Hamilton Creator, Original Star is Hamilton College’s Next “Great Names” Speaker

Hamilton College has announced that Lin-Manuel Miranda, the original star and creator of the Tony award winning musical Hamilton will be the college's next "Great Names" speaker. 

Miranda will give a talk to students and members of the public on Monday, September 29th, at 7 p.m., at the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House in Clinton. The event will be free and open to the public, but tickets will be required.

An award-winning songwriter, actor, director and producer, Miranda began writing the song-and-rap Broadway smash in 2008 after reading Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton. The writing and development process continued until the musical’s premiere in 2015. Hamilton received the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Drama and earned a record-breaking 16 Tony nominations, of which it won 11, including two for Miranda for Book and Score of a Musical.

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Event Information

The event will be free and open to the public, but tickets will be required. As with all Great Names events, the College distributes tickets only for the number of seats available in the venue. Tickets will be available in early September.

A livestream option will be available for members of the Hamilton community with a My Hamilton account on the website: hamilton.edu/greatnames

The original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton won the 2016 Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. Both Miranda and Hamilton won the 2016 Drama League Awards for Distinguished Performance and Outstanding Production of a Musical, respectively.

Material from the show was previewed at the White House during its first-ever Evening of Poetry & Spoken Word in 2009, Lincoln Center Theater’s 2012 American Songbook Series, and New York Stage and Film’s 2013 Powerhouse Theater Season at Vassar College. Miranda performed became one of the musical’s numbers on the college’s campus in 2012 to kick off Hamilton’s Bicentennial celebration.

Miranda received his B.A. from Wesleyan University in 2002. He lives with his family in New York.