Remember, youre listening to it consecutively and that is what it shares with musical theater. And so i set it as a challenge to myself to sort of encapsulate hamiltons entire life until the moment he reaches new york in one song. And so it forced me to think in a hamiltonian way, like i was telling you before, the thing about hamilton is he spoke in paragraphs. And so the opening sentence of our show is this crazy runon sentence, how does a bas tard, orphan son of a whore and a scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgot enspot in the caribbean by providence, impoverished in squaller, coma, grow up to be a hero and a scholar. That is the question were going to answer for the next two hours and 45 minutes, but it is a very hamiltonian sentence. Rose Linmanuel Miranda for the hour next. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following. And by bloomberg, a provider of . From our studios in new york captioning sponsored by Rose Communications city, this is charlie rose. Rose how is it to be back at this house . Its very normal. I only live a few blocks away, actually. So its you know, i have been here since i was one year old. Rose so this is a house of memories. This is a house of memories. A house of memories, a house of ghosts, this is a house of but its also a laboratory for me. I mean i have filmed so many action movies where were sitting. I have filmed so many animated movies with my gi joe characters. I was a kid carrying around a camera as a kid. My dad had those big over the shoulder camcorders. He brought one home and we never shot family videos. It was just me making movies. Rose did you think you might be a director. I did. I wanted to be Stephen Steven spielberg when i grew up. And Steven Spielberg doesnt get you far in school, so i kind of figured out who i was socially by doing the school plays. I got cast in 6th grade play, i played conrad birdie. I played a lot of people,. Rose did that just happen or was how is it that one kid wants to do those things, what is it in you that made you want to do those things. Because those are the kings that you do. Isnt it incredible when we get to do what we love . It really is, you have to think about how you lucked into this. I grew up in a house where z were almost always play, well take a look at them later. Rose all the great albums of all the great musical theater. Yes, man of la mancha, cam he lot, sound of music, south pacific, king and i. That was the music we played to clean up after parties. It was latin music at the party, and we danced mirangu e because were puerto rican and when we cleaned up the house after the party, we would put on the cast albums, that is what i keyed into. Rose were you shy or like you are now . I still think im shy. I do. I honestly do. I fell in love with i liked applause. I wasnt the kind of person who would just take over a room to take over it. But if i had something i was good at, i was absolutely eager to share it. My mothers favorite story, as im sure he had she will tell you is our first piano recital where i only really practiced well enough to play one song. I learned four but there was only one i could reliably do well every time because i didnt practice a lot. I would play my song and it was i go up the scale and go back downk one of those my first piano songs. An they clapped at the end. And i looked up. And i looked around. And i said, this is going to be the reaction. And i started playing. I played four songs before the piano teacher generally lifted me up off the piano bench and took me off so the other kids could play. Ted williams once toll me. I said why baseball. He said well, i was pretty good. I got some applause. I wanted to hear some more applause and i got better and heard more applause. It was an incentive. Yeah. Absolutely. Rose doing better. Yeah. And i done think i am cut out to be a novelist. You know, the idea. Rose sitting alone. Sitting alone and also not getting the payoff. Im fine with sitting alone. Writing songs, writing hamilton was six years of sitting alone. But the payoff is i get to go into a room with tomorrowy kale and i get to play for him and hes got three ideas on how to make it even better and alex has three more ideas on how to make it better. And andy will know how to stage it. So there is this show and tell, the grat if i kaition of theater versus film and television is the audience lets you know in the moment how theyre feeling about what you are doing. You dont act once in front of a camera and then its in a can and you hope they like it a year from now. Rose and it changes night to night. And it changes night to night. And we have a front row of people that literally ron won the lottery to be there. And they paid 10 and they give us everything. Bah they are there. They didnt even know they were going to be there that night. They are experiencing it for the first time. So i experience it for the first time because they are. Rose so growing up here, you make your way down to manhattan. Yeah. Well, were in manhattan. But down from here. Yes, yeah. To Hunter College. Hunter college high school, Elementary School. Why hunter . You have to ask my parents. I took the test when i was five. But i won the lottery. Before the 10 lottery i won the lottery when i was five when i passed the battery of mysterious tests that gets you into Hunter CollegeElementary School because i got a great prepublic School Education k through 12. And i was learning about mat ise and jackson poll october in kindergarten. I remember making jackson poll october drip paintings when i was six and getting my early appreciation of art even then. And a school that really valued the arts and put them on the same level at math and social studies and history, the culmination of our Elementary School was to do the six grade play. And we did 20 minute versions of six musicals. And that is a of musical theater and i seemed to be the only one without got stuck with it and couldnt let it go. I played conrad birdie in bye bye birdie. My nanny let me watch all the tv i wanted. Made my gold jacket and every girl in the grade had to pretend to fall in love with me and faint when i saning. Thats what happens when you play conrad birdie. And i said why would anyone do anything else for a living. This is the best. I was 12 years old, i was three feet tall or