Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2015 Commencement Address

Lin-Manuel Miranda is the Tony and Grammy-winning composer-lyricist of Broadway’s In the Heights, which received four 2008 Tony Awards, with Miranda receiving a Tony Award for Best Score, and a nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Musical.

In The Heights was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show’s first incarnation was staged at the ’92 Theater at Wesleyan in 2000. Miranda is also the co-composer/co-lyricist of Broadway’s Bring it On: The Musical, which received a 2013 Tony nomination for Best Musical. His latest stage work is Hamilton, a musical based on the life of Alexander Hamilton, which had its world premiere at the Public Theater in New York City in 2015.

Along with composer Tom Kitt, Miranda won the 2014 Creative Arts Emmy for Best Original Music and Lyrics for their work on the 67th Annual Tony Awards. Additionally, Miranda is a co-founder and member of Freestyle Love Supreme, a popular hip-hop improv group that launched its own television series on Pivot TV in 2014. (Read a Broadway.com Q&A here)

Miranda has appeared in New York City Center’s “Encores!” productions of Merrily We Roll Along and tick, tick… BOOM! His television and film credits include Sesame Street, The Electric Company, The Sopranos, House, Modern Family, Smash, How I Met Your Mother, The Odd Life of Timothy Green and 200 Cartas. A 2002 graduate of Wesleyan, he lives in New York City with his wife and son. (AB)