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[0:11] Robert Bannon: It's the round table with me, Robert Bannon.

[0:31] Adrienne Garzillo: Hello, Roundtablers. I am Adrienne Garzillo, and I am your correspondent today for BroadwayCon 2025. We're gonna take a look around at the vendors, we're gonna see some panels, they're gonna welcome us to BroadwayCon. We're gonna talk to some vendors, we're gonna talk to some cosplayers, and we're gonna see what's going on. So stay tuned, don't go anywhere.

[0:55] Robert Silk Mason: Hi, my name is Robert Silk Mason and I play Magical Mr. Mistopheles in Cats: The Musical Ball.

[1:00] Adrienne Garzillo: How exciting is it to be here today in BroadwayCon and talk about your amazing performance?

[1:06] Robert Silk Mason: I am very excited to be here. Like it's a dream come true because first of all, this is my first BroadwayCon. I got nominated for an Adelco Award alongside André De Shields and Sydney Harkourt and a couple of my other colleagues, and then we also just won an Obi Award. So like, and also I graduated Juilliard like three years ago, and I'm really like going full force into my career now.

[1:37] Adrienne Garzillo: Isn't it amazing?

[1:38] Robert Silk Mason: It's so amazing, like and then being here at BroadwayCon to be able to talk about it. It's like it's a dream come true, like for real.

[1:46] Adrienne Garzillo: Yeah, I'm so excited for you. It's just and I hope there will be longevity for this because it's definitely needed in today's world.

[1:53] Robert Silk Mason: Yes, I really hope so because we also need more people who are in the minority to be able to be on stage, on TV, on podcasts, on wherever we are to represent our community. And for the things to be stripped away like they are is so absurd.

[2:14] Adrienne Garzillo: It's like what reality are we living in?

[2:16] Robert Silk Mason: Because this should not be happening.

[2:17] Adrienne Garzillo: Exactly.

[2:18] Robert Silk Mason: And I just, you know, I'll say just to put this out to the world, I really, I really, really, really, really, really wish so much peace onto everyone that is listening right now. Please calm your heart, your soul, and your mind. Pay attention to the people that are in your circle and that are in your village to help you get through in this time because that is really what's gonna matter the most.

[2:41] Adrienne Garzillo: Oh my goodness, thank you so much for that. I love that. And we need to bring our community together.

[2:46] Robert Silk Mason: Yes, yes. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your BroadwayCon.

[2:54] Adrienne Garzillo: The one, the only, Lin Manuel Miranda.

[3:10] Lin Manuel Miranda: He said, What up, Broadway?

[3:17] Adrienne Garzillo: Okay. So Lynn, um, I think we could just kick our conversation off with, you know, obviously we all love theater, we all love Broadway. We are well musical theater in this room. When do you first fall in love with the theater with Broadway?

[3:33] Lin Manuel Miranda: Sorry?

[3:35] Adrienne Garzillo: Oh, okay. You guys know the answer.

[3:40] Lin Manuel Miranda: So listen, uh, I think for me it was, um, one, it was it started with cast albums. My parents had an amazing vinyl collection of cast albums, and I remember seeing my mom, my mom would blast Camelot like top volume in the Subaru. They found Gwen up here.

[4:05] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um, and then the first show I saw was Les Misérables. I was seven years old. Seven is a debatable age to see Les Misérables. I remember crying when Fantine died. I remember laughing with the Thenardiers. I remember taking a little nap for a second. I remember seeing Gavroche and Loki being furious because I was like, kids are allowed to be on Broadway, and just why can I not be up there already?

[4:38] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um, and then I remember waking up in time for Javert's final moments when he goes, There is no way to go on and in the music message there, blah blah blah blah blah. And I remember being so amazed by that. Like, oh wow, the music met the key change of his death. That's the coolest thing I've ever seen.

[5:00] Adrienne Garzillo: Um, so that was a very formative one. Did you always want to write musical theater, or did you want to be an actor first?

