By now, we are all fairly well-versed in how talented Lin-Manuel Miranda is and how much we have to thank him for when it comes to prestige musical theatre.
Of course, he is responsible for Hamilton — which Sydneysiders only have until March 2022 to see before it heads to Melbourne — and In the Heights which originated as a Broadway show and will be in cinemas from June 24, but did you know that he also adapted a beloved comedy into a stage show in between those two projects?
Miranda wrote the first iteration of In the Heights when he was just 19, (which really makes me wonder what I’ve been doing with my life) and it debuted on Broadway in 2008. However, before he went on to write the hip-hop musical about the US Secretary of the Treasury, the talented artist worked on bringing the cheerleading blockbuster Bring It On to the stage.
Bring It On: The Musical was loosely based on the 2000 movie starring Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, and Gabrielle Union and debuted in early 2011 before embarking on a national tour later that year. In 2012, the show made its Broadway premiere, where it enjoyed a five-month run.
Hamilton then premiered off-Broadway in February 2015 before making its official Broadway debut later that year. It went on to win 11 Tony Awards out of a record-breaking 16 nominations.
Proving that he really can do just about everything, Miranda has also made guest appearances in sitcoms such as How I Met Your Mother and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, starred in the Mary Poppins reboot with Emily Blunt and will lend his voice talents to the Sony animated film Vivo — for which he also served as the composer.
Vivo, which also stars Gloria Estefan and Zoe Saldana, will see Miranda reunited with Quiara Alegría Hudes, who wrote the book for In the Heights on Broadway and the screenplay for the film.
As if that weren’t enough, he has also written the music for Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid and made his directorial debut with tick, tick…BOOM! which will premiere in cinemas and on Netflix later in 2021.
The film stars Andrew Garfield and follows his character Jon’s race against time to create something extraordinary. Set in 1990, Jon is a young theatre composer who works at a New York City diner to make ends meet but dreams that he’ll one day write the next great American musical, so it’s not hard to see why Miranda was drawn to the project in the first place.
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