shorter than all the girls in my grade. But when i played conrad birdie, i was. Rose largerthanlife. The sex sim bofl the grade which did not happen in real life. Rose you knew early on you wanted to be an artist. Yes, yes. I didnt know whether it would be movies, theater or animation. I loved, was always gravitating towards that. Rose but youre doing this without any formal musical training. Thats right. Just High School Music class and piano lessons. And you know, we had a great ninth grade music teacher, and i learned my major chords from my minor chord, augmented from diminished. But i remember calling my friend alex farland and said im play ang f sharp, an a and a c what is that . You are playing an f sharp diminished chord. I didnt know the names for the things i was playing but i knew i needed them for the songs. Rose and could you tell the difference. Did you have a good ear. Yes, have i a really good ear. Rose they say about you you are were a fantastic mimic. Oh, yeah . Rose could you do that. Yeah, sure. Rose could you hear something and repeat it. Yes. Rose could you hear a song, repeat it. I got very impatient with piano lessons because the reading was slow. But if i could hear it on the radio, i could figure out the chords and play it faster than it would make me to read it. Rose could you hear it and play it. It was just a faster system between my ears and my hands and my eyes. Rose that served you for the rest of your life. Yeah. It has served me well. Rose what music did you listen to beyond what we talked about, beyond show tunes, beyond famous musicals. Well, i listened to hiphop. I mean i dont remember, see i was born in 1980. So there was never a time when hiphop wasnt a part of my life. Or the landscape. Rose was it your music from the time you heard it . It was my music and my sisters music. My parents werent bringing hiphop home, but my sister was bringing hope the fat boys and my sister took me to see beat street which was an early hip mop movie. Rose but it resonated from you. It was just our music. And then the album that really unlocked it for me, that gave me permission to start writing it or at least think about writing it was an album called bizarre ride to the far side, and this was came out in 1994. I was 14. And the lead single was about these guys who couldnt get girls, it was called passing me by. And so much hiphop is about bluster and about how much jewelry i have and how great a rapper i am. And this was about people writing love notes and the note coming back, returned to sender. And i had a crush on my teacher. And i had a crush on this girl but she liked this other guy. And i was like, well, thats i could get into that. You know, the great hook has been sampled by millions of artists. You do not know me but i know you very well. Let me tell but the feelings i have for you when i try. I made some sort of attempt. I did. Damn i wish i wasnt such a wimp because then i would let you know i loved you so. If i was your man i would be true. The only lie would be in the bed with you. It was just so angs tee and great. And i mem orized that album quickly. And then just really started absorbing everything. And you know, i absorbed hiphop by making mix tapes with my friends. It was still cassette era so i would say i have got this stuff, what do you have. And they would send me, you know, i got into all these different genres. Rose the first idea about hamilton was a mix tape. Yeah, yeah, i think of mix tapes as sonic love letters. And i think a lot of my Creative Energy in high school was literally making mix tapes. To girls i liked. To for friends of mine who i wanted them to get to know who i was. It was easier for me to say this 90 minutes on this maxel cassette tape defines who i am. And the difference between a mix tape or mix cd or data cd or whatever they have now is that you have to listen to it consecutively. So im taking you on a ride. Im going to start with a high energy song and switch it up and i might put in a funny interlewd from an adams family or something. And then i hit you with nie fourth song is always the most important. That is the one that tells me who i really am. Rose the fourth. The fourth one t is batting cleanup. Literally fourth in the lineup. And i really, i think i still build scores the way i used to make mix tapes for girls. Im thinking of, okay, we have been in this energy for a while now i have to wake you up. Now we can afford to sit in a balance add for a little while. And so when i approach, when i read the book and started thinking about t i thought of it the way i thought of making mix tapes for my friends. Its, im going to take you on this ride and the ride is going to happen to tell the story of this mans life. Rose the first step is to draw you in . Yes, yeah. The first song on the mix tape is everything. It depends whether you fast forward if you fast forward from the first song, you mess up, right. Youre not going to press play. Remember, youre listening to it consecutively and that is what it shares with musical theater. And so i set it as a challenge to myself to sort of encapsulate hamiltons entire life until the moment he reaches new york in one song. And so it forced me to think in a hamiltonian way. Like i was telling you before, the thing about hamilton is he spoke in par graphs. And so the opening sentence of our show is this crazy runon sentence, how does a bas tard, orphan, son of a whore and a scotsman drop in the middle of a forgot enspot in the caribbean by providence, impoverished in squall or, coma, grow up to be a hero and a schol ar that is the question well answer for the next two hours and 45 minutes am but its a very hamiltonian sentence. Rose an ron essentially said that you put in that song 20 years of living for him. Yeah. Rose right . Yeah. When youve got the hunger and began to think about things and at the same time occasionally going, at least once a year, or more with your parents, to theater, what were you thinking . What was that like . Oh, it was life changing. And it was life changing in a couple of ways. One, the first show i remember seeing was les miserables. And i remember a few things from the night. I remember crying when fantine died. I remember falling asleep for a little while because i was seven. But i remember javerts suicide. I remember master of the house