<P> As a child, Miranda wrote jingles, including one later used for Eliot Spitzer's 2006 gubernatorial campaign . He attended Hunter College Elementary School and Hunter College High School . </P> <P> As a student at Wesleyan University, Miranda co-founded a hip hop comedy troupe called Freestyle Love Supreme . He wrote the earliest draft of In the Heights in 1999, his sophomore year of college . After the show was accepted by Wesleyan's student theater company, Second Stage, Miranda added freestyle rap and salsa numbers, and the show was premiered there in 1999 . Miranda wrote and directed several other musicals at Wesleyan, and acted in many other productions, ranging from musicals to Shakespeare . He graduated from Wesleyan in 2002 . </P> <P> In 2002, Miranda and John Buffalo Mailer worked with director Thomas Kail to revise In the Heights . Book writer Quiara Alegría Hudes joined the team in 2004 . After success off - Broadway, the musical went to Broadway, opening in March 2008 . It was nominated for 13 Tony Awards, winning four, including Best Musical and Best Original Score . It also won the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album . Miranda's performance in the leading role of Usnavi earned him a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical . Miranda left the cast of the Broadway production on February 15, 2009 . </P> <P> Miranda reprised the role when the national tour of In the Heights played in Los Angeles from June 23 to July 25, 2010 . He again joined the tour in San Juan, Puerto Rico . Miranda rejoined the Broadway cast as Usnavi from December 25, 2010 until the production closed on January 9, 2011, after 29 previews and 1,185 regular performances . </P>

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