Lin-Manuel Miranda: History Has Its Eyes On You

So when we last left him, Lynn was getting jobs left and.

Right, and he was wrapping for Obama at the White House.

For nine years, he had worked tirelessly to recreate his neighborhood and to create a new kind of Broadway for a new generation.

Soon he was known around town as a Broadway kid who could wrap.

He was working NonStop, But soon he was answering the question that creatives hate the most.

Who are you wearing? No, not that one.

They were asking what comes next?

Uh, let me live my life, not you.

But I'm sure Lynn kind of felt the same way. His performance at the White House had peaked everyone's interest. What was this play about a founding father and how did hip hop fit in?

Originally it was just a concept album. No one knew what Lynn had.

When the Heights came around, he wondered how he had beat everyone to the finish line by being the first to include with salsa and hip hop in a stage musical. Now he was going to make a musical about Alexander Hamilton.

Yeah, but how do you get that sh money?

On today's episode, we're going to revisit this seven year period, tell you how it happened, and dive deep into why it became such a cultural phenomenon.

Lynn was not throwing away his shot.

Today, it's all things Hamilton, an American musical and how it'll turn Lin Mineral Miranda into an icon. I'm your host, Lilianavasquez.

And I'm Joseph Carrio and this is Becoming an Icon, a.

Weekly podcast where we give you the rundown on how today's most famous LATINX stars have shaped pop culture.

And given the world some extra le ale.

Sit back and get comfortable.

Because we are going in the only way we know how, with whenas the chief.

Me and a lot of opinions as we relive their greatest achievements on our journey to find out what makes them so iconic. There's an important rule when it comes to.

Writing the Save the Cat beat sheet.

You've read Saved the Cat.

I have a story to tell, Biac.

Okay, the most important rule is to write what you know.

Okay, that was Toad's my second answer. But pause, I can totally see it applying to In the Heights, but Hamilton.

Here's the origin story of Hamilton. After two years of being on stage within the Heights, Lynn and his fiance at the time go on a beach vacation.

You know.

It was one of those like lay around and do nothing in the sun kind of trips.

I love those. Just worrying about which pool you're going to go to every day and.

Making sure you get the chairs that face the beach. Yes, it was that kind of trip. Most of us are, you know, relaxing reading a little chick lit or a steamy novel like Outlander. Wait is that just me? Okay? But Lyn's beach read that week Alexander Hamilton by Ron Churnell.

Okay, I'm more of a Colleen Hoover type of guy. It starts with me reading it and ends with me reading it.

So Lynn reads this seven hundred page biography of the nation's first treasury secretary and sees a hip hop pioneer.

What how how does someone think of these two things together?

That's what everyone kept asking. But we all know that Lynn isn't just anybody. Alexander Hamilton, the chief aide to George Washington, a founding father, a federalist, the first Secretary of the Treasury, and a man on the ten dollars bill. Well, he wraps some strong bars. Even Lynn acknowledges that the pitch of the show is ridiculous. Here's what Lynn told NPR. I understand how ridiculous the elevator pitch for the show is, but in a way, that video is a microcosm of

Okay, so rap artists write and rhyme their way out of their circumstances of their life, and that's what Hamilton did. Okay, I see now it makes sense.

But making that connection between a historical biography and hip hop, well, that's what makes Lynn the genius that he is. It truly was like, wait, what, what's Hamilton really? He raps? What was your reaction when you actually found out the story of Hamilton and how it was going to be presented on stage?

Honestly, I was like, bitch, ain't nobody got time for that shit, Like at all? How are you going to make this cool? I couldn't imagine what he was going to do. I couldn't imagine people dressed like that, you know, like how they were, how George Washington was dressed. I don't know how to call that garb and rapping like it just wasn't going to be fun. And look at it now.

Everybody had a similar reaction. I didn't know a lot about Alexander Hamilton. I think I had read a couple of zero. I'm sure I had read a lot about him at some point in high school when I was learning about American history. But I can tell you that I am certainly not an American revolutionary scholar.