and the bawdiness and laughing really hard, much needed laughter after the death of fantien but the thing i also remember most was seeing my parents brought home the two disk, two cd at this point, cast album. And my mother would play bring him home on a loop. And burst into tears. And it really moved me, the affect that music had on her. God on high hear my prayer. Seeing how this story and this man, you know, wanting this kid to live moved my mother to tears every time saning it. I think that is as much a reason that im in musical theater as anything else. Rose because the emotional connection with your mother. Yeah. And because of the power that musical theater has, that really almost nothing else has in terms of emotional connection, you know. Musical theat certificate not one art form. Its 14 art forms smashed together. The lighting has to be right, the costumes have to be right. Rose the set. The set has to be right. But when it all con spires to create those moments, theres nothing else on earth like it. And. Rose to say theres nothing on earth like it means it has a it delivers more of an emotional punch than any other kind of visual or musical. I think so, because its happening to you live. There is no distance of a screen. Youre seeing it, and you cant believe youre seeing it im thinking of the final moments of america from west side story. Im thinking of the bottle dance on fiddler on the roof. When you think it cant possibly go any further and then it does. And theres these moments where you stand to gaip outside of yourself like how am i really a person watching this. And you know, when are you creating it, you are looking to create those moments. And then you go see rent. Yeah. Well rent did for me in musical theater what the far side did for me in hiphop. Which is it said you can write this. Were not so different, you and i, musical theater and Linmanuel Miranda. And its about People Living and dying an struggling as artists. And it was headlong the career i saw myself going into. Rose struggling as an artist reasons struggling as an artist. Rose and living and dying. Yeah, and in the present. It took place now. And it took place in a neighborhood just downtown. Where my sister grew up. My parents went to nyu together. So they were all in the village. And so that was before i was born. But it was it task etly gave me permission, are you allowed to write musicals about what you know in the present, that is fair game for musical theater. And i did not know that until i saw rent. Not in my bones. Rose you said it was a starter pistol. Yeah. Rose for your career. Yeah. Absolutely. Rose you heard the starter go off. Yup. Rose and for you it just propelled you forward. Yeah. Jonathan larston who sadly died before his show even opened, did so many of the things i wanted to do. He made a contemporary sound relevant and work in a musical theater fore mat. He ended the conversation as to whether rock had a place in musical theater. I mean it started in hair. It started in jesus clies superstar but we would still have these conversations, does rock belong. And if you had any doubt after rent. Yeah. And now its in the dna of almost any show that comes to broadway. Its just a part of the language. We absorbed it the way hiphop absorbs different styles. And you know, it was huge. Rose do you think it gave you any sense of mortality knowing jonathans story. I think jonathans passing before his show opened scared the hell out of me. It just scared the hell out of me as a kid. It was you could go at any time. And those ideas, those big ideas you have in your head will stay locked in your head. They go with you unless you get them out into the world. And by the way, thats still true. Rose how so . In that nothing is promised. Tomorrow is not promised. You know, i made plans to come talk to you today but my car could have gone over the highway on the way here. We never know what the next day will bring. And yet we plan months and years writing a musical. Which is the most vain glorious hope that you finish the thing. And so its both its terrifying. Embarking on a show like this, on anything, a creative endeavor is terrifying because you might not make it to the finish line. Rose and the finish line is not tomorrow. Right, well, the finish line is getting the thing that was in your head out into the world. You know, when in the heights opened it wasnt about having a career, it was get the thing out of my head and on the stage so that it can exist. And then i can get hit by a bus tomorrow, but it exists. Rose what was the thing in the heights to get out. The thing to get out in in the heights was can we have a latino musical where were not knifewielding murderers from the 1950s. By the way, great musicals, west side story, kate man, great score. But its such a peculiar sub set and tiny, tiny slice of latino experience to only gangs be represented in the musical theater canon. And thats what we had. And i wanted a life in this business. And i wanted to see if we could write a musical about latinos that didnt have any drug deals or crime. Because are you going to see that on the news. Thats what they cover. They cover crimes. And i was much more interested in the hardworking people that i grew up with in this neighborhood than the guy on the corner. Rose people here, next door, next door. The guy on the corner was there but there is also a guy inside the store on that corner. I wanted to tell his story. Rose what did you have to get out with hamilton . I had to get out this guys life. This guys life outdikens dikens and it wasnt until i really went in and started researching and writing it that i was sort of in the same theme that i was with than the heights. There is an immigrant, there san outsider, who writes his way in. Who writes his way to prom thens, writes his way you know, charms his wife through letters. Writes his way into his personal and professional life. But then he also doesnt know when to shut up. And he also writes, he selfdestructs with his writing. I had a really good idea at the top of the book. And then so he write this poem. Hurricane destroyed st. Croix, he writes a poem about the carnage. That poem is used for relief efforts and a scholarship is raised to send him to the mainland to get his education. I hear that he literally wrote a poem, and i said thats