[5:09] Lin Manuel Miranda: No, I wanted to be Gavroche. And then I wanted to be, you know, and then I again, like I think like most people, Broadway is expensive, and I only saw a couple of shows before I started doing school theater. And when I started doing school theater, that's when the floodgates opened for me, of like how much was possible.

[5:29] Lin Manuel Miranda: So here's my school theater career. In sixth grade, I have a near-lethal dosage of six musicals that we did 20-minute versions of. So I'm a son in Fiddler, I was a cowboy in Oklahoma, I was an Adam backup in The Wiz. I was Captain Hook, Bernardo, and Conrad Birdie.

[5:51] Lin Manuel Miranda: What a season. What a season. And it's four hours long, and our parents had to watch it. And we're gonna do it tonight! I'm just kidding. Um, and then I and then in high school I was in Pirate King in Pirates of Penzance, it was Judas in Godspell, I assistant directed A Chorus Line, and then directed West Side Story, and then I actually, and then what happened in my junior year was really significant, which was that Rent came out and I saw it on my 17th birthday.

[6:19] Lin Manuel Miranda: And that was the thing that made me go from just loving musicals to writing musicals because all the musicals I listed take place in some other time and in some other land, and I didn't see any access point for me to be able to write one. And then here comes Jonathan Larson, who writes a musical about right now, about our city, about gentrification, about living with HIV/AIDS and being scared of dying and being scared of selling out as an artist.

[6:50] Lin Manuel Miranda: It was like all the things I was thinking about, and that's when that was the show that gave me permission to start writing.

[6:57] Adrienne Garzillo: So you head to Wesleyan.

[6:58] Lin Manuel Miranda: Yeah, and you start writing, and you work, you start working on a little show that ultimately becomes In the Heights.

[7:05] Lin Manuel Miranda: Yes!

[7:06] Adrienne Garzillo: And then I said about that experience then.

[7:11] Lin Manuel Miranda: Sure. I um, I think a couple of things happened. So I wrote these two musicals in high school, and because I love Rent, they sound like a kid trying to write his version of Rent. Like they're okay for a 17, 18-year-old, but they're like rock, rockish musicals.

[7:28] Lin Manuel Miranda: And then I get to Wesleyan, you know, I'm one of a small percentage of Latinos in the school. And my sophomore year I lived in a house called La Casa del Bisu Campos. Um, and that was a program house for Latino community leaders. You had to write an essay to get into the house.

[7:45] Lin Manuel Miranda: And I'm suddenly there with a lot of kids like me who not only are maybe first in their family to go to college or first or second generation in this country, but are also have also navigated the same kind of code switching I have. Like we grew up in both American culture and a very specific Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, you know, La Trinidad that we grew up in our homes, and that I think having friends that were fluent in everything, like I was, culturally, gave me permission to just start writing In the Heights.

[8:23] Lin Manuel Miranda: And I wanted to write a full-length musical, it's an 80-minute one act. Um, and the only thing the college version shares with the version you might have seen on Broadway or in the movie is five notes. Hey, watching In the Heights, everything else seems changed.

[8:37] Lin Manuel Miranda: And you really, I, you know, there was an 80-minute one act. There was me working alone with Tommy, uh, right at Tommy Kail right out of college for about a year in the basement of the Drama Bookshop, and then we started like getting the people we needed to make it the best version of itself.

[8:57] Lin Manuel Miranda: So Alex Lacamoire comes aboard, Kiara goes aboard to write the libretto. That's when it really, the version you know really starts because Kiara really cared about really making the community a character, and then we were really, and it's a very short distance from Kiara joining us in 2004 to us opening off-Broadway in 2007.

[9:17] Lin Manuel Miranda: And um, and so, you know, we opened at a theater that no longer even exists, 37 Arts, uh, off-Broadway, and we moved to Broadway in 2008. And I know that we froze the show off-Broadway almost exactly 18 years ago because Kiara gave birth to her daughter the day we froze the show.

[9:39] Lin Manuel Miranda: Like we froze the show, she was really pregnant, we went to Burgers and Cupcakes for dinner, and her water broke on the way back. Um, and I know Cecilia had her 18th birthday last week, so I will always know that.