Although you come off as when sometimes.

My friends do talk about the American Revolution dinner when I'm with really smart people. No, I didn't know anything. I mean, I know he was on the ten dollar bill. When was the last time you had a ten dollar bill? Did they even make those?

Dude? I just got one back today. I got eleven dollars in change because I bought a burrito.

You're lying they didn't give you a ten nice?

Well, I got eleven dollars. Yeah, I got a one in ten Wow, and it was Hamilton. He's rare and he sang to me he raped, he rapped.

But the way that he was able to merge, like you said, like George Washington, what did you call it, George Washington garb, the way he was able to merge George Washington speak and garb and language in modern day yeah, and make history so accessible revolutionary, bitch, there you go, that's a better word. Around the beginning, the musical was initially referred to as the Hamilton Mixtape.

Ooh, I'm going to start calling all my work in progress mixtapes.

Didn't Cardi be have a mixtape?

Yeah?

Actually, wasn't it called a mixtape?

I think that's what everyone calls them when they're like about to get there, you know.

Yeah. I feel like Kanye had a mixtape, Cardi had a mixtape, Lin Minimal Miranda had a mixtape. This project was described as a hip hop concert album about the life of America's first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton.

I can totally imagine people wondering what was going on through Lynn's head because this just sounds fucking crazy, and I still can't let it go.

Well, neither could Lynn. He obsessed over these songs. The show took seven years to write.

My Man, he just can't write fast, Kenny.

Listen, greatness takes time. In the book Hamilton the Revolution, Linn mentions that even on the day they were about to open on Broadway, moments before the first performance, he was still changing lyrics in line. Miranda even spent an entire year writing just one song, Hey, I'm getting a theme.

So Cardi b is described as a perfectionist. J Loo is described as a perfectionist and bad money too. So the key to being an icon is being a perfectionist. And I am officially writing that down.

See I'd like to reframe the word perfectionist because I think sometimes that as a negative connotation. I like to call it aspiring to excellence and can you can you even blame them? Lynn wanted to get every single song perfect, and he kept trying to make each rhyme even more clever.

Which is why I think so many fans became obsessed with the songs. You can't hear everything in the first listen. You need to listen over and over again to catch each reference and rhyme.

People that had never seen the show. Knew the songs word for word. A they were, like you said, it made history accessible and revolutionary. People just caught something that felt so new and innovative and different. That's what makes these people an icon. It's so hard to create something that is truly original. Everything is a version of something else, Everything is a reimagined or a reworked. But Hamilton is truly an original work of art.

I think that there is, Like we keep saying every single episode with everybody, we've talked about everything is so unique.

What do you think is most unique about Hamilton?

The visuals? Right there, it's like, what the fuck George Washington is black? Only because I don't know how other people were going to take it. So I was just kind of shocked there. And then the black guy was playing a white guy. I'm like, this is too much for me brain right now, I cannot deal with it.

I think for me, it's yes, one hundred percent of visuals. But I think it's the visuals in combination with the historical accuracy that he incorporated the music, and how he was able to really teach an entire generation of people, multiple generations people about history. Everybody walked out of that

I'm not going to miss my shot.

I think that's a really good one.

I think that sound spoke to me because like when you sit back too much, you feel like, when you know you're not going to miss your shot, you just go for it, you know, and then if you do miss your shot, you don't I feel like you missed it. Does that make sense? I do?

I like that. I like the perseverance of that too. I would say my favorite line only because I love New Jersey. My husband's from New Jersey. Everything's legal in New Jersey. I got such a kick cut of back because again, this was like way back in the days, and like now it's just it's it's true. Have y'all ever been to New Jersey. Everything that took place in New Jersey, the Jersey Shore took place in New Jersey. It's still is true today. Everything y'all is legal in

Freestyle Love What.

