148. Lin-Manuel Miranda: Everything is Basically the School Play

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out – Episode 148 Featuring Lin-Manuel Miranda

Release Date: October 21, 2024

In this captivating episode of Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out, comedian and storyteller Mike Birbiglia sits down with the multifaceted creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. Together, they delve deep into Lin's creative processes, his groundbreaking works, personal anecdotes, and the insights that have shaped his illustrious career.

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1. Introduction to Lin-Manuel Miranda

Mike Birbiglia warmly welcomes Lin-Manuel Miranda, expressing his long-held admiration and excitement for having him on the show. Birbiglia highlights Lin's impressive body of work, including iconic pieces like Hamilton, In the Heights, and recent ventures such as the concept album Warriors, a homage to the 1979 film The Warriors.

Mike Birbiglia [00:35]: "That is the voice of the great Lin-Manuel Miranda. Can you believe it? This is an all-timer."

2. The Genesis of Lin-Manuel's Creativity

Lin shares his early inspirations, notably how witnessing Rent spurred him to write numerous 15-minute musicals resembling it. This phase was crucial in honing his unique voice by experimenting and ultimately forging his distinctive style.

Lin-Manuel Miranda [00:09]: "After I saw Rent, I wrote a bunch of 15-minute musicals that sounded like Rent... if you chase enough different stuff, you'll end up sounding like yourself."

3. Creating the Warriors Concept Album

A significant portion of their conversation revolves around Lin's collaboration with Issa Davis on the Warriors album. They discuss the challenges of adapting an action-packed film into a hip-hop and rock-infused musical narrative.

Lin-Manuel Miranda [09:18]: "Issa and I really approached each action sequence differently to paint it in your head... it was a fun and exciting challenge."

Lin emphasizes the importance of blending diverse musical genres to encapsulate the gritty essence of 1970s New York City, the setting of The Warriors.

Lin-Manuel Miranda [25:35]: "It's hip hop, it's metal, it's rock and roll. It's all these things... jumping off of that and the 79 synths into all this other different genres."

4. The Creative Process Behind Musicals

Lin delves into the complexities of writing musicals, highlighting that a single idea isn't sufficient. Instead, it requires a multitude of ideas and perspectives to authentically portray diverse stories and characters.

Lin-Manuel Miranda [15:50]: "One idea is not enough. You're constantly kind of, what is the best line of attack on this moment? What feels true."

5. Navigating Fame and Public Reception

The discussion shifts to Lin's experience with the unprecedented success of Hamilton, especially during the pandemic when the show’s streaming expanded its audience globally. Lin candidly shares the emotional toll of constant public scrutiny and the overwhelming feedback from fans and critics alike.

Lin-Manuel Miranda [31:07]: "There was nowhere to go with it... It was all the discourse about Hamilton, positive and negative at the same time."

6. Diversity and Casting in Modern Broadway

Lin reflects on the transformative impact Hamilton has had on Broadway, particularly in challenging traditional casting norms. He speaks passionately about initiatives like the Rise Network, aimed at increasing behind-the-scenes diversity in theater.

Lin-Manuel Miranda [34:20]: "We have a cast as diverse as the cast we have, and it did well. So it was sort of, like, destroyed the notion that Hamilton has to be a white guy, et cetera."

7. Personal Growth and Authenticity

The conversation touches upon Lin's personal journey, including his experiences with code-switching during his school years and how theater provided him with a sense of purpose and community. He discusses the balance between maintaining authenticity and adapting to different environments.

Lin-Manuel Miranda [46:25]: "I think that to your earlier question of, like, how do we find our voice? I think in the Heights... I was just being the easiest to pronounce version of myself."

8. Overcoming Challenges in Live Performances

Lin recounts memorable moments from live performances, such as stepping in for an understudy without prior rehearsal, showcasing his ability to stay present and adapt under pressure.

Lin-Manuel Miranda [49:09]: "She was incredible... we were walking you through every dance sequence. I mean, she was in the ensemble and she covered."

9. Advice for Emerging Creators

When asked about advice for those struggling to unleash their creativity, Lin emphasizes the importance of perseverance and embracing trial and error. He encourages creators to explore various influences and remain true to their unique voices.

Lin-Manuel Miranda [30:46]: "You will sound like the heroes you're chasing at first, and then you will figure out what is the thing that only you can write, but you have to get there through trial and error."

10. Conclusion and Future Endeavors

As the episode winds down, both Mike and Lin reflect on their collaborative history and envision future projects. Lin also promotes his ongoing work with the Rise Network and expresses gratitude towards his fans for their unwavering support.

Lin-Manuel Miranda [55:28]: "If you work in theater, you should put your profile on there. And it's just a way of trying to create the same diversity behind the scenes that we've tried to create with Hamilton and shows on stage."

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Key Takeaways:

• Embrace Diverse Influences: Lin-Manuel Miranda's journey underscores the importance of drawing inspiration from varied sources to develop a unique creative voice.

• Persistence in Creation: The path to creating impactful work involves continuous experimentation and resilience through trial and error.

• Championing Diversity: Lin's commitment to diversity both on stage and behind the scenes highlights the evolving landscape of modern theater.

• Balancing Authenticity and Adaptability: Maintaining one's authenticity while adapting to different environments is crucial for personal and professional growth.

Notable Quotes:

• Lin-Manuel Miranda [00:09]: "After I saw Rent, I wrote a bunch of 15-minute musicals that sounded like Rent...if you chase enough different stuff, you'll end up sounding like yourself."

• Lin-Manuel Miranda [15:50]: "One idea is not enough. You're constantly kind of, what is the best line of attack on this moment? What feels true."

• Lin-Manuel Miranda [30:46]: "You will sound like the heroes you're chasing at first, and then you will figure out what is the thing that only you can write, but you have to get there through trial and error."

• Lin-Manuel Miranda [55:28]: "If you work in theater, you should put your profile on there. And it's just a way of trying to create the same diversity behind the scenes that we've tried to create with Hamilton and shows on stage."

