Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda
From bastard orphan to Washington’s right hand man, rebel to war hero, loving husband caught in the country’s first sex scandal to Treasury head who made an untrusting world believe in the American economy, HAMILTON is an exploration of a political mastermind. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Eliza Hamilton, and lifelong Hamilton friend and foe, Aaron Burr, all attend this revolutionary tale of America’s fiery past told through the sounds of the ever-changing nation we’ve become.
Source: Playbill
Lin-Manuel Miranda is an award-winning composer, lyricist, and performer, as well as a 2015 MacArthur Foundation Award recipient. His current musical, Hamilton – with book, music and lyrics by Mr. Miranda, in addition to him playing the title role – opened on Broadway in 2015 following a sold-out run at New York’s Public Theater. Off-Broadway, Hamilton received a record-breaking 10 Lortel Awards, as well as 3 Outer Critic Circle Awards, 8 Drama Desk Awards, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best New Musical, and an OBIE for Best New American Play. Mr. Miranda’s first Broadway musical, In the Heights, received four 2008 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, with Mr. Miranda receiving a Tony Award for Best Score as well as an nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. In the Heights also received a Grammy Award for its Original Broadway Cast Album and was a 2009 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama. Mr. Miranda is the co-composer and co-lyricist of the Tony-nominated Bring it On: The Musical. He contributed Spanish translations for the 2009 Broadway revival of West Side Story. Mr. Miranda is a co-founder/member of the hip-hop improv group Freestyle Love Supreme. In 2014, Mr. Miranda received an Emmy Award with Tom Kitt for their song, “Bigger” from the 67th Annual Tony Awards telecast. At the 2016 Tony Awards, Hamilton was nominated for 16 Tony Awards and won Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Book of a Musical, Best Lighting Design in a Musical, Best Costume Design in a Musical, Best Direction of a Musical, Best Orchestrations, Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical, Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical, Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical and Best Choreography. Additional television and film appearances include “House,” “Modern Family,” “Sesame Street,” The Odd Life of Timothy Green and 200 Cartas. Mr. Miranda is the recipient of the ASCAP Foundation’s Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award and the National Arts Club Medal of Honor. He serves as a Council Member of The Dramatists Guild, Board Member of Young Playwrights Inc., and as an appointee to New York City’s Theater Subdistrict Council. A graduate of Wesleyan University, he currently lives in New York City with his wife, son and dog.
Interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda
“Out of an extraordinary group of plays that brilliantly illuminate aspects of American history, the committee voted unanimously to award the Edward M. Kennedy prize to Hamilton. The committee felt that the spirit of the award is exemplified in this play. It enlists theater’s power to explore the past of the United States, participating meaningfully in the great issues of our day and grounded in the historical understanding that is essential to the functioning of a democracy. Technically so proficient, historically so sound, artistically so groundbreaking, Hamilton is both inspired by and celebrates the evolving history of the United States, of hip-hop, and of the musical theater.”
Columbia Perspective by Professor Robert A. McCaughey
Judges
Kristoffer Diaz, Playwright, Educator
Farah Jasmine Griffin, William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies, Columbia University
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies
Mona Mansour, Playwright
Dominique Morisseau, Playwright
James Shapiro, Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
Jeanine Tesori, Composer, Musical Arranger
Anne Washburn, Playwright
John Weidman, Librettist
- The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Educational Program (Partner educational program for Hamilton)
- Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Website
- Biography of Alexander Hamilton (Wikipedia)
- Hamilton on Broadway