[9:54] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um, um Broadway, baseline and Momoranda, I tell me award-winning superstar, and um the rest of Cistry, as they say. Speaking of In the Heights, I think we have a little moment from In the Heights you would like to share with our audience today.

[10:08] Lin Manuel Miranda: Yeah, so I pulled a total bait and switch on Bobby Kanye guys. I told them I'd be talking for an hour, but I decided to call my friends to sing you songs instead.

[10:18] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um, I would have needed 20 people to sing songs that span all the songs I've written over the course of these of my career. But when you call Anisa Foles and Josh Henry, that is like having tight people.

[10:32] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um, I just called my own friend Shockway from Freestyle of Supreme. So please welcome Kirk Crowley, the genius card crowd, our keys, Anisa Foles, Josh Henry, and easy all the most songs and being tonight is when the sun goes down from the light.

[10:35] Lin Manuel Miranda: Sun goes down.

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[14:01] Lin Manuel Miranda: You noticed which, you know, again, with Don Choo's idea, it's a genius idea that I now can't picture the song without that sunrise section.

[14:09] Lin Manuel Miranda: We couldn't dance out the side of a building for you.

[14:12] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um in this space, unfortunately. But that's you know, he's so brilliant, and we've all got to appreciate this his brilliance uh this season with with the wicked movie.

[14:24] Lin Manuel Miranda: The other thing that I could just again, I'm sitting here like my life is flashing before my eyes. Uh one, Josh understudied Chris Jackson, the original company of I remember when Robin DeHesu said, yo, I just did this production of Godspell in Connecticut, and there's a kid named Josh Henry, and he's the truth, and you have to get into the audition room immediately.

[14:49] Lin Manuel Miranda: And the rest is history. Um, yeah, sorry.

[14:53] Lin Manuel Miranda: So you kind of disappeared that summer day, and you became back through stay at his house.

[15:00] Lin Manuel Miranda: Yes.

[15:01] Lin Manuel Miranda: And you were like, I'm gonna I am gonna play for you a song about Thomas Jefferson.

[15:05] Lin Manuel Miranda: And that night you said that this was for like a concept album you were doing.

[15:10] Lin Manuel Miranda: And I asked you, are you gonna be in it?

[15:12] Lin Manuel Miranda: And you're like, no, Frank, I'm not gonna be in that.

[15:14] Lin Manuel Miranda: So like when did you go from concept album to an actual production?

[15:18] Lin Manuel Miranda: And yes, I'm gonna be doing this on the playing album.

[15:21] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um, I think very gradually, um, yeah, I wrote what did I miss at my AJ's house at Randolph Stare.

[15:28] Lin Manuel Miranda: So that was that was uh that was a moment.

[15:30] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um mostly pool time, and then I would go away and write.

[15:34] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um, and I think for me it was helpful to think about it as an album because just because of the way I listen to hip hop, I listen to the hip hop I love.

[15:46] Lin Manuel Miranda: I get more and more each time I listen to it, but the thing that's drilled into your head when you're writing for musical theater is clarity, and everyone's gotta get everything the first time.

[15:55] Lin Manuel Miranda: And and that's true, but at the same time, I wanted the lyrics to be dense enough that the fifth time you hear it, the sixth time you hear it, the tenth time Howard hears it and is preparing a presentation on it at RompeCon, he hears new stuff about it.

[16:11] Lin Manuel Miranda: And so I just like it helped me to think about it as an album because I knew I could just really pack it in.

[16:17] Lin Manuel Miranda: And then, and then I became Hamilton really out of like expediency.

[16:21] Lin Manuel Miranda: It was sort of easier for me to do it than to teach it to anybody else.

[16:25] Lin Manuel Miranda: And I was very grateful for Javier Munio, who had played Kusnabi after me, we worked on that world together, and he'd step out, and I could watch, he'd do the show, and I would watch it with him in it.