Freestyle Love Supreme. It was actually a group that Linn started with Anthony Veneziali back in two thousand and four when they were rehearsing for In the Heights. It was like a no ensemble group that wrapped, freestyle, wrapped, improv and did comedy all at the same time.

So kind of like wild and out but really improvised.

Yes, like it's kind of more like whose line is it anyway? But like that's really selling it short, because it's genius on stage is exactly what it is. And when I saw the show, I knew it was going to be amazing because friends had talked about it, but actually being in the audience and the fact that every single show is different, and every night is different, and the performers are different and they change. They literally make this like an interactive theatrical experience.

Sorry for clarity, it's for Freestyle of Supreme.

Yes, yes, Freestyle of Supreme is the show. It had a pretty limited run on Broadway. It's going to be I think in residency in Las Vegas. It's this like improv troup. But again that is underselling their talents because these people are like comedic geniuses, their wordsmiths, their rappers, their singers, they're actors, they are entertainers, they are literally everything.

And hip hop was born in New York City, so it's a theme with Lynn.

So it's twenty twelve, and Lynn has been developing the Hamilton Mixtape for years, and he starts performing in around town, and soon Broadway producers start hearing it and.

It starts making its way to Broadway.

Miranda wrote the musical, and then he gave himself the titular role, which you played for almost a year.

I mean riespect because I would have done the same. Bitch knew that he had something really special cooking up and put me under all those spotlights.

But wait, if you ask camel fans, a lot of people think that Aaron Burr is actually the best role in the musical, played by the incredible Leslie odom Jo.

Hot So had so hard.

Why do you think Lynn didn't give himself the role? Of Aaron Burr.

I think that he knew his star was still so really bright, you know. I don't I think that he could have given that big role away just because it wasn't to I don't think that's what he even he was looking for.

I think it just shows the generosity of spirit of who Lynn is. And I think it's also so self aware, like you know when you're casting something like this, like I think nobody knows your strengths and weakness is better than you, and you know when you if you talk to I feel like anytime I've interviewed like really great directors and producers, they're really self aware. The good ones are really self aware. In Leslie, I think Lynn recognized like the greatness that is Leslie and could see how

One hundred percent.

And speaking of family, Lynn cast all people of color to play historically white characters, every single one. Why do we think he did that?

I think that for Lynn, maybe he just wanted it to feel real as he was acting it, and he could do it with all his people. Yeah, I know.

And I also think that, you know, as somebody who grew up listening and loving Broadway, he was also fixing something. He had the power to fix something right. And if you have that power and you don't use it, then what does that say about you. So props to Lend because it's completely transformed Broadway and how we see characters

I just saw Frozen on Broadway and it was there were people of color and I just remember them coming out and I never saw that before, and now after I'm just kind of like, oh wow, you know, like Elsea's sister or it's just an all different type of cast. It's not an all white cast anymore, and you're just kind of a little like five percent distracted, and then you forget.

Yeah, and they're incredibly talented, yes, very When Hamilton opened on August sixth, it became the hottest ticket in town. On the first side of previews, seven hundred people lined up for lottery ticket. It's on the first night of its previews. So for you non New Yorkers listening, every show does a lottery to give away cheap tickets every single night. Sometimes they're standing room only.

And good thing too, because girl, those Hamilton tickets were more expensive than my freaking fendy.

Resellers were charging up to ten thousand dollars for tickets to see the show.

Shut your butt. Did people really pay that much? Yeah?

Some rich people.

I quit. I'm done what.

Lynn wanted everyone to see the show, but he knew he couldn't beat the bots that buy up all the tickets for resale.

The bots stay undefeated. I'm still trying to get my Tata tickets.

Best of luck to you. Hamilton turned the lottery into an event. Their lottery was soon known as ham for ham So in order to win Ham for Ham tickets, you had to line up in front of the Richard Rogers Theater on the day of the show to put your name in a drawing. Then right before the drawing, cast members would come out and perform and make a little show for everyone that had lined up. But you can still catch on their official YouTube channel.