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This episode serves as an insightful exploration into Lin-Manuel Miranda's artistic ethos, his relentless pursuit of innovation, and his unwavering dedication to fostering a more inclusive theatrical community. For fans and aspiring creators alike, this conversation offers valuable lessons on creativity, resilience, and the power of storytelling.

Transcript

[Mike Birbiglia]

Someone's listening to this today. It's like, what would be your advice? You know, if something's holding you back from unloading it all, what would be your tactic to get there?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Well, it's interesting because after I saw Rent, I wrote a bunch of 15 minute musicals that sounded like Rent. Yeah. You know, like you chase the things that you like and you're going to fall short. And then like, if you chase enough different stuff, you'll end up sounding like yourself.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I think that's applause, Franklin. That's the whole thing.

[Mike Birbiglia]

That is the voice of the great Lin Manuel Miranda. Can you believe it? This is an all timer. I have been asking Lin Manuel Miranda to come on this show since the dawn and inception of working it out. In 2020, we finally got him. What a great episode. He's one of the people I admire most in all creative work. He created a show you might have heard of called Hamilton in the Heights, Freestyle Love Supreme. He did the music for the movie Encanto as well as Moana and others. He co created a new concept album with Issa Davis called Warriors. It's so good. It is Based on the 1979 film the warriors, an iconic film. If you haven't seen the film, I recommend it. It's very gritty New York movie, very kind of classic New York 70s movie about a street gang called the warriors who are falsely accused of killing the leader of another gang. I'm giving you those all in background because we talk about the warriors album a bunch today. So the warriors have to escape from the Bronx to their home turf in Coney Island. And that's the. That's the plot of the whole movie. They're going home. They're getting home. It's a cult classic. Lin Manuel Miranda and Ace Davis did an amazing adaptation of this into a concept hip hop album. I couldn't recommend it more highly. It is out wherever you get your music. It is a big day today for the tour because we are officially announcing. I'm bringing my new show, which is called the Good Life, to New York City, to the iconic Beacon Theater, March 21 and 22. I've been touring this show for the past year under the banner Please stop the ride. I've been to 50 cities. The good Life is the final version of that show. So if you saw the show, people ask me this a lot. How much is it different? How much is the same? I would say it's 50% different than it was a year ago. I would say it's 40% different. Than it was in March. I would say it's 30% different than it was in July. Like, you get the idea. Every show along the way is different from the one before it. Every night I'm trying new lines, new structural differences. I think it is going to be spectacular. I'm feeling really awesome about the show right now. If you're listening to this Monday, October 21st, after 10am Eastern. You can get [e-mail] right now for these shows using the Code Good Life. It's the presale. The presale is today and tomorrow with the Code Good Life. Those will be the best seats. The code is Good Life. One word. Good Life. G O O D L I F E. If you're listening before 10am Set an alarm, mark your calendar, Tie a string around your finger. 10:00am the pre sale begins. By the way, this is the New York run. It's not going to be on Broadway. It's not going to be off Broadway. I wanted to do something a little different with this show. I did the Beacon in June. If you saw that show and you're like, is it going to be different than that? 30 or 40% plus it'll have the full design and lighting. So it'll be more of a fully realized show. The Beacon is an incredible place to see show I've seen over the years. I've seen the national there many times. I saw hall and Oates. I saw the Allman Brothers Band. It's just an iconic venue. So I hope to see you there. And then this week I will be in Madison, Wisconsin. Milwaukee. Still a few tickets left for those shows.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And then I go to Champaign, Illinois. I think only a few seats left. And then I end off the week in Indianapolis at Clues Hall. I think that one's sold out. Gorgeous, Gorgeous. Clues Hall. And then I go to Ann Arbor, which I think is sold out. But Detroit has a few tickets at the Fillmore, which I love. Dayton, Ohio has a few tickets, which I love. I love going back there. That's where my sister Gina went to college. I always love going to Dayton. Great town. Pittsburgh, a few seats left. Louisville, the same. The Brown Theater. Gorgeous theater. Nashville, I'm at the Ryman. Gorgeous theater. Knoxville, I'm at the Tennessee Theater. Then I'll be in Asheville as Well as Charleston, S.C. i love this talk with Lin Manuel Miranda to give a little background. I met him years ago. He performed at this American Life Live at Bam Opera House and I performed it. He did a musical like a short musical called 21 Chump street, which is fantastic. If you ever have a chance to listen to that. It's like a 20 minute musical. It's incredible. He plays Ira Glass in it, but I love talking to him. We talk about his new album based on the Warriors. He played the whole album for me right before we recorded this, so it was a pretty surreal experience. I highly recommend the album. Very powerful, great songs, great story. We talk about that. We talk about Hamilton, we talk about how many ideas you need to write a musical. That was something I'm really interested in. Lin just has so many insightful ideas about the creative process and so many great stories. So I think you're gonna love this one. Enjoy my chat with the great Lin Manuel Miranda. Working it. The thing I've always admired about your work is you go big. You know what I mean? Like, you and. And this. And this concept album is a perfect example of that. I mean, first of all, it's star studded.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

I mean, Lauryn Hill is on it. Ghostface Kill is on it. You know, like, it's kind of endless amounts of stars of musicals and acting and what's the thing in your life that encouraged you to go big?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

That's really interesting. My first instinct is, I think if you're a product of the school play, you go big. Because when you are. You know, I was a kid who figured out where I was in the context of, like, the drama clubs at my school. And you want to play with lots of parts.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

You want lots of parts for women because they audition to boys at, like, an 8 to 1 ratio. I remember every year trying to convince, like, friends of mine who were really good dancers, like, don't do basketball this year. You can balance basketball with the musical if you want. And so I think a part of my brain is always just trying to make the best school play. Like, lots of parts, lots for everyone to do. But I really think, subconsciously, that's it. Like, I just want to make a really big school play. And it's funny, in the Heights, which I started, like, the first draft was I wrote my sophomore year at Wesleyan. And even then, when it was like an extracurricular project, it was bigger than it had a right to be. Like, I had written a club scene, and there's like, 20 kids who were in it who were just in the nightclub scene, and they don't appear anywhere.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Else in the musical.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Oh, my God. But I would have separate rehearsals. Cause, like, they were in it, but they were just in the one sequence. Which is insane in retrospect.

