(loud applause)
- Yeah!
(applause)
Someone call for the extra po-pos,
I'm running down for your Provost.
(audience laughs and cheers)
Bars, bars on bars on bars.
(laughter)
Thank you, President Guttmann, MC Provost.
(laughter)
Ha!
Board of Trustees, faculty,
family, Mr. Vice-President,
undergrads of the four penned schools of Hufflepuff,
Slytherin, Ravenwood, and Gryffindor
(laughter)
and dear, exhausted, exhillerated, terrified graduates
of the class of the 2016.
(applause)
I begin with an apology.
I am the writer of "Hamilton: An American Musical".
Every word in the show,
and there are over 22,000 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-
(rapping)
♪ I wrote my way out of hell,
♪ I wrote my way to revolution,
♪ I was louder than the crackin' the bell. ♪
That's it.
(laughter)
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 Lin, he's painfully aware.
(laughter)
So, with the eyes of the world on the history of us all,
I'd like to correct the record
and point out that a few parts in
"Hamilton", the musical,
actually took place in Pennsylvania.
(cheers)
The Battle of Monmouth, herein General Charles Lee,
in our show effed 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 choicest profanity and f-bombs in Pennsylvania.
(cheers)
The Constitutional Convention, wherein Alexander Hamilton
spoke extemporaneously for six hours in what is surely
the most untweetable freestyle of all time,
happened right here in Philly.
(cheers)
That's right.
In fact, Alexander Hamilton lived at 79 South 3rd Street
when he began his extramarital affair with Mariah Reynolds
(laughter)
creating the time honored precedent
of political sex scandals and mea 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 Cosi.
(laughter)
Finally, I need to apologize on behalf
of 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,
Philedelphia might well still be the US capital.
Hamilton traded Philly away
in 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.
(laughter)
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 grid lock.
You are known as the birthplace of
Louisa May Alcott, Rocky Balboa,
Boys II Men, Betsy Ross, Will Smith,
Isaac Asimov, Tina Fay, cheese steaks,
and you can have Scrabble,
soft pretzels, and Wawa hoagies whenever you want.
You win, Philly.
You win every time.
(audience cheering)
What a race.
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 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 "Les Mis" lets out next door.
(audience laughing)
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 you.
Penn, 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.
(laughter)
I'm going to tell you a story from my twenties today,
a story I've never told in public before.
I'll tell you two stories, actually.
It's my hope that it will be of use to you
as you stare down the quarter-life marker.
I am twenty years old,
finishing my Sophomore year at Wesleyan,
and my girlfriend of four and a half years
is home from her semester abroad.
I can not 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 have 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 magazines,
so you know he'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" and "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
"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 doctor-
"Verdi? Really?"
(laughter)
I stop cracking my shoulder.
The story I had been telling myself,
happy guy in a long-distance relationship
with his highschool 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 of 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, they're Jim and Pam,
and I'm Roy.
(laughter)
Story number two-
I am out of college.
I'm 23 years old,
and Tommy Kail and I are meeting
with a veteran theater 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 two acts.
This big deal theater producer has seen a reading
we put on in the basement
of the drama bookshop 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 are 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 writer, but do 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,
and he knows what I'm going to 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.
That's not the show I want to direct.
There are ways to raise the stakes that are not that.
We'll 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 Cale 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 Ferman
and Kevin McCullin and Jeffery Seller,
until Philly native Quiara Alegría Hudes
becomes by co-writer and reframes our show
around a community instead of a love triangle.
Until Alex Lacamoire and Bill Sherman 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.
"I 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's 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.
(applause)
I know that many of you made miracles happen
to get to this day.
I know that parents and grandparents
and aunts and and uncles and family behind you
made miracles happen to be here.
I know, because my family made miracles happen 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.
(applause)
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 "La 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 allies one one-night wonders
and soul-crushing jobs and wake-up calls
and crisis of confidence and moments of transcendence
when you are walking down the street,
and someone will thank you for telling your 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 hear 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.
(cheering)
(applause)