Lin Manuel Miranda Research Paper

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Hamilton, the Broadway hit that opened in 2015, tells the story of Alexander Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton was a founding father, the first United States Secretary of Treasury, and is the face on the 10 dollar bill. This musical was brought to life by the genius work of Lin-Manuel Miranda. He is a young writer, composer, and lyricist. He is a tremendously talented artist for many reasons.
Lin-Manuel Miranda was inspired to write the musical because of Ron Chernow’s book, Alexander Hamilton. He was on a vacation and picked the book up for a light read. (Lin-Manuel Miranda). According to the Smithsonian Magazine, this is how it played out: “In a white hammock under a blue sky beneath a hot yellow sun he reads the defining work

of popular scholarship about our most mysterious founding father, and long before he’s 50 pages into it he’s wondering to himself who might have already made this extraordinary story into a play. Into a musical. He searches. Finds nothing. No one.” A little while later, he told his friend that he wanted to create a hip-hop concept album about the life of Alexander Hamilton. (Jeremy McCarter). This idea for a hip-hop album became the smash-hit musical Hamilton we have today.
Lin-Manuel Miranda has been around music all his life.

From a young age, he was introduced to Broadway musicals and Disney movies. In a January 2017 National Public Radio interview with Terry Gross, Lin-Manuel Miranda said that the most influential Disney movie of his childhood was The Little Mermaid. He loved rap and hip-hop music styles, and the mix of the two is what his original music is based off of. “In the Venn diagram of contemporary music, hip-hop and musical theater have little overlap, but that is the space in which Lin-Manuel Miranda lives, the space that birthed the new hit musical, “Hamilton,” which opened last week to some of the strongest reviews in years.” - 2015 New York Times Article. Also in the interview with Terry Gross, Miranda explained that the first musical he wrote, In the Heights, was based on him growing up in a Latin-American neighborhood. He wrote In the Heights in his sophomore year at college and the musical won four Tony’s in 2008. (linmanuel.com). A mere eight years later, Hamilton won 11 Tony’s, giving him an outstanding amount of awards at such a young

age.
Hamilton breaks many social and racial bonds.

Aside from being based on a revolution, the story itself is about how Alexander Hamilton keeps fighting for what he believes is right, no matter how many times people bring him down. “Perhaps the biggest testament to the force of ‘‘Hamilton’’ is how easily audiences acclimate to its color-blind casting...a cast composed almost entirely of people of color.” - 2015 New York Times Article. When Vice President Elect Mike Pence visited the theater to watch Hamilton, President Elect Donald Trump tweeted angrily that the cast of Hamilton harassed Pence. In the interview with Terry Gross, Lin-Manuel Miranda says that he doesn’t believe that the cast harassed Pence in any way. “This has proved to be a movingly theatrical way of affirming the notion that American history belongs to people of all colors, an ideal that the Trump circle, using the tools and language of racial and immigrant scapegoating, appears to be abrogating to a highly dangerous degree.” - 2016 Washington Post

Article.
Clearly, Lin-Manuel Miranda is a brilliant composer, writer, and lyricist for many reasons. He created Hamilton, a musical that’s taking Broadway by storm. He is an alum of Wesleyan University and created the musical In the Heights while there. (linmanuel.com). He started composing and writing at a young age, and I hope he continues to create many more amazing works of art.