<P> Lin - Manuel Miranda (/ lɪn mænˈwɛl məˈrændə /; born January 16, 1980) is an American composer, lyricist, playwright, and actor best known for creating and starring in the Broadway musicals Hamilton and In the Heights . He co-wrote the songs for Disney's Moana soundtrack (2016) and is set to star in their upcoming film Mary Poppins Returns . Miranda's awards include a Pulitzer Prize, two Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and three Tony Awards . </P> <P> Miranda wrote the music and lyrics for the musical In the Heights, which premiered on Broadway in 2008 . For this work, he won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Original Score, the show's cast album won the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and the show won the Tony Award for Best Musical . Miranda was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance in the show's lead role . Miranda prepared Spanish translations used in the 2009 Broadway production of West Side Story and was co-composer and lyricist for Bring It On the Musical, which played on Broadway in 2012 . His television work includes recurring roles on The Electric Company (2009--2010) and Do No Harm (2013). He hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time in 2016 and earned his first Emmy award nomination for acting . Among other film work, Miranda contributed music and vocals for a scene in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). </P> <P> Miranda also wrote the book, music and lyrics for another Broadway musical, Hamilton . The show earned the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, and was nominated for a record - setting 16 Tony Awards, of which it won 11, including Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Book . For his performance in the lead role of Alexander Hamilton, Miranda was nominated for another Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical . The Hamilton cast recording spent ten weeks atop Billboard's Top Rap Albums chart in 2015, while The Hamilton Mixtape, an album of covers of songs from the musical, developed by and featuring Miranda, reached number one on the Billboard 200 upon release in December 2016 . </P> <P> Miranda was born in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, the son of Luz Towns, a clinical psychologist, and Luis A. Miranda, Jr., a Democratic Party consultant who advised New York City mayor Ed Koch . Miranda has one older sister, Luz, who is the Chief Financial Officer of the MirRam Group . He grew up in the Latino neighborhood of Inwood, but he spent a month every year in his grandparents' home town, Vega Alta, in Puerto Rico . He is of mostly Puerto Rican descent . His mother's ancestors include an interracial couple, Sophie, who was black, and David Towns, who was white; from the early 1800s, this couple spent their married life trying to outrun slavery as laws and governments changed around them . Ensuing branches of the Towns family primarily married Mexican spouses in Texas and Mexico, and Miranda, for his part, has described his ancestry as a quarter Mexican . The name "Lin - Manuel" was inspired by a poem about the Vietnam War, Nana Roja Para Mi Hijo Lin Manuel, by the Puerto Rican writer José Manuel Torres Santiago . </P>

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