“What’s up, Lafayette?” Lin-Manuel Miranda said. “Happy birthday!”

It was a greeting that could’ve easily fit in his “Hamilton” musical, but that he actually gave to a roaring crowd during his appearance Thursday at Lafayette College in Easton.

The visit, coinciding with the school’s bicentennial and the United States’ 250th birthday, was inevitable, as Miranda said. His revolutionary-era musical gave generous spotlight to the school’s namesake, the Marquis de Lafayette, who Miranda said also received the last lyrics added to “Hamilton.”

“‘You gotta put some thought into the letter but the sooner the better to get your right-hand man back!’” Miranda recited. “That’s the last lyric that went into the show.”

Discussion of “Hamilton” was as inevitable as Miranda’s visit, when he had a discussion with President Nicole Hurd for the Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Visiting Lecture at the school’s Kirby Sports Center.

Miranda talked about his work in arts like theater and film, the artists who inspired him and even Bad Bunny’s performance at the Super Bowl. But the liberal arts school also invited students for the discussion, and Miranda’s point for them was clear — they can hear his experiences to become better students and creators in their own journeys.

“It would not have been [a] bicentennial without having you here,” Hurd said.

Manuel studied at a liberal arts school himself, Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he once visited as a prospective student and snuck into a senior-level film class. Film historian Jeanine Basinger seemed to recognize he wasn’t supposed to be in the class, but let the class continue as normal, even as it lasted for more than four hours, and discussion continued well after it was scheduled to end.

Miranda was passionate for film, and said he decided to go to Wesleyan when he saw those other students’ passion.

One of Miranda’s most famous works dates back to his college years, when he wrote the first draft of “In the Heights” as a sophomore. Two students who were in Miranda’s freshman production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” later became vice presidents in his company.

“I think that you find your people in college,” he said. “You find the people who are swimming in the same direction as you, who want to make their mark on the world in the same way you do.”

Miranda said that writing “In the Heights” in college marked a turning point for how authentic he could make his work, especially with his suspicion that “‘West Side Story’ would be the only time you saw Puerto Ricans in a musical” unless he wrote something.

“I started writing musicals in high school because I loved Jonathan Larson, but it just felt like I was just writing knockoffs [of] Jonathan Larson,” he said. ” ‘In the Heights’ was my first time trying to bring all of my Latinidad, my family and my culture to the things I was making. It was, in a very profound way, permission to bring all of myself into the room and into my work, and it’s really when I started sounding like myself and not just an imitation of my heroes.”

He continued, “That’s an important phase. When you start writing, you should be chasing your heroes. You should be saying, ‘I want to write something that sounds like this,’ or, ‘I want to write something that sounds like that,’ and you will fall short of all of your heroes. And eventually, if you bring enough of yourself and your experiences in the room, you will just start to sound like yourself.”

Miranda also credited Spanish-speaking artists like Ricky Martin for helping Miranda feel he had “permission” to write “In the Heights,” and feels that the show inspires people in a similar way.

“I’m another link in the chain that leads to [Bad Bunny] being able to sing in unapologetic f— Spanish on a global stage,” he said.

Just before saying goodbye to Miranda, Hurd made one bucket-list request: to reenact the famous exchange between Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton in the musical, where they agree that immigrants “get the job done.”

“We are a country of immigrants,” she said to applause from the audience. “We’re a country of immigrants. We are a country of love, and we are a country that produces people as amazing as Lin-Manuel Miranda.”

https://www.mcall.com/2026/02/12/lin-manuel-miranda-lafayette-college-visit/