Learn English Lin Manuel Miranda This is why your stories are essential with BIG subtitles

Thank You president Gutmann MC Provost

the Board of Trustees faculty family mr.

vice president

undergrads of the four Penn schools of

Hufflepuff Slytherin Ravenclaw and

Gryffindor and dear exhausted

exhilarated

terrified graduates of the class of 2006

chamber I begin with an apology I’m the

writer of Hamilton and American Musical

every word in the show and there are

over 22 thousand words in the show were

chosen and put in a really specific

order by me so I am painfully aware that

neither Philly nor the great state of

Pennsylvania is mentioned in Hamilton

with the exception of one couplet in the

song hurricane where Hamilton sings I

wrote my way outta hell I wrote my way

to revolution I was louder than the

crack in the Bell that’s it

one blink and you miss it Liberty Bell

reference I’m also painfully aware that

this commencement address is being

live-streamed

and disseminated all over the world

instantly in fact painfully aware is

pretty much my default State oh yeah

that’s Lynn he’s painfully aware so with

the eyes of the world and history on us

all I’d like to correct the record and

point out that a few parts and Hamilton

American and musical actually took place

in Pennsylvania the Battle of Monmouth

where in general Charles Lee in our show

asked the bed and retreated against

Washington’s orders according to

Lafayette this was the only time he ever

heard George Washington curse out loud

that’s right the father of our country

dropped his choices to profanity and

f-bombs in Pennsylvania

the Constitutional Convention where an

Alexander Hamilton spoke

extemporaneously for six hours in Houma

what is surely the most untreatable

freestyle of all time happened right

here in Philly in fact Alexander

Hamilton lived at 79 at South third

Street when he began his extramarital

affair with Mariah Reynolds creating the

time-honored precedent of political sex

scandals and Mia culpas you guys The

Good Wife wouldn’t even exist if

Hamilton hadn’t gotten the ball rolling

on this dubious American tradition right

on South third Street right near the

coast finally I need to apologize on

behalf of the Alexander the historical

Alexander Hamilton because if he hadn’t

sat down to dinner with James Madison

and Thomas Jefferson desperate for

support of his financial plan

Philadelphia might well still be the US

Capitol

Hamilton traded Philly away as the most

significant the most significant

backroom deal in American history as the

guy who plays Hamilton every night let

me get into character for a moment and

say my bad Philadelphia thank you

but take the long view Motown Philly who

really won that deal in the end look at

DC it’s synonymous with institutional

dysfunction partisan infighting and

political gridlock you are known as the

birthplace of Louisa May Alcott Rocky

Balboa boys to men Betsy Ross Will Smith

Isaac Asimov

Tina Fey cheesesteaks and you can have

scrapple soft pretzels and Wawa hoagies

whenever you want you in Philly you win

every time

water-ice the simple truth is this every

story you choose to tell by necessity

omits others from the larger narrative

one could write five totally different

musicals from Hamilton’s eventful

singular American life without ever

overlapping incidents for every detail I

chose to dramatize there are ten I left

out I dramatize I include King George at

the expense of Ben Franklin I dramatize

Angelica’s Skylar’s intelligence and

heart at the expense of Benedict

Arnold’s betrayal James Madison and

Hamilton were friends and political

allies but their personal and political

fallout occurs right on our act break

during intermission my goal is to give

you as much of an evening as musical

entertainment can provide and have you

on your way at home slightly before

lamia’s lets out next door this act of

choosing the stories we tell versus the

stories we leave out will reverberate

across the rest of your life don’t

believe me think about how you

celebrated this senior week and contrast

that with the version you shared with

the parents and grandparents sitting

behind their pen don’t front you’re a

Playboy magazine ranked party school you

know you did things this week that

you’re never mentioning again I know

what you did this summer I’m going to

tell you a story from my 20s today a

story I’ve never told in public before

I’ll tell you two stories actually it’s

my hope that it’ll be of use to you as

you stare down the quarter life marker

I’m 20 years old

finishing my sophomore year at Wesleyan

and my girlfriend of four and a half

years is home from her semester abroad I

cannot wait to see her again she is my

first love I dread seeing her again I’ve

grown into my life without her in her

absence with time and angst to spare I

have developed the first draft of my

first full-length musical an 80 minute

one-act called in the heights I’ve also

developed a blinding pain in my right

shoulder

which I can’t seem to stop cracking my

girlfriend comes home I am so happy to

see her even as my shoulder worsens my

mother takes me to a back specialist

ranked in New York Magazine so you know

she’s good he examines me looks me dead

in the eyes and says there’s nothing

wrong with your back there will be if

you keep cracking it but what you have

is a nervous tic is there anything in

your life that’s causing you stress I

burst into tears in his office he looks

at me for a long time as I’m crying and

get this you’ll appreciate this Renee he

tells me the story of giuseppe verdi a

19th century Italian composer of some

note who in the space of a few short

years lost his wife and two young

children to disease he tells me that

Verdi’s greatest works Rigoletto La

Traviata came not before but after this

season of job the darkest moments of his

life he looks me in the eyes and tells

me you’re trying to avoid going through

pain or causing pain I’m here to tell

you that you’ll have to survive it if

you want to be any kind of artist I

break up with my girlfriend that night I

