Hamilton creator’s unfortunate Melbourne moment

Lin-Manuel Miranda is a superstar in the musical theatre world, but one unfortunate appearance at Melbourne’s International Comedy Festival still stings.

Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, with Freestyle Love Supreme, spitting rhymes in a Melbourne laneway in 2006. Picture: Supplied.

His revolutionary show Hamilton is a marquee musical known all over the world.

But Lin-Manuel Miranda will never forget the billing he received at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2006.

“It was such a golden time in my life,” Miranda told the Herald Sun.

“My wife and I had just started dating. It was pretty forward to go halfway around the world, to Melbourne, together.”

Miranda’s hip hop comedy improv group, Freestyle Love Supreme, performed at the MICF.

“We’d done (the) Edinburgh (Comedy Festival), but it’s free fall, and there’s thousands of acts. Melbourne is much more curated and they create events to make the talent spend time together. I remember going on field trips with Tim Minchin, Eddie Perfect and Flight of the Conchords. It was really remarkable.”

Freestyle Love Supreme were also featured on the televised MICF Gala show.

“We thought we’d done well, and we were watching ourselves on television that night, and it was, ‘Ladies and gentlemen ... Tripod, Flight of the Conchords, Tim Minchin’ ... listing all these comedians, then they cut to us and said, ‘And s---loads more!’

Miranda laughs: “That became our nickname in Melbourne. ‘S---loads more.’”

Freestyle Love Supreme, with Lin-Manuel Miranda, third from the left, posing up with former Melbourne Lord Mayor John So. Picture: Supplied.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, second from left, spitting bars in a Melbourne laneway in 2006. Picture: Supplied.

Miranda says his experiences at the MICF prepared him to write the musicals In The Heights and Hamilton.

“Freestyle (rap) is the opposing muscle group for my writing,” he said.

“More than anything, especially when you go to another country, and you’re taking suggestions from the audience and you’re making up songs on the spot, it’s an absolute cure for writers block.

“It requires you to be absolutely present, and open, and to react honestly. That is also the mindset you want to be in if you are writing for characters. You want it to feel present and alive. Those experiences helped to feed my writing in a positive way.”

Hamilton is a hip hop musical about America’s founding fathers. It has won 11 Tony Awards, and also earned Miranda a Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Miranda also played the lead role of Alexander Hamilton in the Broadway production from 2015 to 2016.

Hamilton left Melbourne’s Her Majesty’s Theatre in January after a year-long run. The musical is now playing in Brisbane before it travels to New Zealand in May.

Miranda visited the Australian production of Hamilton for the first time at the weekend.

Supplied image of Lin-Manuel Miranda with the Hamilton cast at QPAC.

Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda talks to the press in Brisbane at South Bank. Picture Lachie Millard

Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda talks to the press in Brisbane at South Bank. Picture Lachie Millard

“They’re a really thrilling and talented company, and the show is being delivered at the same level of excellence that’s happening in New York and London. I’m proud, more than anything. It’s also remarkable how Australia has embraced the show. I’m really here as an extended thank you.”

He also cried during Maori actor Matu Ngaropo’s powerful version of One Last Time. Ngaropo plays George Washington.

“He plays Washington very truly, very nobly,” Miranda said of Ngaropo. “Washington has a certain bearing, a moral authority, and (Ngaropo) has got that. That’s something thing you can’t teach.”

Miranda said he’s proud Hamilton has blazed a trail for diverse casting in theatre, television and movies.

“That’s been one of the one of the most unexpected and joyous legacies of the show,” he said. “We aimed to create the most diverse cast possible, and find the most eclectic group of story tellers to tell our story, and the show did well.

“If we had opened and closed in one night we wouldn’t have moved the needle on anything.

“I know a film makers of colour who went into a (movie) studio and said, ‘I’m casting this like Hamilton. That has become shorthand for, ‘It might not be the pretty blonde lead you’re picturing when you read the book.’”

Miranda urged Australian writers to tell their own stories on the stage. “There is a need for more people at the table to tell new stories.

As long as content is dictating form, and we’re finding the most exciting impassioned way to tell a story, I think the only limit of what makes a good musical versus not, is the passion of the people making it.”