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At College
In the fall of 1999 Lin-Manuel Miranda started to work on plays in his dorm room and Olin Library of his alma mater, Wesleyan University. His career as a playwright started much younger than most other famous playwrights of his time. -
In The Heights
Out of college, Manuel put all his effort in writing the play "In The Heights". A play that portrayed the story of three Dominican-American characters growing up in Washington Heights of New York City. -
2008 Tony Awards
At just 29 years old, Miranda came home with the awards of Best Musical and Best Original Score for his playwright "In The Heights". The awards showed the public how much potential he had at such a young age. -
2009 Grammy Awards
Just 6 months after his successful night at the Tony Awards, Miranda took home the Grammy award for Best Musical Theater Album. -
West Side Story Revival
Because of the influence "In The Heights" had on the Latino community, Miranda was selected by director Stephen Sondheim to write lyrics for a 2009 revival of "West Side Story". -
White House Performance
In 2009, Miranda was invited to do a performance at the White House Evening of Poetry. A few months earlier he had read Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton. He became inspired by the book and the actions taken by Hamilton during the early years of America. Due to this inspiration, at the White House his performance consisted of a rap he had written about the Alexander Hamilton.The rap later named "My Shot" would be featured in Miranda's musical "Hamilton". -
Bring It On
Following his success with "In The Heights" and other smaller side projects. In 2010 Miranda began work writing his next musical, "Bring It On", with his co-writers Tom Kitt and Amanda Green. The musical portrayed the world of competitive cheerleading and was seen as a criticism of individuals who lose the value of the sport over the competitive aspect of it. Bring it on would debut in theaters in January of 2011 and would go on to be nominated for multiple Tony awards and Grammys in 2012. -
Hamilton
For a few years prior, Miranda had been working on writing, composing, and directing his play "Hamilton". His inspiration had come from the Alexander Hamilton biography he had read a few years earlier. The first performance of the play was put on at off Broadway Public Theater in January of 2015. The play received very positive critical acclaim from it's beginnings and it was performed on Broadway by July. -
Hamilton (Continued)
The musical was praised for its production, but more importantly for seamlessly introducing elements of politics and human rights into the play. The political values of partisanship and dangers of extreme political parties portrayed in the play were especially relevant due to the current political situation in America with the election coming up. There was also strong influence of African American rights and culture. This was evident through sampling rappers such as Mobb Deep and Biggie Smalls. -
Political Address Before Hamilton
In December 2016, not long after Donald Trump was elected president, vice president Mike Pence was in attendance at a performance of Hamilton. Before the play Miranda and some cast members made as speech to Pence stressing the need to "work on behalf of all Americans". The speech showed how much influence the play had on both American arts and culture.
