk less. Smile more. Don’t let them know what you’re against and what you’re for.” That didn’t work out so well for Clinton. If Democrats can’t find new leaders who can connect with the working-class voters they lost to Donald Trump, they may find themselves even more isolated from the American heartland than they are today.
 
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I finally watched the shit on Quibi.

It was good but I still don’t get it. After all these years, why?

Was it the diversity of the casting of characters?

Why this story from history?

Someone help me. :dunno:
 
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Hamilton: An American Revolution

http://grantland.com/hollywood-pros...ion-with-hamilton-maestro-lin-manuel-miranda/

Genius: A Conversation With ‘Hamilton’ Maestro Lin-Manuel Miranda
JENNY ANDERSON/GETTY IMAGES
THEATER
SEPTEMBER 29, 2015
by REMBERT BROWNE
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This morning, the MacArthur Foundation announced its annual “genius grant” recipients. Playwright, composer, singer, rapper, and Washington Heights native Lin-Manuel Miranda was among the 24. The 35-year-old is currently on his second tour of turning Broadway on its head. His first, the musical In the Heights, which he composed and starred in, won four Tony Awards in 2008, including Best Musical, and a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album. It was a 2009 nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
Now he has delivered Hamilton, a musical based on the life and death (spoiler) of Alexander Hamilton, his decades-long feud with Aaron Burr, and, in turn, the birth of the United States. Like Hamilton himself, the reality of Broadway is that if your show is going well, you’re always doing that show. Catching Lin-Manuel when he’s not performing is a tough task. In mid-September, between a 2 p.m. matinee (in which his understudy, Javier Muñoz, played the lead)1 and an 8 p.m. show in which he would perform, we met at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.
We spoke twice. The first time was in his dressing room as he ate the grocery store sushi that you get in the plastic case and which you always hope was made that day. After half an hour, he departed for his daily duties in the Hamilton lottery outside the theater. Dubbed “Ham 4 Ham,” it’s a beautiful, insane display of fandom, with people putting their names in a hat to get an opportunity to see the biggest show in town. Half an hour later, after the crowd had dispersed, we sat alone in the seats that he looks out on every night.
ACT 1: LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA’S DRESSING ROOM, SATURDAY, 5:30 P.M.
It’s been interesting watching Hamilton become “a thing” beyond the crowd that follows Broadway. When I saw the show, Lenny Kravitz and Lee Daniels were sitting across from me — at first they were chill, but by the second act they were completely into it. That was wild for me to see. I’m sure it also is for you — not only seeing them after the show, but seeing them while you’re performing.
So, the scariest show we have done — and it’s all been easy since then — was three weeks at the Public Theater. Busta Rhymes is in the front row. Listen, this is an unapologetic love letter to hip-hop. [Rappers] didn’t come see In the Heights. A couple people did, Run-D.M.C., a few other old heads that love the genre in any form — they came. I was so nervous, [Busta] was in the front row, he took a redeye to get there. And I remember we were doing “My Shot,” and back at the Public, it was literally a “Pass the Courvoisier” line — it was, “Rise up, don’t this shit make my people wanna rise up” — and I saw him go [mimics big smile] and whisper to Riggs [Morales, a longtime record label A&R]. My feet are off the ground I’m rapping so hard because, you know, I got into a fistfight to get the last copy of “Scenario” when I was 13 years old. It’s the only fistfight I’ve ever been in in my life. I was like, Don’t look at Busta, don’t look at Busta. Then I look into the second row and Mandy Patinkin is sitting above Busta Rhymes. If there is a Busta Rhymes of musical theater, it probably is Mandy Patinkin. And it was just fucking crazy, when the people you’ve emptied your pockets to see are seeing you. It’s a crazy feeling. It’s both ennobling and totally humbling and totally terrifying. But after Busta, everything was cool.
Les Misérables is playing next door to the Richard Rodgers Theatre. I know you love Les Mis.
It was my first show.
It’s not just that you have a show on Broadway — if you literally take a step back on the street, your show and Les Mis, the show that helped mold who you are, are on the same block.
The things that you can see in Hamilton that are affecting people are also present in Les Mis. One, it’s trying to capture so much of the human experience that even if we fall short, we’ve got a lot of it. I mean, Les Misérables starts in prison. It’s “Look down, look down, you’re standing in your grave.” And then it goes up from there. And in terms of musical theater, it’s the opposite of what most people’s prejudices with musical theater is: It’s not sunny and uplifting. I think that’s why it struck such a universal chord with people. This is not happy show tunes. The one they do give you, it’s prostitutes. And it comes with this ironic twist.