[Mike Birbiglia]

It's so funny. Cause that, and that's how I view you. Cause I've known you a little bit for a long time. Right. Like we did this American life stuff together. You know, you were on Broadway when I was off Broadway. Broadway years, you know, Freestyle Love Supreme, 2004. Like, I've always had this sense of you. Of like you're this wide eyed, optimistic artist and. But what's amazing to me is you still are. Like, you were in your 20s.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And you are in your 40s. And what keeps the light shining so bright? Why do you keep taking risks that are so big?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Um, I think. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. They're all terrifying. Like, that's, that's the funny thing about it. Like, I'm. I was terrified to play that for you today. I'm terrified to see, like, what people make of this concept. First of all, people don't even listen to albums.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Like, I'm like, everybody check. I built this Zoya Trope.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Everybody gather around and look in this slit.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And there's gonna be a moving man. Like, I've built a thing that people don't really make.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

With. And I wanna preface this by saying that, like, I co wrote this with Issa Davis. Almost every good idea in there is Issa Davis.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Oh, that's nice.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And so a lot of the work Issa did was just like really making the structure work beautifully as an album and in a really satisfying way because she wasn't as precious about the original movie as I was. And also like, fighting for that dream, like, what is it that actually gets us out of our houses? It's actually the promise that we get to come home at the end of the day. And I think she just did that so beautifully. So, like, I kind of brought fear and she brought hope. And like, there's a really interesting, like, we kind of met in the middle in terms of what we ended up making.

[Mike Birbiglia]

It's interesting because it's a reverse engineering of making a film or making a staged musical.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

You made an album. Like you're saying, like, you're saying is like. But it's actually great for people who listen to this podcast because there's tons of creators and a lot of the questions that we get have to do from our listeners have to do with like, how do you make a thing? And it's kind of this. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. You make a thing by making a thing.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And then an album is a perfect example of, like, anyone could make an album with GarageBand and a microphone and your phone kind of thing. Yeah. And you could. It won't be. It won't have the production quality that yours does and the stars and all that stuff, but you can start there.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Absolutely.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And is that part of the reason why you went back to making an album for a movie or a show?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, I. Honestly, yeah, it was one. Well, one of the big things in that first email I wrote to my friend was, how do you do the action sequences? Because warriors, more than anything, it's an action movie. And action movies, porno movies and musicals are all fighting for the same real estate story wise, when you can't talk anymore and emotion is heightened, you fight, fuck or sing.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Oh, wow. I never thought about it that way.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

That was so my first instinct when I heard it was like, can you.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Unpack that for a second? Because I don't fully understand. So you're saying porn, action and musicals have that in common?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, there's a scene. There's like a baseline scene. People meet each other, the emotions get heightened. And in an action movie, it's some kind of standoff. And a sequence, an action sequence starts.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Right.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

In a porno movie, it's, you know, I brought you a pizza. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My stepsister doesn't know I'm here.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Right, right.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Or whatever. And. And then in a musical, it's, you know, what is it that brings them to the, you know, to the brink of song or dance.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Right.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And so part of doing it as an album was like, well, I get to kind of short circuit that because I'm actually creating the action sequences in your head.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And so Issa and I really, like, approached each action sequence with like, how does this one work? Do we want to dilate time and, like, break down what's literally happening? Do we want to have a amazing, like, sort of musical montage? And at the end of it, they're beat up? And we really kind of approached each action sequence really differently. To paint it in your head, which was a really fun and exciting challenge and kind of a workaround for what I saw as the biggest obstacle to making warriors musical, which is like. But they can't sing while they're fighting each other.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Right.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

You need your breath control in your lungs. And how's that going to work?

[Mike Birbiglia]

It's so funny. I have a couple memories of you. One is I saw Hamilton at the Public and you. It's. To see that show on Broadway is Stunning. To see it in a room with a few hundred people is almost experiential.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Because how many people are on stage? 50.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, it's 34 of us versus the 300 in the audience. Versus.

[Mike Birbiglia]

It's got a little west side Story going on with the audience. Like, it really is experiential if you see it in a room like that. And it was stunning. And then afterwards, after you put your soul on the floor, you were out in the lobby shaking hands, signing programs and taking selfies.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. I really missed that vibe of it because there's something about you all just come out into the same lobby.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

That creates a civility.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Once you put up a barricade, there's like, oh, I'm. I'm to be barricaded against. I'm gonna have to scream and grab for the person as opposed to like. No, we're all just in the line.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah, we're all just here.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

We're all just here.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Well, which is. Which is one of the great lines on. On your album, which is, we're all just in the subway going home.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

It's beautiful.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

What's the menial task, Lin Miranda, day to day, that people don't think of the icon Lin Miranda doing?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I mean, I'm picking up shit three times a day for my dog.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

My dog's probably heard more lyrics and process than any other person. Any other collaborator or person in my life.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Because you.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I walk and.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah, you walk and write. Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I'll make the loop and then I'll like, walk the dog. My dog's getting older now, so now it's. It's less lyrics.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

But was around for a lot of it. I don't know.

[Mike Birbiglia]

You jot stuff. As I understand it, you jot stuff in your voice memo on your phone.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, sometimes.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And then do you carry note. Do you carry notebooks?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I mean, with this one, Issa and I went. I mean, Issa and I really co. Wrote this thing, so sometimes she would send me, like, a musical idea that came to her and I would just throw it in the pot. So there's a lot of musical motifs that are Issa's as well. In fact, in the first song, you can actually. I actually put Issa's voice memo at the top of it. You hear her going, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Oh, my God.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And that's the horn line that you hear throughout the opening.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Oh, I love that.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

So, like, I tried to kind of bake everything into the pie.