[16:38] Lin Manuel Miranda: And we basically did a duck did that again for Hamilton.

[16:41] Lin Manuel Miranda: Like we would I would step out, watch him do it, come in, and uh that's how we figured the rule out.

[16:47] Lin Manuel Miranda: Obviously, Hamilton turned into a phenomenon.

[16:49] Lin Manuel Miranda: You know, we talked a lot about this.

[16:51] Lin Manuel Miranda: Your love of Sondheim, your love of Android or whatever, and both of those folks are very much in this piece.

[16:57] Lin Manuel Miranda: Can you just talk about your influence?

[16:59] Lin Manuel Miranda: Yeah, well, I think I think Hamilton has some, it's one of those things where the grandparents' resemblance is very clear.

[17:07] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um, and I think it has four grandparents, you know, with within the heights, I always look to the shows that I love for inspiration, particularly structurally, and in the heights is about a community, so you have to look at the greatest community musical ever written, which is Fiddler on the Roof.

[17:21] Lin Manuel Miranda: And yeah, Cabaret by Ken Renette also had a community like changing, like with this change from the outside and how people react to that uh external force.

[17:32] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um, with Hamilton, Hamilton's the engine.

[17:35] Lin Manuel Miranda: Like he is the engine, and everyone is either with him or against him, or with him and then against him.

[17:41] Lin Manuel Miranda: Like, but he is the this propulsive thing, and so you look to the shows where it's one character who just like barrels through.

[17:49] Lin Manuel Miranda: And so the parents for for me for the show are Sweeney Todd, Jesus Christ Superstar, and yeah, those are the ones that were gypsy because like you're with Mama Rose or you're against her.

[18:04] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um we really looked at characters with really strong central, the shows with really strong central characters, um, and particularly Jesus Christ Superstar, you know, you've got Judas as the narrator, you could see that kind of become Aaron Burr becoming Hamilton's um narrator, and and uh, and of course, like the introduction to uh Hamilton owes so much to the prologue of the Sweeney Todd.

[18:29] Lin Manuel Miranda: Like everyone comes and says, we're gonna tell you the story, but you don't know who they are yet, and they don't specify until the end of the opening number, and we really emerged from that in terms of the opening number of Alexander Hamilton, which originally was just gonna be Burr, that's how I sang it at the White House in 2008, and then we realized it could hold all our characters, and so we split it up and kind of democratized it.

[18:52] Lin Manuel Miranda: I love it.

[18:52] Lin Manuel Miranda: I love it.

[18:53] Lin Manuel Miranda: Well, I think the moment for Hamilton.

[18:55] Lin Manuel Miranda: Our all-time great burrs who not opens not one but two companies.

[18:59] Lin Manuel Miranda: The Chicago Company and the first national tour in LA.

[19:02] Lin Manuel Miranda: Uh Tom Shenders gonna say wait for it, you know.

[19:35] Lin Manuel Miranda: He's on the bridge side of Georgia, trying to keep the colonies alive, where he can keep all the drugs.

[19:43] Lin Manuel Miranda: The adult is a mind.

[19:46] Lin Manuel Miranda: Love is a discrimination between the sinners and the saints.

[19:49] Lin Manuel Miranda: The change and it takes and it takes.

[19:51] Lin Manuel Miranda: And we keep looking at laugh and we cry and we break and we make our mistakes.

[19:56] Lin Manuel Miranda: If there's a reason, I'm by the side, and so many try, but I'm willing to I'm willing to bring the father was a fire and brings on feature.

[20:17] Lin Manuel Miranda: My mother was a genius.

[20:19] Lin Manuel Miranda: Father commanded respect.

[20:22] Lin Manuel Miranda: When they died, they left no instructions.

[20:25] Lin Manuel Miranda: Just a legacy to the chest.

[20:28] Lin Manuel Miranda: Between the sinners and the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes, and we live in any way.

[20:34] Lin Manuel Miranda: We rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes, and if there's a reason I'm still alive, and everyone who loves me and died, I'm willing to wait for it.