It’s like a masterclass in how to use themes in order to take a short circuit to someone’s tear duct or heart or gut. You see Valjean at the end and they play that music that was playing when Fantine died and it’s like, we know what’s coming — OH SHIT. “NOW YOU ARE HERE.” — NO, FUCK FUCK FUCK. [Mimics wiping away tears from his eyes.] Like, we just know. And it’s a masterclass. So those are the things that I always responded to. There’s just so much in it, it’s such a full meal. I have so much fun quoting Les Mis to Twitter and shit, because I could do it forever. There’s literally a line for every occasion. It hits everything. The musicals that leave us kind of staggering on our feet are the ones that really reach for a lot. And so, we’re trying to do that.
Backstage in Miranda’s dressing room at the Richard Rodgers Theater.
In the Heights came out at an important time for me — 2008, the recession, terrified to leave college in this climate, not knowing what to do with my life. I knew I wanted to write, but then saw the show and felt like there was the option to create something. In The New Yorker, you mentioned two things that kind of showed you the light. One was Rent.
Rent was the show that made me want to write. Or that showed me you’re allowed to write.
And the other, your going to Wesleyan, taught you that you could write about (or even talk about) where you’re from.
I got into Hunter [College] Elementary when I was 6 years old. So already, it’s like, they call me Lin at school and Lin-Manuel at home. It’s also super stark when there’s another language involved. I speak Spanish at home and English at school. And I’ve had all white Jewish friends from the time I’m 6 years old.
I saw Rent, I loved writing musicals, but the first two musicals I wrote in high school, they sound like Rent. There’s no Latin anything in them. It wasn’t out of shame or embarrassment, I just didn’t bring anything from home to what I was writing. It was just like, “This is for high school and I’m writing about high school shit.” So one of them was about an unchaperoned party and I think I gave one of the kids a Latino last name. But they were all white Jewish kids playing the parts in the show. And then I lived in a Latino program house my sophomore year at Wesleyan. It was called La Casa. It was such a dope house; you had to write an essay to get in about why you were a Latino community leader, and that was the first time — this was my version of your experience — there were kids whose parents owned bodegas, and there are kids whose parents were both Wesleyan alums and they always knew they were going to Wesleyan and they’re Latino, but they’ve got the code switch down easy like I do. And it was inspiring — like, we could make a Marc Anthony joke before the English-speaking world knew about Marc Anthony, and it was also coinciding with when Ricky Martin did “Cup of Life.” It was the Latin pop boom, suddenly Marc Anthony is singing in English, Enrique Iglesias was a thing — I was figuring out these things about myself at the same time that the world was figuring out that we had something of value to offer, musically. Oh, look at you guys.
These were some of the perfect storms that led to In the Heights. One of the other parts was The Capeman, which was going to be the great brown moment in musical theater, and it lived and died my senior year of high school. I was directing West Side Story; I wanted a life in this business. And there was this show written by fucking Paul Simon, starring Marc Anthony and Ruben Blades, two of my heroes — it just came and went. And it was us as gang members in the ’50s, again. It’s like, two musicals about Latinos and they’re both about the same fight. And so a part of me was just fueled off of that — we should be able to be onstage without a knife in our hand. Once. So that was a big creative fire.
The other real shit was that my high school girlfriend and I were still dating and we should have broken up like two years prior. And she suddenly went to study abroad, and then I had all this fucking time and angst about where we were and what we were doing. So there was this sad love story that took place in Washington Heights and I used hip-hop and I used the same cocktail that ended up in the final product. It was this love story about these two people who could never be together, because that’s what I was going through in my head. And so all of that formed to help make that first draft of In the Heights. I’ll never forget, there’s a scene when Usnavi [played by Miranda] and Benny [Christopher Jackson] are freestyling on the street and they’re rapping and looking out and seeing the audience physically go like this [mimics perking up]. Yes, they liked the show, it was well received at Wesleyan, but I saw a physical reaction on the hip-hop numbers. And was like, Oh, this is some new shit.
I remember seeing In the Heights, but I also remember that in-between period. Living in the Village, going to Le Poisson Rouge to see your group Freestyle Love Supreme perform. But by 2012, I remember beginning to think, with regard to you, Was that it? And I know if I thought that, there had to be some extent to which you thought or felt that. Because so much of In the Heights is that classic first-album thing, where you put your entire life into that first thing, and then it’s like — so do you have anything left to say?
