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Speaker 3
I have so many questions about that, but I want to talk about one of the characters in The Heights, Nina. Her arc is so interesting that she's the first in her family to go to college, but then she struggles when she gets to Stanford. between the collectivistic cultures that we often see in immigrant communities and the individualistic cultures that dominate our American universities and workplaces. I would love to hear both of your thoughts about how we can change that. How do we take a school or a workplace where help seeking seems like a sign of weakness and make it a source of strength? How do we build a sense of community in these very independent worlds of achievement that we've created in the U.S.? A long, long time ago, I'm talking about decades ago,
Speaker 2
I worked in a place called the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, NACMI. There were very few Black, Latinos in engineering. And the goal was how do we create programs in universities that celebrate what these new students are bringing into the university? How do we accept a PASI? Now there's a PASI foundation that we're working with, but enough of them so that they have a community and they can work together as a community. And how administration is committed to do this. When my wife and I were accepted into the Ph.D. programs in psychology for New York University, 10 out of the 20 Ph students, there were five Blacks, five Latinos, 10 whites. But then we got accepted and there was no professors. Nobody was interested in our dissertation topics. No one was interested in teaching what it was to shrink Latino heads. So none of that existed in the college. So it's not only to accept, it's really to prepare the institution on how to best help those students that they're accepting. And
Speaker 1
it's so interesting, you mentioned the Posse Foundation, it's an organization that we've worked with, specifically in the arts lane to create a cohort of students who are all going together so that you get to school with that group of fellow students and community resources. And I realized that the inception of In the Heights came out of a proto posse experience for me. was living in, you know, I got to Wesleyan and lived in dorm housing my freshman year. My sophomore year, I lived in a Latino program house called La Casa del Visu Campos. You had to write an essay on how you felt you could be a Latino community leader at Wesleyan to get one of the rooms. And it was me and eight other Latino students. And I was the arts kid. I was the theater major in that house. And there was my upstairs neighbor, Malta. Her passion was helping unionize the janitors at Wesleyan University. parents and they would come to our house to hang out when they weren't working. But again, it was also the first time I really had close friends and a system of, you know, a group of first-generation Latino kids around me and were making the same pop culture jokes and were fluent in Spanish and in English and in Spanish, Latino pop culture and American pop culture. And I think that's what gives me the permission to write that first draft of In the Heights. It's realizing, oh, I can bring more of myself to my work than just the pop rock stuff I was writing because I was inspired by Rent in 1997. So it's not just, you know, whether you thrive or not, but it's really it's about the power of being able to bring all of yourself into a room.
Speaker 3
Well, it's striking to me. Everyone needs a posse around them who understands their experiences and their backgrounds. It's also interesting, though, Lynn, you wrote this story literally half your life ago. And it would have been very easy to just take what worked on Broadway and do it for the film. But you didn't stop there. You rethought and reimagined some of the major pieces.
Speaker 1
Why? Well, Kiara gets 100% of the credit for the very intelligent updates to the story and to the screenplay. I think, one, we recognize that we're further along in our journey as writers, as we were when we were little babies, making In the Heights in 2007 and 2008. And, you know, the world changes and art changes with it. Certainly, I can point to specific things. Immigration, the debate around immigration, you know, Sunny is rapping about immigration back in 2007 and 2008. That debate only got more toxic and more divisive. And so her decision to foreground that debate by having one of the characters be an undocumented citizen, I think really humanizes it and really humanizes it in a way, in the best way that art can, which is now that's not some other that you've read about in the headline page. That's a character you love. That's a person you love who has grown up here and spent his life here and can't imagine living anywhere else. So you can't just put it away. You can't just brush it aside in the same way. And also, I think the other thing she did was very subtly but intelligently update the level of gentrification in Washington Heights. In that 2008 version, it's around the corner. It's still all Latino businesses. It's here in 2020. And the question then becomes who survives, who adapts, who moves on.
Speaker 3
It's amazing to me that not only did you do all this updating of it, but that In the Heights wasn't an immediate sensation. Luis, you were selling tickets personally for your adult son's performance at one point. Was there a moment where you said, nah, this isn't going to work? Never. You know, I will do whatever I have to do for my kids.
Speaker 2
Then, now, and forever. And no, it was what needed to be done. I proud myself to be the guy who tries to get things done. And at that point, once the money was there to take the show to the Richard Rogers, now we needed butts for the chairs, the 1,200 chairs at the Richard Rogers every single night. So then that's what needed to be done. And I use every trick in my book from Bendito, my son did this show. It could only be successful if you come, bring your family and your friends to those that have a little more presence, that you got to come. And then just reach out to institutions. It was a show that was a wonderful show. It didn't have stars. It didn't have any of the things that people tried to put on Broadway in order to make a show successful. And we know that at the end, it paid off. Was
Speaker 3
there a moment that you doubted yourself or said, you know what, I'm just not sure if this is going to make it?
