UNHEARD OF: A PUERTO RICAN AMERICAN WRITES A HIP HOP MUSICAL ABOUT "FOUNDING FATHER ALEXANDER HAMILTON

Lin-Manuel Miranda is no ordinary Manhattan born Puerto Rican. Let’s start right there! I am drawn to ”out of the box” stories such as this....a second generation Puerto Rican who writes a Tony Award Winning Hip Hop Musical In The Heights on his first project. I saw it on Broadway and it was exceptional, and inspirational. Latinos have been conspicuously missing from the American musical theatre since it’s inception in the early 1900’s. We can only hope that Lin-Manuel Miranda will inspire a whole new generation of Americans (especially latinos) to this uniquely American genre, the Musical.

Now, what inspired me to write this piece is not In the Heights. That is about life in the northern part of Harlem, his home neighborhood of Puerto Rican descent. It is partly autobiographical. Miranda’s next project is much further outside the chalk lines.....I don’t even know a precedence for this venture. Miranda has written American musical number two that is entitled Hamilton. It is about the life of Alexander Hamilton, one of the key Founding Fathers, and, Miranda himself plays the title role of Hamilton. It is rare indeed to see a member of the minority community who writes about an Anglo (white) male aristocrat, though Hamilton grew up illegitimate, outside of the United States, and in stark poverty.

Black authors typically write stories with black men or women as the protaganist, hispanic men typically write stories celebrating an hispanic protagonist. A religious Catholic is unlikely to write a biography of a Jewish cleric, etc.. It is very typical for people to write about people with whom they identify with...but invariably it is someone who they identify with based on racial, or religious currency. What sets Miranda apart is that he identifies with Hamilton but not because of characteristics as obvious as skin color and racial background. It is so refreshing, and a huge step forward, to see that Miranda doesn’t see Alexander Hamilton, or any of the Founding Fathers, as belonging to white America. He identifies with Hamilton based on his spirit, yes as the only foreign born Founding Father, but as much or more for his spirit.

Miranda transcends race once again. By playing Hamilton he blurs the racial and color lines that too often prevent us from seeing the more universal themes that play in all our lives. By writing it as a Hip Hop Musical he invites a new audience, one that might more easily embrace history in a modern template, with an unlikely heroine.......Lin-Manuel Miranda.

“Hamilton” is presently playing at the public theatre off Broadway to rave reviews. The show will open on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on July 13, 2015 in previews, officially on August 8.