I was pretty Zen about it, honestly. Well one, I had the idea for Hamilton when I was still in In the Heights. So, again, impossible to overstate: The success of In the Heights gave me a life as a writer, a career as a writer, it said, “You belong here.” Nothing will ever do for me what that show did — from broke to not broke — in every respect.
But you actually felt like you belonged on Broadway?
So that’s the interesting thing: When my wife and I got married in 2010, we went on our honeymoon and — again — I have the idea for Hamilton, and I wrote the King George song on our honeymoon without a piano around, and then when I got back from our honeymoon our producers were like, the show’s closing. So that was the starter pistol of Oh shit, I won’t have a show running on Broadway, which was my steady source of income. But at the same time, I was a big film buff growing up. And the book whose advice I really followed concerning that “first album-ness” of Heights was Robert Rodriguez, Rebel Without a Crew. And he said, “Just don’t let them know what your sophomore project is.” And he just went and did a bunch of random shit. He did Four Rooms. And he did a Showtime movie. And he did so many random little things that people couldn’t just say, “Well, when’s your next movie?” So I did this West Side Story translation. I cowrote the Bring It On musical. And I did each one — it was never in my soul and bones to write a musical about cheerleading. But I knew I’d learn a lot watching Andy [Blankenbuehler] direct and writing with Tom [Kitt], who to me is one of the best melodists of our generation. Watching him think through an idea and see it go through his filter — it was like, Oh, I’m going to learn some moves.
It was a way to stay sharp.
That, absolutely, but just learning new shit. I had to write backward for Bring It On, because Andy was so specific about the tempos of the songs he wanted. I’d start with the tempo, I’d start with BPM, and he would be like, “ca-ca-ca-ca-ca, ca-ca” and I would write that down, and then build a song backward from the rhythm, as he had it in his head. Which was great, because now I know how to do that. I knew I had Hamilton in my pocket and I knew I needed to focus and time to get it done, and that was the hard part, because I have a family and I’m trying to support them.
Yeah, it’s hard to just stop.
But Do No Harm was like a writing residency for me. It was a bad NBC show and I was sixth on the call sheet and I took the job because I was like, it shoots in Philly and you’re going to be killed off in the 11th episode. So it was like signing a potential seven-year contract, which I was not interested in doing or going to L.A. I wanted to have time to write. I would have days free in Philly to write.
NBCMiranda in ‘Do No Harm.’
ACT 2: RICHARD RODGERS THEATRE, SATURDAY, 6:15 P.M.
Even before you’d finished Hamilton, were you already writing a character with Chris Jackson in mind?
He was always George Washington. He’s just got that moral authority. He had it as Benny. In the beginning, someone was like, “Why do you have Chris playing this Lothario? Chris is so much more interesting than the character you’re writing.” So once we started writing for Chris, it became this R&B sound within the Latino thing, and it totally elevated the character. So this time I started with Chris. We didn’t know if Chris was going to do it, but it was going to have Chris’s skill set. You’re going to be able to spit and then sing an R&B ballad, like he’s this mash-up of Common and John Legend, fused into one person.
A reality of this musical is that there are many standout characters that are not your character. People come away from it raving about Daveed Diggs’s portrayal of Thomas Jefferson.
That’s most people.
Like, maybe he did Thomas Jefferson better than the actual Thomas Jefferson. And Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr.
I stupidly gave him a lot of the best songs.
Just layups.
“Wait for It” and “The Room Where It Happens” are two of the best songs I’ve ever written in my life and he got them both.
It doesn’t feel like the Alexander Hamilton show, as in you and some background singers.
I don’t know how to do that. Heights wasn’t like that either. Usnavi is the narrator, but he’s offstage a lot of the time. I honestly think it’s because school plays were my way into theater. I think I’m always subconsciously trying to write the ideal school play. Lots of parts for everybody, great parts for women — don’t forget, more girls try out than boys in the school play; everyone gets to be in the school play. When this gets done in high schools, they probably won’t double the parts. So you’ll have two different actors to play. I think it has an enormous amount of resonance to double the way we’ve doubled, but it’s a way to get more people in the school play. But it’s interesting: With Heights, we studied Fiddler on the Roof a lot. That’s the best way to introduce an audience to a community that’s ever been written. So what can we learn from that? And there’s a lot of similarities between our opening number in Heights. With Hamilton, it’s not about a community. In the abstract, it’s about the creation of America, but it’s about this fucking one guy who just blazes through. Born, keeping score, and counting time. So we studied Sweeney Todd a lot. And we studied Gypsy a lot. Shows where the structure is, there’s one fucking character and they’re a life force and you’re either an obstacle or you’re a friend but get the fuck out of the way. But at the same time, it’s so much fun to get to write about these people we think we know, because they were in a history book. And be like, oh yeah — Jefferson’s going to be dressed like Morris Day. And that’s all Paul [Tazewell]. The leaps they took from the music into the other departments are so incredible. I grinned so hard when I saw Andy’s staging for this at first, and they introduced Jefferson and he’s walking down the staircase and everyone’s scrubbing the floor. They got it, before I even had to say anything. Like, yep — there’s Jefferson, talking eloquently about freedom while a slave shakes his hand and he goes like this [looks disgusted]. That’s Jefferson, write more eloquently about freedom than anybody, but didn’t live it.
