Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Broadway composer-lyricist and actor who created the revolutionary musical Hamilton, reshaping America's founding story.
On the island
Eight records
John Kander (music), Fred Ebb (lyrics)
First instinct was cabaret. But I actually think if I'm alone on that island, I'd pick Ali Danine because it would give me hope. And I'm gonna hope's gonna be in short supply on my island with coffee.
I love these songs. I think the Decembrists are at the forefront of expanding the vocabulary of what rock music and what pop music can do. … And my calm in the storm, I used to, I tried like meditation apps. They don't work. … But I found that if I listened to The Crane Wife 1, 2, and 3, I could plug into the story and sort of zone out. And that was my meditation during the Hamilton year where I was playing the role.
El Padre Antonio y el Monaguillo Andrés
This is, again, this is one of the greatest living songwriters we have, Reuben Blades. And this is the album I remember most on my parents' vinyl collection.
Oh yeah, this is Passing Me By by the Farside, who are this incredible hip-hop group out of California. … And so it was my way in. It was like, oh, I'm allowed to write about the stuff that I'm insecure about. It was really revolutionary for me. And I'm crazy about their voices. This high-pitched voice you're going to hear is like, I think, what I've subconsciously been emulating when I rap my whole life.
What You KnowFavourite
This is one of my favorite songs of the past few years and has been a real balm to me. … it was written by a young singer-songwriter named Ali Denin, who was my seventh-grade student when I taught at Hunter. … And I'm in awe of this song every time I hear it.
I think Regina Specter is a genius because everything that comes out of her could only come out of her. And this is to me is a perfect pop song …
So he'd beto Santa Rosa. He'd be our Tony Bennett. He'd be your maybe like Anthony Newley. Just old school salsa crooner, brilliant improviser. And this was my first dance with my wife at our wedding. And he sang at our wedding. And he sang this song.
This is Rosa Parks by the Immortal Outcast. I think Andre 3000 and Big Boy are the Lennon McCartney of hip-hop. … I picked this song because it actually has a practical application in my life. I'm in this hip-hop improv group called Freestyle Love Supreme, and I have been performing with them since 2003. And one of our members, Utkarsh Ambutkar, aka UTK, has to sing the second verse of Rosa Parks before we get on stage. It's like his superstitious thing. He has to do it, otherwise, he can't get on stage.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:43Your creative and professional life is hugely varied. You're an actor, a musical director, composer, MC, playwright. The inside of your head must be a very busy place. Is it always worrying? Can you ever switch it off?
Sure. My mom and my dad have very different viewing habits. … And as I've grown up in my own habits, I find at the end of the day, I'm my dad. I just need something mindless and fun and or heartwarming, you know, because the world's hard enough.
Presenter asks
6:18What was the moment when you thought, this, this is the idea [for Hamilton], this is going to fly?
At the end of the second chapter of reading the book. And the thesis that came to me was, this guy's a wordsmith. And he used words to get himself out of his circumstances. He literally writes about a hurricane that destroys St. Croix. And it is so good, it is used for relief efforts. … And I, in that moment, thought, well, that's hip-hop. That notion of writing about your struggle so specifically that you transcend it and that you elicit a response in others. And he starts writing under a pseudonym. What's more hip-hop than writing under a pseudonym? Words were his passport to everything. And to me, that's what my favorite MCs do. And so that was the thesis for all of it.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
7:25Tell me about casting the show [Hamilton]. It features actors from many different backgrounds telling the story of an immigrant to the US. Why was that important to you?
One, it's part of the initial impulse. I was never picturing literal founders, and I think we looked for the most diverse group of people who could bring these words to life as possible. And Tommy Kale, who is my director on both In the Heights and Hamilton, Tommy ran with that initial impulse and elevated it to this principle. He just sort of said, this is the story of America then told by America now. And I didn't realize what a big deal that was until you see it on stage, until they all come downstage in that moment in the opening number and sing the word time at the top of their lungs. And how thrilling that is …
Presenter asks
21:45Many of the subjects and the stories that fascinate you — Jonathan Larson, Bob Fosse, Alexander Hamilton — they have a common thread of the ticking clock. Tell me more about that.
Well, it's true, isn't it? I mean, I think that it we all have that ticking clock, and you're marked by your awareness of it and how much you let it affect your day-to-day because it's true whether you notice it or not. … I think I was aware of it at a pretty young age. One, part of it is just growing up in New York. … And I also experienced death at a young age. My best friend, who I went to kindergarten with, died very young. … when that hits you early, you're aware of the ticking clock earlier. J.K. Rowling put it beautifully with the notion of thestrals that she puts in Harry Potter: that only Harry and Luna Lovegood can see the horses that pulled them to Hogwarts because they've seen death. And so I saw thestrals early.
Presenter asks
26:25How do you feel about the term 'genius' being applied to you [via the MacArthur Fellowship]?
I mean, I've known too many geniuses, actual geniuses, to count myself among them. I think I work very hard. I think I'm talented. I do not think that is the same thing. But I was very grateful for it. And I just try to think of it as like a vote of confidence from the universe: keep going. Because if you start to take that seriously, if you start to wily coyote around and have cards printed that say super genius, that's pretty much when everyone gets to say, no, you're not. And I try to knock that pedestal out from under myself as often as I can.
Presenter asks
29:20In 2017, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. You visited the island not long afterwards. What did you find?
I found an island struggling with challenges no major American city has ever had to face and with less help. … one, the island of blue tarps when you're landing instead of roofs. But I also know it from my own aunt and uncle who were still there and lived on generators in their town for five months to have electricity at night. Wouldn't happen on the mainland. It just wouldn't. It was a sort of stark reminder of the colonial status of this island. It is an unincorporated territory of the U.S. Right. And also this horrible body count that we knew to be true and we knew to be much higher than the president who fixed it in his mind at 16 and refused to think about it again because we all knew someone who died. And so, you know, I think Puerto Rico is home to the most resilient people on the face of the planet for surviving that and everything after.
“I just remember the applause at the end of that thing feeling like the most gratifying sound I'd ever heard. And I feel like I've been chasing that ever since.”
“I think that the best recipe you can make, I've said this before, but the best recipe for being a writer is being a little out of place everywhere. … so I'm the kid who goes to the fancy school in my neighborhood. I'm the kid who speaks Spanish with kind of a messed up gringo accent in Puerto Rico. And at school, I'm the kid who like lives all the way uptown. So that's a great recipe for making a writer because you're always kind of thinking about which part of yourself you're bringing into the conversation, which part of me is most applicable to the people I'm around.”
“I didn't have a lot of friends in my neighborhood, and so there's lots of videos of me making stop-motion animations with G.I. Joes and wrestling dolls because I have no other actors to play with.”
“And I remember seeing Rent on my 17th birthday. … And there's that fight between Mark and Roger where Roger says, Mark has got his work. They say Mark lives for his work. And Mark's in love with his work. Mark hides in his work. … And he's calling him out for using this video camera as a crutch to distance himself from his friends … And I felt called out in the back row of the mezzanine of the Niederlander Theater. And it's about as personal as a musical ever felt to me. That one moment. And I started writing musicals then and there …”
“The embrace of [Puerto Rico performing Hamilton] healed something in me that … I didn't know was incomplete.”
“I think of a desert island, and I think of the end of that Twilight Zone episode, time enough for now, when the guy survives the apocalypse and suddenly he has time to read all the books he's always wanted to read. I just hope my glasses don't break. I'd make use of it. I'd be writing it all down.”