[Mike Birbiglia]

What do People who have never written a musical not understand about writing a musical. What can you not understand?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

You can't understand how many ideas you need.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Oh, that's it.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

It looks like you're bored.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Like, 100 cards on the board. I have an idea. They'll break into song. Like, that's not gonna get you very far. You have to. I mean, warriors is a great example. Like, we look at a moment that happens in the movie and we go, what is the attack on this? Like, who is singing? What is the perspective on it? Like, it's kind of a lot of ideas, right. And you invariably bring all of yourself into it. Like, there's a song that Luther sings. Luther's the villain of warriors, played by David Patrick Kelly in the movie and Kim Dracula in ours. And the first stanza of it, it's actually a really weird memory I have of being a little kid. They sing Every stop on the map is a Pac man dot. Oh, and I always saw the subway map. There's, like, a little Pac man shaped arrow in the corner of every subway map. It's like, black. A little black Pac Man. And I always used to imagine, like, when I was bored and had nothing to do, I would imagine the Pac man eating up all the subway stops. And, like, the transfer stops were power pellets. Like, this was, like, a thing. I spent many hours, of course, in my head as a kid, going from West 4th street, where I went to nursery school, all the way up to 200th street, where I got off. And so, again, switching that to the metaphor of Luther sees himself as a ghost hunting down Ms. Pac Man. But again, that's an idea I pulled from when I was 5 years old into a lyric. So it's. One idea is not enough. You're constantly kind of, what is the best line of attack on this moment? What feels true.

[Mike Birbiglia]

But it's interesting. In warriors, it's like, I don't know. In some ways, the train is a metaphor totally for the way that in New York City, we're all together.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. And to me, I mean, that's the most beautiful scene in the film. You know, there's a moment where the warriors have, like, fought fucking everybody. And they're on that last stretch on the yellow line from Union Square to, you know, Stilwell Avenue in Coney Island. And these other couples get on, and they're the same age as the warriors, but they're, like, rich. They're clearly coming from a party, having a great time, like a prom or a disco. And they look and see this completely different lived experience and they're just staring at each other from across and it is the most, most beautiful scene. And it's really like the moment where the warriors also assert their dignity and their personhood and that like. And we all share this city. And it's what I love the most about this city is how many different types of people share it and how many worlds and experiences you see every time you get on the train.

[Mike Birbiglia]

I think it's a testament to, to in the city that we're all choosing to live in this place where we're all going to be kind of on the dirty subway for part of the day.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

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[Mike Birbiglia]

So a funny thing. When you and I met, you did this American Life live. And I did it and I told story, the Massachusetts story, and then it was great. You did 21 Chump street, which is a 20 minute musical roughly.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And based on a story. Yeah, like a journalism piece from this.

[Mike Birbiglia]

American Life and you play Ira Glass in it. A singing Ira Glass.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, sure.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Anthony Ramos is in it.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

I remember being outside of Bam Opera House. Me and Jenny.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Right after the live event, this American Live event with Anthony. He was just like this wide eyed young guy.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, he still is.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And he just.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Now he's in Twisters.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And he was just like. He was just like. Yeah, just Lynn just like found me and like asked me to do all this stuff and like, I mean he was literally like. And now my life has changed.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, his life is very. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. He was actually auditioning for something else. It was like a cell phone commercial really. Telsey casting. And the casting director was like, have they seen you for Hamilton yet?

[Mike Birbiglia]

Really?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. And he was like, what's Hamilton?

[Mike Birbiglia]

It's interesting cause like you have your stamp on so many people's rising careers. You know, like Anthony blew up from that. A lot of these guys who you work with blew up from it. Do you take pride in that? Do you think wistfully about it?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Oh, absolutely. It's kind of the best part because in making the thing you. You get to like see all these other people do what they do brilliantly.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Do you think of yourself as that part of your role? As being. Cause you went from being the young person, the young upstart kid to being like a veteran. Do you see it as a responsibility?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I never thought of it that consciously until Stephen Sondheim died, who was kind of the encourager in chief for our entire line of work. Like I'm sure you saw like after he passed, like there was like. There's a Instagram handle called Sondheim Letters where it's just like letters of encouragement or response. He wrote. He somehow wrote everybody back all the time. I have no idea how he wrote so many shows.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

But it was. That was one of Those moments where like, you're looking around for the grownups and now you're the grownups.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

You're the seniors.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah. The word, the grownups thing is really interesting because it's like, I don't feel like a grownup. No, I know. Well, that's what I was saying earlier is like, you have this wide eyed kid thing about you, and you're open and you're always game to take on big stuff. You know, you took on Alexander Hamilton, you took on even, you know, in warriors is like 1970s New York City is a big, big topic.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And it's like. And you relate everything to being kind of like a school play. It's like, how is the level you're working at right now, which is the highest level? How is it similar to the school play and how is it different from the school play?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

It's exactly the same as the school play.

[Mike Birbiglia]

No differences.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

It's just more people coming to the school play. That's really how I think of it, is what's gonna be the most interesting, exciting thing you can do. I mean, when you're writing it at any given moment. And you know, with Issa, a lot of the fun of this was her coming at me with structure. Questions that I'd never considered because I saw the movie as a sacred text and still do. And I think fans of the movie will still really enjoy this because all of the moments I also felt like, oh, I'm the guardian of like the things that, like, if you're making a Warriors musical, that has to be in it, that moment has to be in it. Right. But also the fun of it also was like, okay, 1979 New York is a really exciting musical time. So what genres do we get to play in? We can play in Paris Burning Ballroom. We can play in punk and in metal and in lots of rock music. I mean, it's a rock score. That movie has an amazing Barry Divorzan rock score. So jumping off of that and the 79 synths into all this other different.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Territory, I mean, that's one of the things I find most interesting about your work. And really like a lot of my favorite art from the last 20 years, I always think of like Hamilton and I think of like Jordan Peele's Get Out Where. It's like both of those are examples of. It's a hybrid. His is a hybrid of horror and comedy and social commentary and it's all in one. And Hamilton is. It's a historical musical with hip hop and it's just like, you know, and this, you know, warriors is like. It's hip hop, it's metal, it's rock and roll. It's all these things. And is that on purpose, or is that just what you got in you?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, part of it. And again, like, I think, you know, you go to your influences. Like, for me, Jonathan Larson, and Jonathan Larson is the composer of Rent. And Rent was the show that made me go from, like, liking musicals to thinking, oh, I could write a musical.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Cause it was the first really contemporary show I saw. I was like, oh, this takes place now.

