Hamilton Had Its Eyes on Lin-Manuel Miranda

Four Hamilton students and alumni — Isa Cardoso ’25, Alejandro Sosa Hernández ’26, Kelvin Nuñez ’24, and Benjamin White ’26 — accompanied by the College Choir, presented a rousing remix of “My Shot” to welcome Miranda on behalf of a crowd of thousands of students, faculty, staff, and community members. “What’s up Hamilton?” Miranda shouted as he settled into his seat across from moderator and Broadway producer Eric Kuhn ’09.

From the start, Miranda broached the rewarding and demanding nature of a career in musical theatre. He referenced his great-uncle, a beloved Puerto Rican actor, as both an example-setter and a cautionary tale. Miranda remembered his father urging him, “You’re very creative; you should be a lawyer.” But Miranda was smitten with the stage, even as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University and later a high school English teacher in New York City.

Miranda is also no stranger to keeping perpetually busy, a trait he commended in Hamilton College students. Committing deeply and widely to musical projects instilled in him tenacity, fearless multitasking, and above all else, a zeal for community. To make it big, “You better learn to lead with the spirit of joy,” he said. He attributed his joy to a group of friends, coworkers, and mentors who have supported his pursuits.

Also essential to the composer’s work is what moderator Kuhn described as “putting things together and drawing out the magic from them.” Miranda said his liberal arts education equipped him with this skill and an interest in breaking genre barriers. When asked about the risks inherent to uniting hip-hop and musical theatre tradition in Hamilton, Miranda explained, “His [Alexander Hamilton’s] writing transcends his origin story. To me, that’s every hip hop artist” — the connections made themselves. To demonstrate his generative process, Miranda performed a few verses of “My Shot,” to which the audience needed no cue to sing along.

And yet, Miranda remains grounded by the small failures that precede every success.

“I don’t consider myself a genius. I consider myself someone who works really, really, really hard,” he said. “I’m pulling from every song and every influence I ever loved. It’s about bringing all of yourself to the work and bringing something no one else can bring to the work, because no one can make what you made, and no one has lived what you lived.”

Throughout his career, Miranda has balanced listening to his gut with seeking out guidance from his heroes. He emphasized the time investment and flexibility necessary for a production, as variety and surprise can’t shine without careful editing and rewriting. This process, however, is not a blueprint to success — that is unique to every artist.

“I think your responsibility as an artist is to create the art you want to create, and no one can tell you how to do that, and no one should tell you not to do that,” Miranda said. “And whether that is a fiery political polemic or balloon animals like it needs to be what you, you and only you can express.”

Hamilton demonstrates that sentiment. Miranda fused homages to hip-hop with primary historical sources, including the Founding Father’s first documented letter to a friend at age 14, to devise a musical both political and comedic, heartbreaking and inspirational. In doing so, he aimed not to glorify historical figures but to portray them beyond their two-dimensional appearances on U.S. currency. Ultimately, he said, “It’s about flawed people making a flawed country,” a task that is never complete.

To wrap up the evening event, Kuhn posed a series of rapid-fire questions to the star. Miranda revealed his go-to karaoke songs — “Mr. Brightside” and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” — as well as what he imagined to be Alexander Hamilton’s favorite rappers — A$AP Rocky and Eminem, to name a few. He also responded to a question submitted by a student in the Class of 2028 about developing an eye and ear for theatre as a college student.

“It’s not enough to just make stuff. You have to see a lot of stuff. You have to read a lot of stuff. You have to just soak up as much art as you can,” Miranda said. “In chasing your heroes, you’ll fall short and find your own voice.”