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]