[Mike Birbiglia]

So did you see. You saw Rent?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I saw it in the first year. I saw it for my 17th birthday in 1997.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Oh, my gosh.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And I just was like, oh, you can tell this guy is writing from a very personal place. It's about New York. It's about his community, this, like, artistic community. And, like, wrestling with the same things that I'm wrestling with. Like, I'm scared to die. I'm scared of, like, making art and nobody noticing. I'm scared. Like, all of the things that I was scared of as I was barreling towards a life in the arts. It was like, there it is up on stage. And that's when I went from, like, being in the school play to starting to write musicals was from seeing that. And the other thing that was. And it's a roundabout answer to your question, but Jonathan Larson really believed that theater music should be in conversation with the music we actually listen to every day. Like, wanted to bring in those outside influences. Like, I think in his character description of Mark wrote Eddie Vedder, like, think Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain type voice, which, again, no other musical theater writer was doing at the time.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Wow. So you saw that when you were 17?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I saw that when I was 17.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Had you seen a musical?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I'd seen the holy 80s trinity of, like, Phantom, Les Mis. And I got TKTS tickets and I guess Cats. I saw Cats when I was a kid. I was on a school trip. I was very scared, but those were the only three I'd seen. But I'd listened to a lot more. And I'd been in the school play.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

So I really learned musicals by, like, being in shows, being in Pirates of Penzance and Godspell and stuff.

[Mike Birbiglia]

There was nothing. I remember listening to Rent. I never saw it, but I remember listening to it when the cast album came out and just being completely floored.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. Just being like, well, this sounds like music. I would really.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Like, there's real pop music. Here, there's real rock and roll here. Like it's telling a story. So it's not exact, you know, it doesn't sound like Pearl Jam or Nirvana, but it's reaching for it and it's in conversation with popular music.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah. It sounds singular. It sounds like someone, in this case Larson, just like kind of unloading everything from his heart and his soul and it's just all there.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

If someone's listening to this today, it's like, what would be your advice for arriving? Because I feel like you're like that as well. How do you arrive at that point where if, you know, if something's holding you back from unloading it all, what would be your tactic to get there? What would be your advice?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Well, it's interesting because after I saw Rent, I wrote a bunch of 15 minute musicals that sounded like Rent. You know, like, they're vaguely pop rocky, and they all just sound like, you know, Jonathan Larson, D Sides.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Sure.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And I think what happens is you form your taste, you chase the things that you like and you're gonna fall short. And then, like, if you chase enough different stuff, you'll end up sounding like yourself.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I think that's applause break.

[Mike Birbiglia]

That's the whole thing, working it out. APPLAUSE that's it, right?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

End of story.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. You will sound like the heroes you're chasing at first, and then you will figure out what is the thing that only you can write, but you have to get there through trial and error.

[Mike Birbiglia]

What was the leap of Hamilton going from this musical you worked on and lived in for years and years and years to in the pandemic, it exploding into the world? The entire world.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

It was because it was streaming.

[Mike Birbiglia]

It like the film of it was streaming.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And so it went from probably an audience of millions to hundreds of millions.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, yeah. I went back to therapy pretty quick. Like, I've had the same therapist since I was 19. I go for specific times and I called him, I think, July 5, the first spit take.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Because also we were home of working it out.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

There was no. It's almost too much to let in, you know, in a lot. Of course it is. It was all the discourse about Hamilton, positive and negative at the same time.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Like to an nth magnitude. The Internet exploded and you can't take all that in. And there was nowhere to go with it. Like, when I was in Hamilton, my therapy over, like, the reaction to Hamilton was being in Hamilton, like for two and a half hours every night. I had one job and it was like, live. That Life from the beginning to the end of the show. And during the pandemic, everyone had it. Everyone was yelling at me. That's how I experienced it.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And loving it.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And loving it and hating it and all of it. And I had nowhere to go with it. I was just horrible.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Much more people loving it. The louder people hated it.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And the less, lesser group of people hated it. But they're so loud on the Internet, right?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

They're all the same volume. They're all the Internet. They're all the same font.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah. Yeah. They're all the same font. They're all the same. They're all the font of the New York Times.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I call. I called my shrink back up, and I was like, I have some more stuff for you, for us to. Like, literally, the shrink I saw when I was 19 years old and had my first breakup.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I was like, I got more stuff. It's different stuff. Let's go.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah. It's crazy because it was so. It's such a revolutionary show. And the casting of the show, I feel like, has been repeated in so many other shows, and that's been a.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Very nice legacy of it.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yes. I mean, how do you feel when you see shows that have just casts that you wouldn't expect?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Well, again, like, taking it back to when I first met Issa, that was Passing Strange and In the Heights, and we were the black and brown shows. Like, we were it. And I remember people asking me, like, wow, such diversity. Two shows.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Like, and people asking me at the time, do you think this is going to change the makeup of what we see on Broadway? And I said, no, because I know Stu started writing his show in 2000. I started writing my show in 2000. It took us seven years to get here. So if anything's gonna change, it's not gonna be next season.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And it wasn't. And what was exciting about Hamilton was that we had a cast as diverse as the cast we have, and it did well.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

So it was sort of, like, destroyed the notion of.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Exploded the concept of, you need to cast literally.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Right.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Hamilton has to be a white guy, et cetera.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Burr has to be a white guy, et cetera.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Right.

