A reason to carry on living has arrived on the wings of a real-life angel, Lin-Manuel Miranda. On July 3, a day that is now circled 20 times in my calendar, Disney+ will air a filmed version of Miranda’s Tony Award-winning musical Hamilton. Miranda made the official announcement alongside Bob Iger on Good Morning America Tuesday morning: “I can’t think of another work of art in the last decade that’s had the cultural impact of Hamilton,” Iger noted.
The film will feature the original Broadway cast of the show, making all the time I’ve spent learning to rap, sing, and harmonize with the entire soundtrack and subsequent spin-off album completely worth it. Having never seen Hamilton, I can only imagine that July 3 will become the greatest day of my life.
But there is still a musical elephant in the piano room. Where is the In the Heights movie? The film adaptation of Miranda’s first Broadway hit, the one that launched him to theater nerd stardom, was set to be released in June of this year before the pandemic pushed it back to June 2021. The people need the fully produced glory of Anthony Ramos and In the Heights now! As a matter of saving the public from boredom and isolation, it behooves Lin-Manuel Miranda to be the hero we need and release this as soon as possible.