[20:44] Lin Manuel Miranda: I'm only away for it.

[20:55] Lin Manuel Miranda: I think the whole high door.

[21:00] Lin Manuel Miranda: I'm applying behind your own lady.

[21:05] Lin Manuel Miranda: How much man is the only way?

[21:10] Lin Manuel Miranda: How the face is the man living?

[21:15] Lin Manuel Miranda: He had something to write, we have nothing to lose.

[21:20] Lin Manuel Miranda: How did we see us with this he was no time?

[21:24] Lin Manuel Miranda: What a light it is.

[21:33] Lin Manuel Miranda: He exhibits no restraint.

[21:35] Lin Manuel Miranda: It takes and it takes and it takes and he keeps with away.

[21:40] Lin Manuel Miranda: Changes the game, plays and erases the space, and if there's a reason he seems to write to some bag, and goddamn it, I'm within way for you.

[21:51] Lin Manuel Miranda: I'll feel it.

[21:52] Lin Manuel Miranda: Yeah.

[21:54] Lin Manuel Miranda: Like do they discriminate between the cities and the saints?

[22:34] Lin Manuel Miranda: And so Moana.

[22:42] Lin Manuel Miranda: And um, I'm just curious, were you, you know, uh, you think about we're around the same age, and you think about the Disney movies of our childhood, you know, the Alamak and harassment collaborations like mermaid and the Latin movie's.

[22:53] Lin Manuel Miranda: How much did those inspire you as a writer, as a creator, as a songwriter?

[22:59] Lin Manuel Miranda: Yes.

[23:03] Lin Manuel Miranda: I I mean, yeah, no, I I I think anyone who's in this room knows that Little Mermaid is the reason I'm here talking to you.

[23:10] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um because I saw a Caribbean calypso number when I was nine years old underwater, and my brain exploded, and it still has the pieces still haven't come back together.

[23:20] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um I just it was it was the most formative, most transported I ever felt uh in a movie, and I wore out my beauty and piece, then I wore out my Aladdin, like those were my how like and also little shop of horrors, like I've got and so when I interviewed for the job, it was it was before Hamilton had come out, and I was it was the directors of the original room, it was Ron and John, and I went in there and said, I'm here because of you.

[23:49] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um I'm I I'm writing music because you made that movie, and uh I'm very lucky to get the job.

[23:55] Lin Manuel Miranda: I found out I got the job the same day I found out we were having our first child, baby classes.

[24:02] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um I uh and then I was basically writing it while I was in Hamilton because I got hired in 23 yeah, 2014, uh in spring of 2014, and then so all my demos are all Hamilton alums.

[24:19] Lin Manuel Miranda: So saying the first How Far I'll go, Chris Jackson saying uh all of the Maui stuff, and then he was also he also got to play uh one of his dad uh on the album.

[24:31] Lin Manuel Miranda: Um and um, but I was in I mean the demos were terrible because I'm singing into like my headphones in my dressing room, um, and uh but I happened to have world-class singers uh around me.

[24:43] Lin Manuel Miranda: So so so Hamilton and Moana are very much born like at the same time they're you know they're you know siblings I mean you're a critic how do you tackle everything all at once like how does your brain work that's into your brain for a second well I think that for me the weird thing about Hamilton and and Josh can attest to this too is it requires all of your focus it's actually a yoga like it can't be anywhere but inside of Hamilton monster in Hamilton.

[25:11] Lin Manuel Miranda: If you space out for a second something in the head of the chair follow one or two turntables.

[25:18] Lin Manuel Miranda: So that was while the Hamilton mania was starting and it was getting harder to get in the building and like just because people wanted to be around it for the best of reasons like my refuge became writing Moana and doing the show and so you know I wasn't going to parties I wasn't going to like hang out with all the crazy famous people were coming to see the show I had songs due.