First of all, I freaking love that. And second, why the elf was it called Ham for Ham?

If you won the lottery, you paid ten dollars for the show.

Oh, Ham for a Ham.

Bitch, Joe, So I feel like the light just went on. It's so right, you're glowy. Soon the word got out and every week hundreds of people would line up outside the theater to block traffic to watch the Ham for Ham show.

So they had to stop, damn popo.

Yeah, but they still honor this tradition though. You can still enter the lottery for a chance to win ten dollars tickets, but it's all online now.

On Broadway, a show can do well and say bye bye Bertie in like a month or two. Hamilton is still run.

The love for the show didn't stop at the Richard Rogers Theater. It made its way to Radio City Music Hall for a show stopping awards ceremony. Once the show got going, it was a cultural phenomenon. The official cast recording album went to the top of the Broadway.

Charts Hobby and it also.

Made its way to number two on the Rap albums and number three overall. Fans were listening over and over and over again. It's the eleventh biggest album of the twenty tenths, and that's unheard of for a Broadway cast album. Last episode, we told you Lynn had grown up listening to cast albums, so he wanted his cast albums to be perfect. So get this. Most cast albums take about two days to record. Hamilton took two weeks.

He just had to get it perfect. And when you listened to the album, you feel like you're there totally.

I think that goes back to how he experienced musicals in his home. You know, with ticket prices in the thousands of dollars, the world wasn't going to get to see Hamilton like this thing that he was so passionate about and driven by to create, was not going to

I wonder if he knew that maybe people weren't because the tickets were so insane, people weren't going to be able to see it. That he knew early on to start recording it.

When he was in previews in New York. I think there's articles of him talking about him kind of knowing this right when he's developing Hamilton and showing it off Broadway, like he is not a stranger to this business. He knows right, and he knows what he has right. He saw the reaction. I mean, if you remember that clip from the White House of him rapping, that clip went viral. Everybody saw that clip. You knew instantly he had something.

It was nominated for sixteen Tony Awards, and it won eleven.

Best Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Book of a Musical. It was also during these tony Is that Lynn gave one of his most powerful speeches. The night before the show, the world had been horrified to learn of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Lynn, accepting as Tony for Best Score, with tears in his eyes, wrapped a refrain that we can still hear, echoing, love is Love is love is love is love.

It was really beautiful.

Hamilton would go on to win Best Musical that night, making Lin Manuel Miranda the first person to ever take home Tony's biggest prize for his first two Broadway musicals.

And the awards didn't stop there.

Lynn went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the musical.

Bring On That Pegot.

The cast album won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Then Lynn received the Drama League Distinguished Performance Award.

During their acceptance speech, they waived a Porto Rican flag, and.

Of course, in true Miranda fashion, he wraps the way through. Then it all came full circle when Miranda performed freestyle raps with President Barack Obama in twenty sixteen.

I just got an idea, should we freestyle?

I think I speak for all of America when I say no.

Well, let's talk about these awards. Then, what are your thoughts? My thoughts are brav I mean you are a number one? Yeah, Lynn, Miranda Fad, I'm not.

The number one.

Listen.

I just know when and where to show respect. I have worked in the entertainment industry for going on there and hundreds and hundreds of years. I have worked in George Washington.

She knew.

I dressed George Washington for the inauguration. And what I have learned is that people are talented for different reasons. Okay, I'm not going to go into the talent versus talentless conversation. In this life that he has built and in this art that he has made, he is winning because nobody deserves to win more than him. Not only does he win for his shows and his writing and producing and

Hamilton was on top of the world, standing in the eye of a hurricane of success.

But somewhere else there was a catastrophic hurricane wreaking havoc.

In twenty seventeen, Hurricanes Idma and Madia happened. We talked about Bad Bunny's involvement in helping Puerto Rico during this time, but there was someone else who wanted.

To help to lin Manuel Miranda jumped at the opportunity the only way he knew how Remember, people were willing to pay ten thousand dollars for a ticket when it opened.

