Right now on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theater, the musical "Hamilton" is running with 8 shows a week. The musical follows the life story of Alexander Hamilton: his time in the Revolutionary War, his time as Secretary of Treasury, and his infamous relationship with Aaron Burr that led to his untimely death. The show is currently huge hit, being sold out for months and with constant visits from celebrities. All of this success is thanks to one man: Lin-Manuel Miranda. Here, we'll delve into the talent and passion behind this Broadway genius.
He's a writer, composer, and actor. All at once.
Lin-Manuel Miranda began writing the music for Hamilton when on vacation he picked up a biography of Alexander Hamilton written by Ron Chernow. Miranda went on to write the book, all of the music and lyrics, and currently plays the lead role of Alexander Hamilton (he shares the role with Javier Muñoz, who stars as Hamilton on Sunday matinees and also is the understudy for Miranda). If there's one person who can put this altogether successfully, it's Lin-Manuel Miranda.
He's already an award-winning composer.
Before "Hamilton," Miranda wrote the score for the 2008 musical "In the Heights" and starred in the lead role in that production as well. In this musical, Miranda introduced Broadway audiences to a new type of Broadway sound- rap. As something rarely heard on Broadway before that, the results were extremely successful. For "In the Heights," Miranda won 11 awards, including the Tony Award for Best Score and Best Musical, and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album.
He's the epitome of a risk taker.
In 2009, Miranda was invited to the White House's Evening of Music, Poetry, and the Spoken Word to perform a song from "In the Heights." When he took the stage, however, he instead surprised his audience by performing one of his songs from the early drafts of "Hamilton." This man took the stage in front of the Obama family and rapped a song about one of the founding fathers. Talk about a huge risk. Unsurprisingly, the whole audience loved it, especially President Obama; he's already been to see the Broadway show twice.
His taking a modern twist on a traditional story.
In order to tell the thrilling and event-filled story of Alexander Hamilton, Miranda went to his rap roots in order to fit in as much story as he could. Yep, you read that right — Miranda has history's most prominent figures on stage rapping. The show has a run time of around 2 hours and 45 minutes with an intermission. In a recent study, it was determined that if "Hamilton" was the same speed as a regular musical, it would have a run time of 4-6 hours. The speed of rapping allows for more words to be put in per bar, thus allowing more story to be told in a shorter amount of time.
He also has a casting representative of American today to tell the story of America then. Nearly every person in the case is a person of color, representative of the diverse population we currently have in America. One of the only white actors in the production is Jonathan Groff, who plays the role of King George the III. The diversity of the cast allows the actors to tell the classic story on a whole other level.
He's a genius. Really.
In 2015, Miranda was the recipient of MacArthur "Genius" Award; we all already thought he was a genius, but this just proves our thoughts are valid.
In all, Lin-Manuel Miranda is a creative genius who's also extremely humble at the same time. On top of all that, he has a great Twitter.