[Mike Birbiglia]

It completely changed the game.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. And again, like, not. That wasn't particularly intentional. Like, I just.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Where'd you come up with that?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

No, no, in the initial idea. The initial idea for it was when I read the book, when I read his biography, Every Moment. And you'll relate to this. Every moment at which his life changed was because he Wrote something. And that's very rare for a biography normally, like, shit just happens to people.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Wait, can you unpack that? Everything changed for him when he wrote something.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. So he writes his way out of his upbringing in St. Croix because a hurricane hits the island, and he writes an account of the island, of that hurricane. That account is so vivid that it gets published in the Danish American Gazette and used for relief efforts, like as a testimonial of why you need to send money to help us. People realize this kid is smart. Will take up a collection so he can go get his education on the mainland. He never comes back. Then he starts writing about how we need to have an American revolution. He writes under a pseudonym, which, again, there's nothing more hip hop than writing under a pseudonym, like taking your pen name or your emcee name. And he becomes George Washington's aide de camp because he's a good writer. He's like, okay, you'll be my secretary. So most biographies, you don't usually have someone who literally creates so much of their destiny by virtue of their writing.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Right. So he's an artist in his own right.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And therein lies his desire.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

That's what connected it to hip hop for me was he writes about his circumstances so well that he transcends them. And so I was always picturing, who is the MC who represents Hamilton, who is the MC who represents. So I was never picturing white guys. I know what the white guys look like. They're in my wallet. They're in my wallet. I just never. I just, like. That was never what I was thinking when I was writing the songs.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Right.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

So it just. It just proceeded from the style of music I was writing and. And the impulse to make him a writer.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Did Hamilton ever go. It's so precise. Did it ever go off the tracks? Because, like, with my shows, if it goes off the tracks, I can be like, oh, by the way, I missed this line. So I'm going to go back and tell this part of the story first. Like, I can talk through it in Hamilton. It just feels like, oh, you're kind of screwed if you, like, miss a beat. Or you jump to the second act or you jump to a different song.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Well, you know, what's interesting is I think part of the reason it's like that is I thought of it as a concept album first. For years, I called it the Hamilton Mixtape. And just thinking of it that way made me write denser lyrics. I was like, I can get away with this because they can press rewind if they miss it, I literally like in just that mental shift of like, no, it's gonna be an album, it's gonna be an album, they can press rewind. If they miss it, they can go back. And then it started turning into a musical in spite of us and becoming a show. And very clearly, like this wants to live on stage pretty urgently.

[Mike Birbiglia]

If the lead of Hamilton now got Covid, could you go on to.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

My God, talk about the anxiety dream. I could probably pull off 70%.

[Mike Birbiglia]

I would kill to see that 70%.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Honestly, most of the lyrics are in the costume. Like, if I put the costume on and we're in the track, stuff would come out of my mouth.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Oh my God.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

You know what, it's funny. Cause I had a three year break, I didn't do it. And then I went back in to do it for Puerto Rico for fundraiser. And the stuff I had the most trouble memorizing was the stuff I didn't write. Cause there's times where I actually quote the historical Hamilton. Like the Reynolds pamphlet. That's Hamilton's writing. Washington's farewell address, that's Hamilton's writing. And I really ate shit on some of those. Like when I went back to do it, I'd be like, in the course of my life, there have been many. I'm trying to do the farewell address and I don't have it anywhere.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Wow. I mean, what's crazy too is like that as the lore goes, you performed this at the White House for Obama in 2009, before it was a full musical.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I had not even finished writing that song.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Like, you're working it out at the White House.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

The gig. The gig was like, all right, I gotta write a hook for these two verses I have.

[Mike Birbiglia]

What? Like, how do you get the confidence to work out new material at the White House for the President?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

In retrosp, I would never do that today. In retrospect, why'd you do it? Cause I had nothing to lose. And also, they asked for something about the American experience. And it was the only thing I had about the American. American experience.

[Mike Birbiglia]

But you knew it was great, right? Like, you kind of knew it was great.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I knew I liked it. I also knew that if this audience doesn't like it, this is probably a bad idea.

[Mike Birbiglia]

True.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

You know, it was sort of like, this is. I mean, this is like the White House evening of poetry and spoken word. If it doesn't play here.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Like, let's reconsider what we've been working on.

[Mike Birbiglia]

That era is this 2008 or so.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

It was 2019.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yep. It's like the moment of hope in America. Obama's president. I remember it very well. Yeah, it feels different now. Does it feel different to you?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, but it's funny. Like the show is the show. So, you know, and again, like one idea can't get you through writing a musical. So, you know, there are people who kind of talk about it as an Obama era musical. And I guess technically that is true. That is the era in which I wrote it. But I also remember how the line immigrants, we get the job done played when Trump was president and it went from like ha ha ha ha to like fuck, right? Yeah. Like it became this like defiant thing.

[Mike Birbiglia]

It's an immigrant.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Just different things hit differently in the same way that when you revisit a piece of art in a different point in your life, different things sort of jump out.

[Unknown]

Support for working it out comes from Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile offers wireless for $15 a month with the purchase of a three month plan.

[Mike Birbiglia]

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[Unknown]

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[Mike Birbiglia]

Find out how easy it is to.

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[Mike Birbiglia]

To get this new customer offer and.

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[Mike Birbiglia]

Okay, this is the slow round. What are people's favorite and least favorite thing about you? Like your friends and family?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I think they, I think I'm, I think I'll start with the least favorite. I think that just like my focus and presence, like, are you here? Are you actually here with me? Are you daydreaming? Are you in your phone? Like, yeah, like I can, you know, a thing my wife has said often is like, are you here?

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yes. Yes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Because I'll spin out. And so that's probably the most annoying thing about me is that like we can be in a conversation and then I can go somewhere Else over here. That's fucking annoying. Right. And then, you know. But I'm a. I'm a pretty loyal friend. I'm a pretty good hang. Like, my friends that I like are all my friends from elementary school and high school and college. I'm changed a lot.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah. Did your life go the way you expected it to go?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Beyond my wildest dreams, but I'd be lying if I said they weren't my wildest dreams. It wasn't like, I never expected it. Like, I wrote shows, and I hope people will see them.

[Mike Birbiglia]

I worked very hard, and then they did.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And then they did. And that's the part that's great, and the part I'm really grateful for. But there's. You know, I also wanted to be, like, a Hollywood stuntman when I was a kid, because I watched lots of action movies as a kid, but I don't like getting hurt or heights or falling.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Sure.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

So, yeah, that was Chevy Chase falling at the beginning of Saturday Night Live was about as stunty as I could get.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And anything else was scarier.

