Lin-Manuel
Miranda

When Lin-Manuel Miranda performed a hip-hop song about Alexander Hamilton at the White House in 2009, no one could have guessed it would become the seed of a seismically popular show that would sweep the Tony Awards, inspire think pieces, and bring musical theater back to the pop-culture vernacular.

But that’s exactly what “Hamilton” did. Miranda’s smash musical launched in 2015 Off Broadway before a swift move to Broadway and, later, an opening in Chicago and a national tour.

A native New Yorker, Miranda was born in Washington Heights, the uptown Manhattan neighborhood that inspired “In the Heights,” the hit musical he began writing as an undergrad at Wesleyan that would go on to win four Tony Awards in 2008.

Then came “Hamilton,” which earned a record 16 Tony nominations in 2016 and won 11, including best musical. The album won a Grammy, and Miranda took home the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

In the wake of his success with “Hamilton,” Miranda has moved into film, earning an Oscar nomination for a song he co-wrote for the Disney animated movie “Moana” and co-starring in the studio’s upcoming live-action sequel to “Mary Poppins.” He’s also working on new material for a live-action version of “The Little Mermaid” and has been tapped as creative producer and musical mastermind for Lionsgate’s film and TV adaptations of “The Kingkiller Chronicle,” a series of fantasy novels.

Meanwhile, the international expansion of “Hamilton” begins in late 2017, when the show opens on London’s West End.