[25:44] Lin Manuel Miranda: So I I really I'm grateful it it came when it did because I it it kind of kept all the noise outside I was like alright great that that's happening out literally outside the building but I have to figure out what this crab sounds like so I'm really I was I was every time I'm I I get a show up I I mourn writing it like I'm like oh I'm done writing it I have a little kind of like post blues um I remember feeling that very acutely because I'd spent eight years writing heights, and then I suddenly wasn't writing in the heights anymore.

[26:19] Lin Manuel Miranda: And with Hamilton, there was no time for that.

[26:20] Lin Manuel Miranda: I had Moana songs, too.

[26:22] Lin Manuel Miranda: Well, speaking of Moana songs, that's a great saying waiting for an easy right?

[26:26] Lin Manuel Miranda: Yes, let's do it.

[26:30] Lin Manuel Miranda: I've been staring at the edge of the water long as I can remember, never really knowing why.

[26:47] Lin Manuel Miranda: But I come back to the water, no matter how hard I drive.

[26:54] Lin Manuel Miranda: Every turn I take, every trail I track, every path I make, every roll leads back to the place I know where I cannot go where I long to be.

[27:06] Lin Manuel Miranda: See the line where the sky needs to see, it calls me, and no one knows how far it goes.

[27:18] Lin Manuel Miranda: If the wind in my sail on the sea stays behind me, one day I'll know.

[27:28] Lin Manuel Miranda: There's just no telling how far I'll go.

[27:31] Lin Manuel Miranda: I know everybody on this island seems so happy on this island.

[27:37] Lin Manuel Miranda: Everything is my design.

[27:48] Lin Manuel Miranda: So maybe I can roll with mine.

[27:52] Lin Manuel Miranda: I can lead with pride, I can make a strong.

[27:55] Lin Manuel Miranda: I'm satisfied if I play along with the voice inside, sings a different song.

[28:00] Lin Manuel Miranda: What is wrong with me?

[29:11] Lin Manuel Miranda: And instead of going on a journey like the song is.

[29:31] Lin Manuel Miranda: At DreamWorks, um, and this is back right after fights. I asked my, I told them it's my dream to write an animated musical, and we went down the road with this story called Vivo that was written by a writer named Peter Barzchini. Um, and it had a totally different plot line, but I'd written a couple of songs, I'd written a bunch of songs for it, and it just never got me. Like, like many projects, like we wrote a bunch of songs, and we got it as far as it could go, and they said we're making it like okay. Um, so then once Hamilton happened, everyone was like, we love Hamilton. What else do you have? And I was like, I got a trunk full of songs about this Cuban musician that no one is doing anything with.

And um, and we got Chiara award, so I got to write with Chiara, um, and Kiara wrote the screenplay, and Alex Lackamore um did the music direction and wrote the score. Um, so it's a full-on um hype's reunion, and I'm really proud of it. And one of the things I love was that Chiara added this character that was not in the original version named Gabby, was based on her sister who was named Gabby. Um, and Gabby is just like, she's just the kid we all would be if no one ever told us we were putting Dr. Bye too hard. Just like unapologetically herself, and is proud of it, and um I love her so much, and it's so fun to write for her. Um, and so I wrote the song for her called My Own Drum, and then we could do it uh singing my own drum from Viva.

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[33:43] Lin Manuel Miranda: And we love So you recently worked in the film Ufasa, which is which is the prequel to The Lion King. And um you're with that property, you're picking up where Sir Elton John, Sir Tim Rice have uh have left their mark, and you're you're taking on these classic characters, and you're you're also taking on their voices. What was that experience like?

[34:10] Lin Manuel Miranda: It was incredible. I mean I said yes to the job because Barry Jenkins was directing, and I think he's one of the brilliant directors of our time. Um and I just wanted to be in that room, and I wanted to. He never worked on a musical before, and the script was so good. Um, and so I it's funny, like I didn't feel um like I didn't know those characters. I feel like we all know those characters so well. I'm the Lion King completist. I had seen the directed video sequels just as the life you wanted to have. How about the Lion Guard? You heard Chris, I heard Chris Jackson and the Lion Guard. So good. Um so those songs are great. So to me, the Lion King didn't feel like one movie that was intimidating to follow up.