[Mike Birbiglia]

What's the best piece of advice someone's given you that you used?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I mean, my mom, who I think intuited that I was a very sensitive kid, like, really hit me with. It's all grist for the mill. It's all material. Like, when I was really young, she'd say, like, well, if you want to be a writer, like, remember this? Like, if I was really going through a hard time, she'd go, don't run from it. Remember it. You're gonna. You're gonna need it at some point.

[Mike Birbiglia]

It's in the Nora Ephron documentary. They talk about that a lot.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. It's all copy, right?

[Mike Birbiglia]

Is that all copy?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. Yeah. So my mom hit me with that young, and it became a lifesaver. Like, in your darkest moments, there's a part of you that's like, as Sondheim said, always standing by, like. Like observing it so that you can use it later if you need to.

[Mike Birbiglia]

That's what I always. I say on this podcast all the time is just the most frustrating things, things you're angry about. Just write them down.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

It just. It just. It's so therapeutic to just zoom out.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And look at it and look at it as opposed to, like, how much space it takes up in your head.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah. Do you remember a time in your life where you were an inauthentic version of yourself?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Huh. Well, it's interesting, like, I think that the code switching that happens when your parents Speak Spanish at home and you speak English at school. It happened for me really young because I got into Hunter, which is, you know, it's like a. It's a public school, but you take a test to get in. And I went from just being Ling Manuel all the time to Lin at school and Ling Manuel at home and suddenly had two names. And this is not like, breaking news for anyone who's got like, a, you know, a hard to pronounce name who suddenly has to go into the school system. But, like, that was the beginning of it, and it happened so young that I didn't even really notice. And I think that to your earlier question of, like, how do we find our voice? I think in the heights, which I started writing my sophomore year was the first time I brought Lin Manuel and Lin into the same room, onto the same page at the same time. It was like, the stuff I was learning in theater, and it was the music I grew up with, the neighborhood I grew up in, and, like, all the stuff that mattered to me. And it's like the moment where you. You know, I never felt like I was being inauthentic in either of those places. I was just being the easiest to, you know, the easiest to pronounce version of myself.

[Mike Birbiglia]

How would you describe those two people?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I mean, beyond just Spanish versus English? I think I learned really early that when you're around really smart kids. I was at a school full of really smart kids. I didn't feel particularly smart. Funny is actually the only currency. It matters. Like, if I'm funny, no one will look at my C grades in math or my needs improvement. Like, funny. Funny covers all manner of sins. So, like.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah, funny smooths over a lot of situations.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

It does. It does. And it allows you to. Like, I was never, like, in one click in high school. I was like, I could kind of float around pretty well because I would, like, hit a laugh line. Like, get the fuck out.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Hit a laugh line and get out. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting how. But humor does that.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And also, did theater do that for you?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. Well, what theater did for me also was give me the zoom out that you sometimes need. Especially in high school when it's like, we hate that girl now. We don't like that kid anymore. And, like, you have no idea why the alliances are shifting or changing. That's how I experienced much of high school. But if you're doing theater one, you're all making something because you want to make it. Like, none of us are getting a grade for this. And Two, you make friends in other grades. So, like, if my grade is being really fucking weird because someone dated someone or, like, I don't even know why we all hate this kid today. Like, I could go into a hallway full of older kids who are like, lynn, hi.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And it just like, common purpose. Common purpose. And just like, the problems in our grade aren't really a big deal. It's just a thing that's happening in this hallway. And there's another hallway with kids that are also nice, and they might be older and younger, but the world does not begin and end with the kids you're in a class with.

[Mike Birbiglia]

And by the way, I'm sure that was the case within the Heights or Hamilton, where there's disputes with producers or the cast or the crew or whatever. And then you're on stage and you gotta do it.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, again, like, what was the most.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Chaos around any of your live shows in your professional career where you just have to ultimately do it?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Oh, God. I mean, there's all manner of. It's always when someone's out. Like, I remember the week after in the Heights opened, Ko, who played Vanessa, was out, like, sick. Like, voice was gone.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And understudy went in. No put in as moret. And it was sort of like she's literally never done.

[Mike Birbiglia]

What do you mean, no put in?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Like, we never had time to do a put in rehearsal for her.

[Mike Birbiglia]

She didn't have a rehearsal?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

No. We walked through the page like there was no time. And we were off Broadway, so we didn't even have, like, the staff to do it. Like, we were just very understaffed. And so it was like, you're gonna play Vanessa. We're all gonna walk you through every dance sequence. I mean, she was in the ensemble and she covered. But we'd never had the understudy rehearsals because we had just opened.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Wow.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

We were just trying to get the show on.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Where was the show? Off Broadway.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

It was at a place that. No, it's now the Baryshnikov Dance center, but it was 37 arts and it used to be a theater space.

[Mike Birbiglia]

So she went on and you hadn't done a rehearsal.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And I mean, it was never better.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Of course, she was so present that.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

She was what were always chasing when we're trying to be on stage is completely in the moment at all times. She literally didn't know what was gonna. I mean, she knew the songs, obviously, and, like, what to sing, but in terms of the blocking, like, we were all guiding her around and she was incredible.

[Mike Birbiglia]

In your entire career, when have you felt the most present on stage?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

It's always freestyle.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Oh, really?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, because we always know what we're gonna do. It's the anxiety, dream made flesh. Like, we're going on stage, we're getting a verb.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And we're gonna do a show and we'll just proceed from there. And it's, I think it's the secret. Like for me, it's the opposing muscle group of my writing. Because I can never buy into the notion of writer's block. Like, I did a 90 minute show with my friends last week and we came up with something.

[Mike Birbiglia]

One thing I'm doing in my new show, which is, I think is going to be announced by the time we get to this, this comes out, is I'm playing the Beacon and it's called the Good Life. And one of the stories I tell, because I'm talking about like, yeah, I'm sure you can relate to this. You have two kids. It's like you have this thing where you just go, it's like we were talking about earlier. You realize you are the adult.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yes.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Right. And you go, oh, they have questions and I do not have all the answers. Right. And so I talk about that in relation, thematically. That's what a lot of the show is about. And like, and I talk a lot of, how do I explain drugs? You know, it's like, you know, I say the Good Life. Because we walk by on this corner in Brooklyn is like this like weed store, it's called like the Good Life. And one day Una was like, dad, what's the Good Life? And I was like, I don't even know. It's not what I'm doing. You know what I mean? And I'm just trying to explain drugs and I can't really do it. And then I have a flashback, like in a lot of my shows to I did the DARE program in sixth grade. You have that?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

We didn't have it, but I remember the commercials.

