I always had an eye toward the stage for the story of Hamilton's life, but I began with the idea of a concept album, the way Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Evita' and 'Jesus Christ Superstar' were albums before they were musicals.
You know what's a great way of tricking people into thinking you're a genius? Write a show about geniuses!
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote humorously suggests that one can appear intelligent simply by associating with or creating content about intelligent people.
Lin-Manuel Miranda's quote reflects a playful observation about perception and intellect. It implies that people can often create a facade of brilliance through the themes they choose to explore in their work, particularly in entertainment. By crafting narratives around genius, one may be perceived as knowledgeable or talented without necessarily possessing those qualities. This highlights the intricacies of creativity and the role of presentation in how we are perceived by others.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a speech about creativity and the arts to emphasize the role of storytelling.
More from Lin-Manuel Miranda
All quotes βI think I'm always subconsciously trying to write the ideal school play. Lots of parts for everybody, great parts for women - don't forget, more girls try out than boys in the school play; everyone gets to be in the school play.
Anytime you write something, you go through so many phases. You go through the 'I'm a Fraud' phase. You go through the 'I'll Never Finish' phase. And every once in a while you think, 'What if I actually have created what I set out to create, and it's received as such?'
Everything we know about Hamilton, we knew when he was alive, because he told us.
In the best works of fiction, there's no mustache-twirling villain. I try to write shows where even the bad guy's got his reasons.
Making words rhyme for a living is one of the great joys of my life... That's a superpower I've been very conscious of developing. I started at the same level as everybody else, and then I just listened to more music and talked to myself until it was an actual superpower I could pull out on special occasions.
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"Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head, "are a sure sign of a diseased mind."
It's one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work - the night watchman.
Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience - 4000 critics.