spend the summer in therapy I tell a lot

of stories I’ve never told before my

father asks my mother what the hell kind

of back dr. Verdi

really

I stopped cracking my shoulder the story

I had been telling myself happy guy in a

long-distance relationship with his high

school sweetheart was being physically

rejected by my body via my shoulder I’d

never broken up with anyone before in my

head I was a good guy and good guys

don’t break up with their significant

others when one of them goes off to

study abroad I was trying to fit my life

into a romantic narrative that was

increasingly at odds with how I really

felt in retrospect we both were what

about her story well it’s not mine to

tell but I can share this much she began

dating one of her good friends the

following year college fast forward to

present day she is happily married to

that same good friend with two beautiful

kids in her story I am NOT the angsty

shoulder cracking tortured artist

I’m the obstacle in the way of the real

love story for you office fans there Jim

and Pam and I’m Roy story number two I’m

out of college I’m 23 years old

and Tommy Cal and I are meeting with a

veteran theatre producer to pay rent I

am a professional substitute teacher at

my old high school

Tommy is Audra McDonald’s assistant

Tommy is directing in the heights and

with his genius brain in my corner my 80

minute one-act is now to act this big

deal theater producer has seen a reading

we put on in the basement of the drama

book shop in midtown Manhattan and he is

giving us his thoughts we hang on his

every word this is a big deal theater

producer and we are kids desperate to

get our show on we were discussing the

character of Nina Rosario home from her

first year at Stanford the first in her

family to go to college the big deal

theater producer says now I know in your

version Nina’s coming home with a secret

from her parents she’s lost her

scholarship the song is great the

actress is great what I’m bumping up

against fellas is that this doesn’t feel

high-stakes enough scholarship big deal

what if she’s pregnant what if her

boyfriend at school hit her

what if she got caught with drugs it

doesn’t have to be any of those things

you’re the

but you see what I’m getting at guys a

way to ramp up the stakes of your story

I resist the urge to crack my shoulder

we get through the meeting and Tommy and

I again alone look at each other he

knows what I’m gonna say before I say it

pregnant

I know Nina on drugs I was there but he

wants to put our show up Tommy looks at

me that’s not the story you want to tell

and it’s not the show I want to direct

there are ways to raise the stakes that

are not that will just keep working if I

could get in a time machine and watch

any point in my life it would be this

moment the moment where Tommy Cal looked

at uncertain frazzled me desperate for a

production and a life in this business

tempted and said no for us I keep

subbing he continues working for Audra

we keep working on in the heights for

five years until we find the right

producers in Jill Fuhrman and Kevin

McCollum and Jeffrey seller until Philly

native Kiara who this becomes my

co-writer and reframes our show around a

community instead of a love triangle

until Alex lack of are in bill strim and

take my songs and make them come to life

through their orchestrations it will be

another five years before Heights

reaches Broadway exactly as we intended

it and then the good part Nina’s story

that we fought to tell keeps coming back

around in my life it comes around in

letters or in the countless young men

and women who find me on the subway or

on college campuses and take my hand and

say you don’t understand height was the

first in my family to go to college when

I felt out of place like I was drowning

I listened to breathe Nina song and it

got me through and I think to myself as

these strangers tell me their Nina

stories I do understand

that sounds pretty high stakes to me

I know that many of you made miracles

happen to get to this day I know the

parents and grandparents and aunts and

uncles and family behind you made

miracles happen to be here I know

because my family made miracles happen

to me for me to be standing here talking

to you telling stories your stories are

essential don’t believe me in a year

when politicians traffic it in

anti-immigrant rhetoric there is also a

Broadway musical reminding us that a

broke orphan immigrant from the West

Indies built our financial system a

story that reminds us that since the

beginning of the great unfinished

Symphony that is our American experiment

time and time again immigrants get the

job done

My dear terrified graduates you are

about to enter the most uncertain and

thrilling period of your lives the

stories you are about to live are the

ones you will be telling your children

and grandchildren and therapists they

are the temp gigs and internships before

you find your passion

they are the cities you live in before

the opportunity of a lifetime pops up

halfway across the world they are the

relationships in which you hang on for

dear life even as your shoulder cracks

in protest they are the times you say no

to the good opportunities so you can say

yes to the best opportunities they are

what Verdi survived to bring us luck

Traviata

they are the stories in which you figure

out who you are there will be moments

you remember and whole years you forget

there will be times when you are Roy and

there will be times when you are Jim and

Pam there will be blind alleys and

one-night wonders and soul-crushing jobs

and wake-up calls and crises of

confidence and moments of transcendence

when you are walking down the street and

someone will thank you for telling their

story because it resonated with their

own I feel so honored to be a detail a

minor character in the story of your

graduation day I feel so honored to bear

witness to the beginning of your next

chapter I’m painfully aware of what’s at

stake I can’t wait to see how it turns

out thank you and congratulations to the

class of 2016

you

[Applause]