Miranda, Lin-Manuel, 1980-

Lin-Manuel Miranda (/lɪn mænˈwɛl mɪˈrændə/; born January 16, 1980)[1] is an American songwriter, actor, singer, filmmaker, rapper, and playwright. He is known for creating the Broadway musicals Hamilton (2015) and In the Heights (2005), and the soundtracks for the animated films Moana (2016), Encanto (2021), and Vivo (2021). His awards include three Tony Awards, five Grammy Awards, two Laurence Olivier Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, an Annie Award, a MacArthur Fellowship Award, a Kennedy Center Honor, and a Pulitzer Prize.

Lin-Manuel Miranda was born on January 16, 1980, in New York City to Dr. Luz Towns-Miranda, a clinical psychologist, and Luis Miranda Jr., a Democratic Party consultant.[1][note 1] The name "Lin-Manuel" was inspired by a poem about the Vietnam War, Nana roja para mi hijo Lin Manuel, by the Puerto Rican writer José Manuel Torres Santiago.[13][14] He was raised Catholic in the neighborhood of Inwood.[1][15][16][17][18] He is of Puerto Rican, Mexican, and African descent.[19][20][21] During childhood and his teens, he spent at least one month each year with his grandparents in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico.[22][23] Miranda has one older sister, Luz, who is the Chief Financial Officer of the MirRam Group, a strategic consulting firm in Government and Communications.[24]

Miranda attended Hunter College Elementary School and Hunter College High School.[25] Among his classmates was journalist Chris Hayes, who was Miranda's first director when Miranda starred in a school play described by Hayes as "a 20-minute musical that featured a maniacal fetal pig in a nightmare that [Miranda] had cut up in biology class".[26] His classmates also included rapper Immortal Technique, who bullied Miranda, although the two later became friends.[27][28] Miranda began writing musicals at school.[29]

As a student, Miranda wrote the earliest draft of what would become his first Broadway musical, In the Heights, in 1999, his sophomore year of college at Wesleyan University.[29] After the show was accepted by Wesleyan's student theater company, Second Stage, Miranda added freestyle rap and salsa numbers, and the show was premiered there in 1999.[23] Miranda wrote and directed several other musicals at Wesleyan and acted in many other productions, ranging from musicals to William Shakespeare. He graduated from Wesleyan in 2002.[23][30]