There are some artists — Kanye West stands out — who treat music secondarily to telling stories and changing people’s perceptions of things and fucking with people’s heads.
But even if you hear him describe his music, he talks about it like paintings. It’s visual for him. Which I found really interesting. I saw some interview with him where he was talking about creating the beats and he’s like, “I’m making a painting here.”
When it comes down to it, if you had to pinpoint one thing, is it making musicals? Is it telling stories? Is it filling in the gaps of American and New York history? Is it being part of a musical theater lineage that connects you to people like Sondheim and Hammerstein?
Well, I’ve learned an enormous amount from that lineage, quite literally. Getting to work with [Stephen] Sondheim. Getting to talk to [John] Kander. Getting to talk to Sheldon Harnick. These are the guys that do it the best. That’s the thing the theater affords you. I don’t think Hollywood really affords you that, or even music. Because everyone kind of works in their own world. There’s a Nashville world, there’s an Atlanta world, there’s an L.A. world. But everyone that’s the best at this works in these blocks. These 15 blocks. And so I’ve been the beneficiary of an enormous amount of knowledge from that. I’ll tell you, the person I talk to the most about the show is John Weidman, who wrote the book to Assassins and Pacific Overtures. And I have emails to him where I’m like, “I’m getting lost in the research and I feel like I’m fucking drowning.” And he was super encouraging. And I think that’s just true of musical theater. I talk about this with Tommy [Kail, the director of Hamilton] a lot. Directors don’t ever get to work together. Like, there can be collegiality, but they’re all up for the same gigs. I can’t write Next to Normal. I can’t write Fiddler. It wouldn’t come out of me like that. And I also think because composers know they have to collaborate for the theater, composers for the theater are among the most generous creative artists I’ve ever met. Because there’s no competition between me and Bobby Lopez, you give us the same assignment, we’re going to write two totally different things. So we could just be friends and talk about that shit. And so, I find it a very welcoming world. And a world to learn from.
That being said, there’s other shit I want to write. It’s interesting, I think of it as, What’s the thing that’s not in the world that should be in the world? Heights is very much like, there should be a show with Latino people where we aren’t gang members and drug dealers, because that’s been super well represented already. We’re good on that. What’s the other thing? With this, I read that book [Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow] and it was such a perfect marriage of form and subject, and it was like, this music is the only way you can tell this guy’s story. You could do a Les Mis–type musical about Hamilton, but it would have to be 12 hours long, because the amount of words on the bars when you’re writing a typical song — that’s maybe got 10 words per line. Whereas here we can cram all this shit in all the margins. One of the last things I wrote for the show was one more fast rap for Lafayette, before he hands off a letter. Because I had Daveed. And he’s just the fucking best. And there was an opportunity. It was just them vamping, like, “Get your right-hand man back, unh, get your right-hand man back [scratches].” And it was like, no — we will fill that with stuff. It’s like Mad Magazine, where Sergio Aragonés is drawing cartoons in between the cartoons. There’s a lot of that in the show. I could just fill it with everything I think I know and the story allows that because it’s such a rich story. So, OK, I’m going to write a “Peter Piper”–type rap for “Washington on Your Side” and have them all trading back and forth, yeah. It allowed me to make a paella because it’s so rich.
One of the great buried ledes is how it does come back to New York, how it comes back uptown.
A detail that I couldn’t get into the show. It ends with Eliza [Hamilton] and it’s all about her 50 years alive after Hamilton died. Something else: Eliza established the first school in Washington Heights.
Really?
Yeah. And we had a line. And I put it in, where it was like “the first school” — and they went, in Washington Heights. I took the melody from my own shit in In the Heights, but it was just too on the nose. You just can’t. Even though it’s historically true, I can’t actually say “in Washington Heights” at the end of my fucking show. But it was there to be mine.
You didn’t even make it up.
