Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda is an actor, composer, lyricist, and playwright. Born January 16, 1980, Miranda is a New Yorker by birth of Puerto Rican background.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's first major show was In the Heights, a celebration of the Washington Heights people and the neighborhood near where he grew up. The show was part of a college project originally. The show was first performed while he was still a student at Wesleyan University, and after his graduation the show was retooled over the next several years for a successful Off-Broadway run with an eventual transfer to Broadway. It garnered 13 Tony nominations, winning for Best Musical and Best Original Score among others.

Miranda co-wrote the lyrics and score for Bring It On: The Musical and contributed to the score of Disney's animated film, Moana, earning multiple award nominations, including Best Original Song for “How Far I’ll Go.”

But it was the Broadway musical Hamilton that took the world by storm and shot Miranda into a whole other stratosphere of popularity. The show took on a life of its own after a long gestation period. Miranda had read a biography of this country’s first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, and was immediately drawn to the story thinking someone must have already considered this for a musical. He began working on the project, first called The Hamilton Mix-Tape, eventually debuting one of the first songs from the show at the White House for President and Mrs. Obama. Eventually the show opened Off-Broadway, which was a sold-out run, and in July of 2015, it transferred to Broadway, where it is still playing at the Richard Rodgers Theatre to sold-out houses every night. Miranda was nominated for multiple Tony Awards both for the creative side of the show and for his performance as the lead actor. The show also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2016.