#485: Daniel Pollack-Pelzner // Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist // Part One
The Hamilcast: A Hamilton Podcast
Gillian Pensavalle
4.3 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2025
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Daniel Pollack-Pelzner is an award winning author, educator, and bonafide fan of culture, Shakespeare, musicals, and artists. His new book, Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist, is part biography, part deep dive, and part oral history. It's also a very beautiful (and honest!) tribute to Lin-Manuel and all the people and steps involved in the journey to who he is today.
But if you think this is a boring stop on a press tour, think again! Daniel has been a Patreon Peep of The Hamilcast since 2018 and after years of writing about Hamilton's cultural impact and then talking to over 150 people about Lin-Manuel Miranda for this book, he has three amazing episodes packed with story after story after story.
This week, Daniel talks about the origin story of the book, pitching the idea to Lin-Manuel, Lin's high school screenplay about the Hamilton-Burr duel, and why LMM's one request was that the first person to be interviewed be his mother, Luz Towns-Miranda. She is a renowned psychologist (with a focus on children and family), and her acceptance of young Lin's empathy and sensitivity became an undeniable cornerstone of his creative expression. On behalf of all of us, I say: thank you, Luz!
Over the years, Daniel has had a lot of connections to Hamilton the show, Hamilton the person, and Lin-Manuel Miranda himself. From Joanne Freeman: Badass Historian™ to knowing old high school girlfriends, it's clear this whole thing is enthusiastically approved by The Universe.
Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist
///
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Stage in Stages, Lynn Manuel Miranda, and you're listening to The Hamelcast. |
| 0:06.0 | Boots and cuts. |
| 0:07.0 | Boots and cuts. |
| 0:08.0 | Pooze and cuts. |
| 0:09.0 | Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Hamelcast. I'm Jillian, and today I am here with Daniel Pollack Pelsner. Hi, Daniel. |
| 0:26.9 | Hello, Jillian. What a treat to be here. Thanks for being here. It's wonderful to see you again. We'll let the listeners know how we know each other in two seconds. But before we do anything else, can you please tell the listeners your pronouns? Yeah, he him, his. Thanks. Daniel, you are an award-winning writer, author, educator. You write |
| 0:43.2 | primarily about like culture, Shakespeare, musicals, artists, usually all of those things at once. |
| 0:48.6 | Your pieces have appeared in The New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New York Times, among others. |
| 0:52.7 | You're a scholar and you're a scholar in residence. Most recently, though, like as of days ago, because this is coming out September 15th, your most recent book, Lynn Mademannam and Miranda, the education of an artist, came out on September 9th. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Oh my God, this is like a time machine from when we're recording in July to a future in which this book |
| 1:11.5 | has actually emerged in the world. I know we're doing that thing where we record the past, |
| 1:15.0 | present, and the future all at once. We are telling the story of this morning. Yes, it's true. |
| 1:20.9 | Congratulations. I was lucky enough to receive an early copy. It's like part biography, part oral history, part deep dive. It's a beautiful |
| 1:29.3 | tribute to Lynn and all the people involved in his life and all of like the steps along the way |
| 1:35.1 | to the journey to who he is at this moment. That is a beautiful way to describe it. And that's exactly |
| 1:40.3 | what I hoped readers like you would take away from it. Oh, it's true. And it's like you spoke to |
| 1:44.6 | over 150 people, so including Lynn Mademannibal Miranda, multiple times. So this is totally Lynn approved. |
| 1:49.9 | This was like my attempt to do a off-brand Hamelcast of my own to get to talk to all the people |
| 1:55.9 | I've worshipped for the last decade. I mean, so, but full disclosure, you and I zoomed in like 2022. |
| 2:03.2 | Yes. Spring 2020. You were so kind to hop on the Zoom with me. Oh, God. Please. It was like, |
| 2:08.8 | it was a really great conversation. I'm honored to say that there's like a very brief mention of me |
| 2:12.9 | and this little podcast in the book. So thank you so much. You're also a Patreon peep and have been for years, |
| 2:35.7 | which is mind-blowing. I love the Patreon peeps. What, like, what a lovely corner of the internet. I'm the best. I want a place where people are joyful and supportive in totally the spirit of the way that Lin-Manuel Miranda makes art in the world. I go to the Hamilcast Patreon. It's true. Like, in it, so many of you, dear Patreon Peeps have been here since the beginning, but also so welcoming to people who come, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Gillian Pensavalle, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Gillian Pensavalle and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.