Lin-Manuel Miranda Raps About Alexander Hamilton (Again)

Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, whose rap on Alexander Hamilton received a standing ovation from POTUS and FLOTUS at the White House’s evening of Poetry, Music and the Spoken Word in May 2009 (video link), has been taking his act further. He performed recently to rave reviews at the Lincoln Center’s new season of the American Songbook series dedicated to “the celebration of popular American song.”

The show, directed by fellow Wes alum and In the Heights director Thomas Kail ’99 and performed on Hamilton’s 255th birthday, included “a primer on some of the Hip-Hop songs that left an indelible imprint on [Miranda’s] sound, soul and psyche” (starting off with Jay-Z’s Empire State of Mind mashed up with Billy Joel and Sondheim, whoa) and 12 songs from work-in-progress “The Alexander Hamilton Mixtape,” according to an enthusiastic report from the Uptown Collective.

Broadway star Gavin Creel played King George, in a Burger King-esque crown. Awesome.

Check out Miranda’s interview with Forbes for more on how he became interested in Alexander Hamilton and this recent interview with The New York Times for news on what he’s currently working on (a musical adaptation of Chaim Potok’s 1972 Novel My Name is Asher Lev) and his dream project, “a musical about the 24-hour news channel NY1” that would feature Next to Normal star Aaron Tveit as newspaper-reading news anchor Pat Kiernan.

[LINK.]