Lin-Manuel Miranda is the star of Hamilton the Musical. It’s the hot ticket on Broadway and everyone who’s anyone (POTUS, Meryl Streep, et al) are flocking to see it and raving. A musical about the man on the $10 bill — the one who lost a duel, you say? Miranda – who wrote the lyrics and script and music – says the “secret sauce” behind the show is that “it’s such an improbable and amazing story.” Note the first line of the play that describes Hamilton’s life: “How does a bastard orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?”
[Hamilton: A Hip-Hop Show Obama, Clinton and Cheney Came To See]
It doesn’t hurt that the 35-year-old Miranda uses hip-hop and rap to tell the story in the 21st century. (Hey, it worked for his other popular musical, the Tony Award winning In the Heights, which he started writing while studying at Wesleyan.) The native New Yorker (Washington Heights, Hunter College High School) has some political ties. According to Wikipedia, Miranda’s father was a former political adviser to Mayor Ed Koch, and Miranda helped create a jingle used for Eliot Spitzer’s 2006 campaign. Miranda’s interview with Charlie Rose will air on 60 Minutes on November 8 at 7:30pm on CBS.