So imagine, I’m reading this book. And then I read that in the closing chapter. It was a confirmation — I was supposed to do this.
I did find it fascinating that one of the artists you’ve cited as a musical influence, and you can hear it from time to time, is Outkast. For me, Outkast did what both Rent and Wesleyan did for you: They taught me I could write and that I could write about home. Part of my job is to tell a story about my home when I’m not there. Because once you leave, you become a representative of what a lot of people know about a place, and people are going to take cues about a place off of what they get from me.
You’re an ambassador.
They gave a lot of people that confidence to do that about their home. That’s part of their arc.
They’re our Lennon and McCartney. They’re hip-hop’s Lennon and McCartney. Down to the double album where they each do one thing, which was like the “White Album.” And you’re just grateful that they did shit together as long as they did.
I’ve always treated everything we’ve gotten in recent years as playing with house money. Just grateful for anything.
I remember one of my best friends from high school played me Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, when I was too young to even fully absorb it. What I knew was all East Coast hip-hop. And nothing else would go into my brain, like, my body rejected it, was like “I don’t know what this is.” I literally don’t understand what’s happening, didn’t process it. And then Aquemini came out my freshman year of college. And it was the soundtrack of college. And then by Stankonia, it was all I listened to.
This may be a tangent, but I think about Andre 3000’s verses on all these random songs as these little orphans. Like someone needs to put them together. Like, “Sixteen” on the Rick Ross album is the most incredible thing I’ve ever heard in my life: “while I’m jelly beans descending / into the palms of a child,” like what the fuck is even happening? And it’s hiding inside a Rick Ross song. And “Walk It Out.” And “Pink Matter.”
How did you decide to essentially make Hamilton without dialogue?
We actually went down the road with a playwright. There’s a version of Act 1 where we had songs and they were the songs that are in the show, but we found that if you start with our opening number, you can’t go back to speech. The ball is just thrown too high in the air. So then the challenge for me became, how do I write scenes that still have this hip-hop feel? And that’s when I would listen to “Friend or Foe” by Jay Z on a loop. And like, most people if they’re writing hip-hop for theater, think it needs to sound a certain way. And that’s where growing up with hip-hop actually comes in handy, because we know it contains everything. I can write the most conversational, Reasonable Doubt–era Jay-Z: “Don’t do that, you makin’ me nervous / my crew, well, they do pack / them dudes is murderers.” That level of conversationalism is what you’re trying for in the scenes. But then there’s the songs that are heightened.
Something that happens so often with minority figures, in the arts or otherwise, is this sense of responsibility. Have you wrestled with that? I’m sure you felt it in In the Heights, too.
I did, and I got pitched every Latin-themed anything that was coming from anywhere. So, we’re not Hollywood actors, in that we do the thing once and then we hope they like our movie in a year. We’re chefs. And not like Raekwon, like we got a five-star review and you’re coming to see our show tonight and we’ve got to cook the same meal for you that we cooked for the critic that gave us the five-star review. It has to keep going, and it keeps you humbled. I’m drinking this shit that’s fucking terrible with parsley and lemon and ginger and swiss chard, because it’s good for me. Because you have to keep making the meal. Just the work of that is humbling. But the relaxing two hours and 45 minutes of my day or spent during the show, because I’m not supposed to be doing anything else but that. Everything else is crazy.
Good crazy or bad crazy?
Just, Gerard Butler standing next to Justice Kennedy crazy.
It’s famous person Mad Libs.
Every night is Mad Libs. But also, you don’t ever want to get used to it or take it for granted. You want to be pinching yourself the whole time. There was a rapper that was supposed to be coming — not going to give his name up because he’ll come eventually. Anyway, they were trying to get him in, it was tough to get him a ticket, I helped get him a ticket, I literally kicked a friend out. And then he didn’t show. And I found out like 15 [before the performance]. And I spent the opening number pissed off. I can’t fucking believe I kicked my friend out for this rapper, and then I was like, “I don’t ever want to be the guy who is in my hit Broadway show and mad because the most fam— one of the most famous rappers ever isn’t there. I have to get that shit out of my system.
Check your priv.
It was the ultimate check my priv. I almost got hit with a chair [during] the number and I was like, “OK, check your privilege.” I can’t be in that headspace and make this thing. So doing the show keeps you honest, keeps you humble and focused and grounded.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
This post has been updated to correct one name and clarify another. Tom Kitt composed the music for Bring It On, and Tommy Kail is the director of Hamilton.
 

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