Speaker 1
There were lots of moments where I wasn't sure if I'd live to see it. You know, it is, we don't talk a lot about the sensation of having an entire show in your head, but it's not yet on stage for people to see it. It's an incredibly uncomfortable feeling. It is, it is like feeling intellectually pregnant. It is like, it is, it is, you know, I remember Chiara and I, we were lucky enough to get the show in the O'Neill Theater Center to work on it for two weeks. Sort of like free workshop, lab space, unlimited coffee, unlimited copies. And we didn't sleep for two weeks. We worked so hard. We did these amazing performances. Everyone's crying after all the shows. And our producers said to us at the end of those two weeks, it's not ready. You've done good work, but it's not ready. And there's still too many storylines. I still don't know what I'm supposed to follow. And you've taken steps forward and you've taken steps backward. And we think we need at least one more workshop before we get a production. And, you know, again, you've got this whole show in your head and all it needs is an audience. All it needs is to not exist only in your head anymore. Those are the times when it's the toughest, when you can see the distance between this work that, you know, again, we're writing theater. These aren't books. They need an audience to live. Tinkerbell needs your applause to survive. And so that distance can be very tough and very dispiriting. But that's where you lead on your collaborators and you just keep working. On my end, it's
Speaker 2
interesting that I lived all of those moments and will get very sad about, oh God, we're not going the next step. But again, my job is to be the cheerleader. Sometimes Lin-Manuel tells me that, can I just spend some time in sadness? Can I just be a bit introspective about what is happening? You're trying to fix it. You're trying to get it to the next level. And I, my wife is the person with whom I spend time fixing things and being vulnerable and being sad. But with my kids, it's okay, how do we fix this? How do I go and shake Jeffrey Seller to move forward? That's
Speaker 3
amazing. Everybody should have a parent that relentless,
Speaker 1
I think. Right. But then you have to say like, no, we have to make the show better because they were right, by the way. I shudder to think if the O'Neill version of In the Heights had appeared on Broadway. It didn't have the focus it needed. We did have work to do, but you can't fix a musical fast. You have to let it talk to you and tell you what it needs. And that's painstaking work.
Speaker 3
Welcome back to Taken for Granted and my conversation
Speaker 1
with Lin-Manuel and Luis Miranda. Oh my God. I'm thrilled the White House called me tonight because
Speaker 3
I'm actually working on a hip-hop
Speaker 1
album. Lin,
Speaker 3
when you were 29, you were invited to perform at the White House with the Obamas in the audience. And you took what looks to me like a massive risk. Instead of performing in the Heights, which has already been validated and stamped, you debut a brand new song called
Speaker 1
Alexander Hamilton. What the hell were you thinking? Who does that? Here's what they said to me. They said, we'd love for you to do something from in the Heights or if you have anything about the American experience. I have 16 bars on the American experience. Um, I didn't have even really the finale of the song yet. I wrote that for the white house itself. I just had the verses, uh, and, and the Alexander Hamilton little chorus. Um, but it was a deadline. It forced me to finish the song. And I thought, if it doesn't work in this room, maybe I'll just throw it away. Like this, this feels like a good audience for it. I feel like, you know, the president has a treasury secretary. He's going to relate. But again, like, yes, it was a massive risk. The only people who had heard the song at that point were maybe Karen Olivo, who I was in the show with every night. You know, Alex Lacamoire, who ended up playing piano for me and my wife, who wasn't even my wife yet. So that was it was certainly nerve wracking, but it was also it was thrilling to perform something new in that space. It was thrilling to split a van with James Earl Jones to the White House. The day could have ended there and it would have been a great day. So I'm glad I took the risk because it was also an encapsulation of what my Hamilton experience would be. I would tell folks the idea, they would laugh, and I would start telling the story and then they'd go, well, wait, then what happened? And that's been the experience. That was that experience in miniature. And that's been the experience of Hamilton ever
Speaker 3
since. How did you know this was the right risk to take? I mean, in many ways, this could have been the biggest performance of your life and you could have blown it, right? It could have just bombed.
Speaker 1
I honestly, I'm probably more timid now than I was then. I think that I was, there's a reckless thing that happens when you're a writer, which is the song you're working on now is always your favorite song. I was really proud of what I was writing and working on. I liked it the best at that moment. So it didn't feel like I didn't think about, I just never looked down. I didn't think about what would happen if it didn't come through. I just thought, well, this is the best thing I've written because it's the latest thing I've written. And I want to show this to them.
Speaker 3
Luis, did you think your son was out of his mind?
Speaker 2
No, no, I never think he's out of his mind. I just think that he's nuts. You have to remember, he was on vacation from in the Heights when he read the Hamilton book and came to the house and said, this is my next musical. I'm never going to say that's ridiculous. And I knew that he was taking the risk. And the entire time he was singing, my wife and I were there, we were just checking people's reaction in the room. I don't think that I looked at him once or at Alex Lacamoire once. I was just looking at people like, they're nodding with approval or they're nodding. What the fuck is he talking about? Just trying to read the room.
Speaker 3
Watching that audience is so interesting as a psychologist because, Lynn, you look very nervous in the first maybe two, three sentences. And then you're just in the zone. And the audience goes through the same transformation. They're all looking at you like, what is this guy talking about? And they laugh nervously. And then they're hooked. Did it feel that way? Did you feel the room change? Exactly that way. You've never seen me stammer as much as you
Speaker 1
have in the intro to that song. The intro was probably the most under-rehearsed part of it. And in a lot of ways, the most important part of it, I'm setting up quite a weird pitch, but I'm stammering. I'm really nervous. And the first thing I did, which was a mistake, was like lock eyes with the president of the United States. And I realized, can't look at him. That's too scary. And then I looked over and there's the first lady. And then finally, Michelle's mom was at the table with them as well. And I was like, okay, I can look at first abuela. I can look at first mom. She's giving me a beautiful smile. And this, this is someone I can talk to. But all of that is happening while I'm trying to set up the premise of this song. And then as soon as the snapping starts, I'm okay. collection just to send them to the mainland get your education don't forget from whence you came and the world is gonna know your name what's your name man alexander hamilton his name is alexander hamilton and there's a million things he hasn't done but just you wait just you wait yeah
Speaker 3
i i find this whole dynamic of creating and performing just endlessly interesting As a psychologist, given that, Lynn, you're the son of one psychologist and another almost psychologist, one of my biggest fears is screwing up our kids.

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