Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Goof, The Legend

This post is very long and full of lots of videos. It is for a very specific audience (namely my sister), but such is life. There is no end to things I like about LMM. He is all over social media, so there are endless little tidbits to discover and to interact with him. Here's a very brief synopsis (which I hope is accurate, but let me know if it's not):

LMM grew up in NYC and spent his summers in Puerto Rico with his grandparents. He had his first taste of the stage in a 6th grade compilation of musicals, though the one he most often references is the part where was the center of attention as he played Conrad Birdie. He went to Hunter College High School, then to college at Wesleyan University where he graduated in 2002. He formed Freestyle Love Supreme, a freestyle rap group, while in college, and his sophomore year he wrote the first iteration of In The Heights. He worked on his musical with Quiara and Tommy Kail while working as an English teacher at his old high school, then got it into the Public theater. He played Usnavi, it went to Broadway, won two Tonys, went on tour, went to Puerto Rico, and just recently won the Olivier in the UK. He literally never stops working - he's been in movies, on TV shows, wrote and directed an independent film, wrote for the Manhattan Times, contributed songs to the revision of Stephen Schwartz's Working, translated segments of West Side Story with Sondheim, did some songs and acting for Sesame Street, wrote music for Star Wars, performs freestyle all the time, wrote Neil Patrick Harris' raps for the Tonys, performed in Tick, Tick...Boom, and sooo much more. He co-wrote the music and lyrics for Bring It On on Broadway in 2011. When he was on his first vacation from In The Heights in 2007, he picked up a biography for vacation reading, and was immediately hooked. It was Ron Chernow's Hamilton, and even before the third chapter he was thinking of lyrics and giving them voices of hip hop artists in his mind. In 2009, he performed at the White House for the Evening of Poetry, Music and Spoken Word and although he was invited to perform something from In the Heights, he decided to trot out the first song in his proposed concept album about the life of Alexander Hamilton, a man who pulled himself out of poverty on the strength of his writing, had a life worthy of a novel, and helped shape the United States at every turn. In between all this work, he also got married in 2010, adopted a DR puppy, and had a kid in 2014. That mixtape turned into Hamilton: The Musical by January 2015 in the Public Theater. It went to the Richard Rodgers on Broadway and opened on August 6, 2015. On top of the musical, there's also the soundtrack, a high school curriculum, Hamilton: The Revolution (#hamiltome), soon a mixtape,  Hamilton has exploded all over everything and Lin is in endless interviews and is winning countless awards, including (but certainly not limited to) an Obie, the Edward M. Kennedy Prize, a MacArthur genius grant, a Grammy (and the album is certified gold), and as of April 18, a Pulitzer. He's also on the Times Top 100. Oh yeah, and he's writing the music for the new Disney movie.

All of these things are freaking amazing, but it's mostly the youtube videos, interviews and the twitter that I enjoy. He's eloquent, humble and smart, and gets adorably excited about things.

For a start, ALL OF THE FAN ART is GENIUS:

There's this adorable bilingual romantic comedy called 200 Cartas

He's awesome about the fans and is a huge fan himself

He put up so many ridiculous movies he made as a kid onto YouTube

He's part of a freestyle group called Freestyle Love Supreme

He was on Sesame Street and The Electric Company (fun fact, Chris Jackson wrote songs and acted on Sesame Street, and Shockwave produced and acted on Electric Company)

All the freestyles...

He promotes all of his shows through freestyle and rap videos, the most hilarious of which is a spoof on High School Musical 2 to promote In The Heights

He did this video with Susan Blackwell which I could watch on repeat forever (*explicit*). There are many things you would need to know for this video to make sense, but if you do know about Susan Blackwell, Lin, John, their relationships to each other, and where they fit into the Broadway world, it's great.

In The Heights is a fantastic, beautiful musical about his neighborhood and latinos in New York

He rapped his Tony's acceptance speech

Hamilton. You know.

And ALL of the AWESOME cut parts of Hamilton.

He did this fantastic surprise Fiddler on the Roof song for his wife at their wedding

His relationship with his wife is #relationshipgoals

(this lovely story of their relationship appeared in the NYT)

He is just adorable when he's excited

His son is adorable and he's adorable when he talks about him

My kid runs toward any stage he sees. This is probably when my parents started panicking too. pic.twitter.com/dGlyt577r8— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) April 4, 2016

He made the #hamiltome

He's done In The Heights, Hamilton, Bring it On, translated West Side Story with Sondheim...

He's writing the music for Moana

#YAYHamlet (side note, I really want this t-shirt)

*Lady rolls down her car window at 181st street*
"congrats on HAMLET!"
Me: "I WISH I wrote Hamlet!"
Lady: "Yay HAMLET!"
*drives away*#myday— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) February 19, 2015

He wrote the first draft of In The Heights his sophomore year in college at Wesleyan! (I was not thinking about writing a broadway play at age 20...)

#Ham4Ham and how into it he gets

His friendship with Jonathan Groff...

...and this moment in particular (or actually, the moment directly following this moment)

This interview with Emma Watson

Making Hamilton accessible to those outside of Broadway in SO MANY WAYS - the soundtrack, #EduHam, all the youtube stuff, the Hamiltome, Twitter, Instagram, the White House, GAH!

His favorite books are SO GOOD, and then he got into an extended Twitter love fest about kids books with his followers.

.@Lin_Manuel on his favorite writers, the last book that made him cry and much more, in By the Book: https://t.co/EYbNKzrCLI— New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) April 5, 2016

YOOOOOOOO
PHANTOM TOLLBOOOOOTH
*fires imaginary gun in the air*
WHERE MY MATHEMAGICIANS AT https://t.co/NRnqNh2Lx4— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) April 5, 2016

He loves Name of the Wind, and "The Story of Tonight" was an attempt to capture a passage from the book.

.@PatrickRothfuss @CmonHarris THIS. The feeling I was chasing in The Story of Tonight. From The Name Of The Wind. pic.twitter.com/ajChk3xEWa— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) April 5, 2016

And he just give such great advice and great quotes.

Oh, and THIS happened

#goals #obsessed