Bio
Lin-Manuel Miranda is an American composer, rapper, lyricist and actor best known for writing and starring as Usnavi in the Broadway musical In the Heights, which opened on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in 2008 and for which he won the Tony Award as composer and lyricist.
In the Heights received four 2008 Tony Awards (including Best Orchestrations, Best Choreography and Best Musical), with Lin-Manuel receiving a Tony Award for Best Score, as well as a nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Musical.
Off-Broadway, In the Heights received nine Drama Desk Nominations (including Best Music, Best Lyrics) and an award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance. In the Heights also won the Lucille Lortel Award and Outer Critic's Circle Award for Best Musical.
Additionally, Lin-Manuel received an Obie Award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics for the show. In the Heights also took home a 2009 Grammy Award for its Original Broadway Cast Album. In the Heights was also recognized as a Finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
As an actor, Lin-Manuel received a 2007 Theater World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance, and the 2007 Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Male Performance courtesy of Actor's Equity Foundation. Lin-Manuel also received the ASCAP Foundation's Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award and is a National Arts Club Medal of Honor recipient.
In May of 2009, Lin-Manuel received the degree of Doctor of Human letters, honoris causa, from Yeshiva University, the youngest recipient of such an honour in the University's history.
Lin-Manuel is a co-founder and member of Freestyle Love Supreme, a popular hip-hop improv group that performs regularly in New York City. The group has also toured the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, as well as the Aspen, Melbourne and Montreal Comedy Festivals.
Lin-Manuel also contributed songs to the revival of Stephen Schwartz' Working and worked with Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim on Spanish translations for the 2009 Broadway Revival of West Side Story.
He has performed for President Obama and the First Family at the White House for its first-ever Poetry Jam and was selected to be a Master Teacher for the 2009 Mercer Songwriter's Project at Northwestern University.
His TV and film credits include The Electric Company, Sesame Street, The Sopranos, House, Modern Family, The Sex and the City Movie, The Odd Life of Timothy Green and Do No Harm.
He lives in New York.