[Mike Birbiglia]

So drug abuse, resistance education and his officer Babin came to school and she was like, we dare you not to use drugs. And we're like, wait, you dare us to do drugs or to not use? To not. You know, like it's an acronym. We don't know what acronyms are. Is that a type of drug? And so, okay, so here, this is the real life thing that happened. And you'll see why I'm asking you, you about it in moments. I asked Officer Babin, she said, there's a Graduation ceremony next week for Dare I asked Officer Babin. This is very school play of me. Is it possible at the graduation ceremony, I could perform a rap song that I wrote?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

No.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Called, wait for it. Bust them Drugs Bust. Based on. I bet you guess what it's based on. Bust is a hit song from 1989. Bust. Mine was Bust them Drugs Bust a move.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

The Young mc.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, you won.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah. And so Officer Rabin goes, that's a great idea. It was not a great idea. Total malpractice on her part.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

All the anxiety we talked about, I'm feeling for you in the past right now.

[Mike Birbiglia]

So she goes, great idea. The day of the graduation, she goes, now, before we give out the diplomas, there's gonna be a musical presentation from your fellow sixth grader, Mike Birbiglia. And I went up. Young mc, audio cassette, single, put in press play instrumental. I'm immediately three beats behind the rhythm of the song. I mean, it's. But by the way, it wasn't the instrumental. It was predated. The predated even instrumental singles.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Sometimes you'd get the instrumental on the B side. That didn't happen in this case.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah, didn't have it. So. So my lyrics competed with the actual Bust A Move lyrics. It was like an early mashup. And I was just like, this is a tale for all the sixth graders trying to blah, blah, blah, you know? And it's like, okay, smarty, go to a party. Offer me angel dust. No, thanks, sorry, Mom's at home, she's offering me hugs, and just say, no and bust them drugs. And I say to the audience, and it was not well received, but I haven't used drugs to this very day. So in a way, that program worked. I also didn't lose my virginity till I was 20. So I worked on a lot of levels. And then I go, so how do I explain that to my daughter? You know, I'm like, that's what the good life is. That's great. But what. So if you could go back and coach the sixth grade Mike Birbiglia on how to rap about drugs, what would that advice be?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Oh, Jesus Christ. I would coach you to not do it. Of course.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Of course. So the last thing we do on the show is working it out for a cause. Is there an organization you like to contribute to? We will contribute and link to them in the show notes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

There's always the Rise Network that I've been a part of, which is. It's similar to Ava DuVernay's array network, which is basically. It's a free database for people from underrepresented groups who work in theater. So it's kind of trying to tackle the other side of the diversity issue theater has, which is the lie that there are no talented designers of color, technicians of color. It is literally a database full of resumes of exactly that. And so we've been. We launched it like a year and a half ago.

[Mike Birbiglia]

What a phenomenal idea.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. And it's just. I have a profile on there. If you work in theater, you should put your profile on there. And it's just a way of trying to create the same diversity behind the scenes that we've tried to create with Hamilton and shows on stage.

[Mike Birbiglia]

I don't know how you do all this stuff. You've won Tonys in the Pulitzer, all this stuff. And you're on the subway and you're walking your dog around.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I did have a funny. I did get recognized on the train here. In my transfer from the A to the F at J Street. At J Street, a lady and her daughter was like, you look lost.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Well, this is a part.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

And she was like, we're big fans, and you look lost.

[Mike Birbiglia]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Working it Out. Cause it's not done. We're working it out because there's no. That's gonna do it. For another episode of Working it out, you can follow Lin Manuel Miranda on Instagram at Lynn Underscore Manuel. You can get the new album@warriors album.com. you can watch the full video of this episode, which is totally worth it for the body language on our YouTube channel @Mike Birbiglia. Subscribe while you're there. By the way, we're posting more and more videos by the day. Tons of great stuff. I was actually re watching the Ira Glass one the other day. I found it to be very inspiring. Even though I close with Ira, I talk to him all the time. I found the the video of me talking to him to be very inspiring. He has so much wisdom. Check out birdbigs.com to sign up for the mailing list and to be the first to know about my upcoming shows. Our producers of Working it out are myself, along with Peter Salomon, Joseph Birbiglia and Mabel Lewis. Associate producer Gary Simons. Sound mixed by Ben Cruz. Supervising engineer, Kate Belinsky. Special thanks to Jack Antonov and Bleachers for their music. Special thanks to my wife, the poet J. Hope Stein. Special thanks, as always, to my daughter Unu, who built the original radio fort made of pillows. Thanks most of all to you who are listening. If you enjoy it, if you enjoy this show you're listening to right now, which I'm saying, chances are you are, because you made it to the end, you're in the credits, for God's sakes. Please go over to the Apple Podcast and rate and review it. We are almost at 4,000 stars on Apple Podcasts, which is great because it helps people find the show. If you're new to the podcast and you enjoy this episode, we have almost 150 episodes that we've done since June 2020 and they're all free. They're not behind a paywall like some other podcasts. We've had some incredible guests. Jack Antonoff, Pete Holmes, Taylor Tomlinson, on and on and on. Stephen Colbert. Check out our back catalog. Comment on Apple Podcasts. Which one is your favorite? Thanks most of all to you who are listening. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Maybe you're with your friends and you have to escape from the Bronx to Coney Island. Happens to the best of us. You're on the train and maybe the gang called the Baseball Furies catches up to you and your friends. Here's what you do. You play them the Working it out podcast and that should resolve the conflict pretty quickly. I mean, they're creative types. They wear baseball jerseys for no reason and carry bats. Thanks everybody. We're working it out. We'll see you next time. Time.