It felt like this shared universe, especially you know, the Broadway musical on this block that is just so brilliant, um, and really expanded the language. So, you know, I did two things. I I said I need to work with Lebo because I knew that he, to me, he is the voice, the connected tissue of all of the different Lion King stories and the music and what he brings to the music is the only he can bring. Um, and and then the other thing was um getting the chance to write the kinds of Disney songs that the Disney movies I'd worked on just didn't have. So to get to write a really great villain song for Mad Nicholson. I mean, like if you ever pictured a client smoking a cigarette, that's what I pictured while I was writing this to a song.

Right, right. And that was uh delicious to write. And then the other thing I hadn't had a chance to write was like the old school early 90s like Disney ballad, like that people pricey shit, like that media release, a whole new world, kiss the girl, which I grew around a thousand times as a kid. Um, I really wanted to write one of those, and the script created an amazing opportunity for it because there was a line of dialogue where Sarabius cornering um awesome forcing him to confront his feelings. She says, I know it's you, and I was like, Thank you, that's the title, I'll take it from here. Um here to sing it is Josh Henry and he's the voice.

[36:52] ♪ Musical number: "Tell Me It's You" — performed by Josh Henry ♪

[39:46] Lin Manuel Miranda: This was an idea that popped up way back when you said, Oh, I'll never write that, correct? Yes, that's right. I uh I had just written In the Heights, and a college classmate of mine, Bill West Rand, um, was uh he was working as an assistant to uh producer Larry Gordon, and he said, I work for Larry Gordon, Warriors of the Musical just sent me a cold email. And I went, I've seen the Warriors more than any other movie, it'll never work. And I wrote his email why I thought it would work, but like just the fact that he suggested it kind of was like incentives me, and it just stayed in my brain, and something I would find when I wasn't working on anything, I would be thinking about well, maybe if we did this, well, maybe if we did that.

So the point where when I finally was not in Hamilton anymore and looked up and thought, what do I want to do next? You know how in Inside Out she's got like the different islands in her brain. There's like friendship island and family islands. I don't have a whole warrior's island that had been just kind of quietly percolating. Um, and I thought I knew I figured out how to do it. So it was a couple years getting the rights from Paramount, and then I said, I can't do this alone. I need someone much smarter and cooler than me. And so I called my old friend Isa Davis, who was in Yes! She wasn't casting Strange the same year, we were in In the Heights, and our casts were really close when we were kind of navigating the off-ball radio Broadway thing together.

So we've been friends uh since then, and she's really close friends with Chiara. Um, and she had never seen a movie. Um, and so that was great too, because she had a sort of a critical distance on the structure of it that I didn't have like imprinted on my brain when I was four years old, and you know, I just it was it was so amazing to have her working on it with me, and we've been writing it for the past three years, and um we came out with the album last uh October. Uh these guys are on the album. Uh Kurt was our vocal director for the entire album, and all of the calling Kurt and being like, Okay, you're gonna be in a room with Gen Cia tomorrow, okay. Like it was just increasingly ludicrous assignments. I mean, the artists on the album who talks about this.

[42:04] Lin Manuel Miranda: Unbelievable. Larn Hill, Billy Porter, the folks on this stage. I mean, how don't you get all these folks on your album then? How do you get them all several scenes? Yeah, he's Lynn, that's right. Yeah, I guess answering it. Also, there was love for the movie. Uh Nas, this is like Nas's favorite movie, and so when he came aboard as the executive producer, he really helped us out in terms of explaining what this was to artists who you know were used to making their own albums and writing their own lyrics. Like Lauren Hill, she doesn't record anyone else's stuff, right? That's like a couple of covers. I mean, she covered killing me softly, and it's the version we listen to now. Um so when she does it, it's really amazing.

