Lin-Manuel Miranda

As we here at WAMC celebrate the 25th Anniversary of The Roundtable, a little American musical is celebrating 10 years since it premiered in New York City – and quickly became a once-in-a-generation success in terms of reviews, ticket sales, fan enthusiasm, and awards recognition.“Hamilton” opened off-Broadway at The Public Theatre on January 20, 2015 and played there through May 3. It opened on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in early August of 2015, where it is still running. “Hamilton” won 11 Tony Awards, a 2016 Grammy Award for its cast recording, and the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It has played – and is playing – all over the world. A pro-tape of the production’s original cast streams on Disney+ and was a pandemic sensation.But before all of that - “The Hamilton Mixtape” was a work-in-progress, put up in a black-box staged-reading, presented by New York Stage and Film and Vassar College in the summer of 2013. And I did get to be there - in the room where it was starting to happen.

Rita Moreno says it was the hip-hop musical "Hamilton" that inspired her to bust a rhyme while delivering the commencement address at the Berklee College…