Hamilton creator, multiple Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda, was honored Saturday night in celebration of the world premiere of Hamilton’s America, director Alex Horwitz’s new docu about Miranda and his Broadway smash hit.
After a talkback with a New York Film Fest audience packed with eager young “Hamilfans,” Miranda, Horwitz and Tony winner Renee Elise Goldsberry retired to an upstairs party space at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall to fete the premiere and Variety‘s Gotham Issue, which features Miranda on the cover.
Miranda’s family — parents Luis A. Miranda Jr. and Luz Towns-Miranda, and wife Vanessa Nadal — as well as CNN anchor Don Lemon, BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith, ABC News executive consultant Hilary Estey McLoughlin, Bleecker Street’s Andrew Karpen, UTA agent Mark Subias, CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter, NY1’s Jamie Stelter and PMC vice chair Gerry Byrne, were all their.
Claudia Eller, Variety’s co-editor in chief, put Miranda on the spot when she called him up before the crowd to ask how one person alone could create a zeitgeist-shaking work like “Hamilton.” “One person doesn’t do it alone,” he responded. “You don’t go into theater because want to have a one-man band.”
Praising Kail, Lacamoire, Nadal
After praising “Hamilton” director Thomas Kail, musical director Alex Lacamoire and choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler — who all helped him “line by line, for seven years until it was done” — he noted that Nadal is “the most brilliant dramaturg I know. Because she doesn’t like musicals. So if I play her a song, it has to be so good that someone who doesn’t like musicals likes it. If she likes it, then I know it’s good enough for you to see.”