Um, and we were so great. I managed to meet her manager, um, and um, you know, you sent her the demo. We sent her actually a demo with Anisa singing the song. Uh so Denise is singing uh if it counts, and that's the version uh Miss Hill heard, and then we just got a drop box one day, and it had all these vocals, and she brought in her own folks and brought in background vocalists and added to the harmonies of what was already there, and so what you hear is a mix of what we originally sent her and then of this incredible tapestry uh she sent us back. Yeah, it's very crazy. I think of a song from Warriors. So this is the first time a warrior song has ever been performed in public. Um you will hear the voice of the twice Oscar nominated Coleman Zamigo over the speakers, and he'll still bring it starring Miss Anisa Folt.

[43:49] ♪ Musical number ♪

[45:05] Lin Manuel Miranda: That's what the truth is. Tell me the truth, man. The truth is you have to confuse me, my accusers. I saw them shoot me. Cyrus supposed to follow the shooter and a banana break. I came here to be a boss. We came over.

[46:33] Adrienne Garzillo: Hey round tablers, welcome to day two of Broadway Con. I'm here with Mike. We're gonna have an awesome day. We have so much content to tell you about. It's amazing, and we might just might get to talk to Lynn Manuel Miranda. I don't know, but we'll see. Fingers crossed. Let's see. And look how exciting. Broadway podcast network. There we go. Have a great day, Round Tablers. Stay tuned. We'll see you later.

[46:58] Kayla Wilcoxon: Now I would like to welcome to the stage the indescribable Kayla Wilcoxon performing Little Red Way. Imagine the size of a tomato seed. The seed of red boys are the same size. Something this small has grown into something this big and this old. In the ancient past, do thou sleeves on war a little red who seed falls to the forest roll bombing of tribes flourish nearby and thousands of eagles who sky a clear passes by And that little sea now stands eighteen inches high and ears speed on past the little tree has grown as across the world decrees were made and carved in rolls at a stone while in the east on to lay by hand to build the great wall across the land, the little red stairs say her I want song is the incredible Tatiana Cordova should have told them then and there Now I've made myself a mess and really what the hell is wrong with me?

Why do I always second guess? They gave up so much so I could have more But if I don't go What was all of it for Flying away the window might sign taking a chance on me looking ahead for the first time? Or can I fly away without her on my side? Summer heat and summer sweat dragging me down. But what's the point of having wings at all? If I never leave the ground, won't settle for less. I'll impress them and show I belong skyward. If I can fool maybe my dreams wouldn't have to be small. I'll find a way to get them on my side. Show them I so much more than a face in the crowd. And the fact that I reach is the reason they are proud. Maybe then she would give me her blessing if I could be brave enough to show I can fly flying away.

I'll make her see that I'm gonna change the world and still be the daughter she wants me to be like on my side I hope that I'll fly for my dog wishing that I need to do this But I get to find time like Tatiana Come here Tuscana You better than the best I be just a linger You couldn't this out of my pillow That's right the other way nothing can bear you send me let's know that it's okay it's okay start fade You make me smile like a sun before I'm dead sing like a birthday spin on my crazy on some day She made me dance like a full forget how we shall like gold like a bee, just the thought of you make me smile and even though I come looking through the sun just like that make me smile like the sun like a bird dance in my head, scream like a record crazy on Sunday night You make me dance like a fool, forget I free, shall I go like a bee, just the thought of you, trust me all the way for me?

[53:39] ♪ Musical number: "When You're Smiling" — performed by the cast of A Wonderful World ♪

[56:03] ♪ Musical number ♪

[56:29] Please welcome the incredible queens of Six the Musical.

[56:29] ♪ Musical number: "Divorced" — performed by the cast of Six the Musical ♪

[1:00:24] Please welcome the cast of Saw the Musical.

[1:00:24] ♪ Musical number: "Another Bloody Mess" — performed by the cast of Saw the Musical ♪

[1:00:24] ♪ Musical number: "Heroin" — performed by the cast of Saw the Musical ♪

[1:04:59] ♪ Musical number: "The Sun Rises" — performed by the cast of Saw the Musical ♪

[1:07:00] Please welcome Liam Pierce.

[1:07:01] ♪ Musical number: "It's My Life" — performed by Liam Pierce ♪