It was a highly in demand show.

So he brought it to Puerto Rico to help raise funds for the island as it was recovering. The musical was staged at the Centro de veas Artists Luis a fere in January twenty nineteen, running from the eleventh through the twenty seventh.

Didn't it sell out in like a couple of hours.

Yes, the only tickets left were for the lottery. Lynn reprised his role as Alexander for the first time since leaving the Broadway production back in twenty sixteen.

I remember that Jimmy Fallon went to the island and everything to promote it. Right. It was like the first time he did it outside of the studio.

It was a very big deal and he was back with his favorite Puerto Rican Blenn.

Bad Bunny, Babe, blah blah bub ba.

The show had a successful run. The production raised funds for the restoration of arts and cultural programs in the aftermath of Hurricanes Edma and Maria. These were a combination of box office revenue, humanitarian grants, sponsorship, and other donations. There's nothing like seeing the show live and in person, but most people have seen the original cast performance in a different way on Disney Plus.

That's how I saw it.

During the show's original run, Lynn performed and recorded the entire show shot over the course of two days. Lynn filmed it with an eye towards making you feel as if you were right there in the theater, and three years later, Lynn sold it for seventy five million.

Dollars shut Up for Real, one of.

The biggest film acquisitions ever. It premiered on Disney Plus during the pandemic on July third, twenty twenty, with the original cast, and that weekend viewership on the platform jumped seventy four percent.

Wow.

Years have passed and the Hamilton craze seems to have died down, but its legacy is undeniable. The musical success stopped the US Department of the Treasury from redesigning the ten dollars bill with plans to replace Hamilton with a woman from the American history.

Lynn saved Alexander Hamilton from being canceled.

It's got a lot of power that lived, and instead, Hamilton stayed on the bill and they decided to replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty with Harriet Tubman. The show even got its own interactive museum with Hamilton the Exhibition.

And let's not forget the time Vice President Mike Pence walked out.

Ooh child yeahs. For those that don't remember or care to remember, he was in the audience. On November eighteenth, twenty sixteen, Brandon Victor Dixon playing Aaron Burr at the time addressed Pence from the stage. The statement was reportedly written by the cast Lynn Manuel and the show's producer, Jeffrey Seller. Here's what he said, Vice President Elect Pence. We welcome you, and we truly thank you for joining us here at Hamilton an American musical. We really do we, sir.

Damn the chilled bitch.

I love this cast.

I'm having heart palpitations. I don't know if it's the coffee here or if that statement really just got me.

It got you, because imagine delivering that on a Broadway stage.

Imagine being there and you're kind of like just even kind of around pens and you're just kind of like I would have serious anxiety.

Well, if I was with Pens that night and he was sitting next to me, I would do one of those like slow leans away, like bow your head down, and you're like, I don't, I don't.

I don't know you, I don't know her. Sorry to this man, I'm kind of weird about that Pence would have gone to this type of play.

Well, listen at the core, the show is about American history. He's the vice president elect of America. It is a show that is necessary for him to see. I just think that this version of America and this version of American history is maybe just not one that he wants to subscribe to. But when you look at the impact of this musical, to me, this is exactly the America that we all subscribe to. So sorry, dude, you're the odd man out. This is America he left.

Yeah by Hamilton fulfilled its purpose.

It revolutionized musical theater and changed the lives and careers of everyone involved. Miranda quickly became one of the highest earning celebrities.

It also got him the attention of a.

Mouse, Yes, the big mouse himself.

Disney came a Collin Lynn has been writing for them ever since, cleaning lamps for them, writing animated classics, including a musical about Bruno. We don't talk about Bruno.

No no, there really is no limit to how far he'll go. Next up, we'll be culminating Lynn's career with his professional work related to Disney, the film adaptation of his first ever musical, and his directorial.

Debut on the next Becoming an Icon.

Becoming an Icon is presented by Sonoo and Iheart's Michael Duda podcast network. Listen to Becoming an Icon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.