Lin-Manuel Miranda on the Political Relevance of HAMILTON, President Obama's Reaction & More

In a new interview with Billboard, HAMILTON creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast album's executive producers, Questlove and Black Thought, opened up about the show's political relevance, President Obama's reaction to the piece and much, much more.

On the first public reaction to HAMILTON, Miranda says: "That first time, when I did it at the White House for the first few minutes, everyone was like, "What's happening?" But by the end they're kind of like, "Ohhhh, we kind of like this." That has been a microcosm of the Hamilton experience. You say "rapping Founding Fathers," everyone laughs, and then the first few numbers happen and they go, "Ohhhh, this makes sense.""

President Obama (and later Vice President Joe Biden) recently trekked to New York City to witness Miranda's political musical. During Obama's visit during a Saturday matinee, however, Miranda took a seat in the audience, as he does every Saturday afternoon, when his alternate, Javier Munoz, goes on.

"He was two rows behind me...," he said of Obama. "But my director Tommy Kail said he was super attentive and soaking it in. And then when King George came out to sing his number about how hard it is to be in charge, Obama started slapping his leg. Tommy's joke was like, "Yeah, this guy's right: Running a ­country's hard."..."I'll tell you the one moment where I kind of smiled to myself while he was here. There's a song in the show called "One Last Time." It's George Washington's farewell address, and we used the text of Washington's actual address. It starts spoken and then Washington begins singing -- it's a straight grab of the "Yes We Can" video where they sing the speech under it. That's where we learned the technique. And so in that particular song we owe a very specific debt -- and really, more to Will.i.am. [who wrote the song] than Obama -- but to Obama.

I remember being in the cast of In the Heights when Obama was running in 2008 and how amazing that felt, because my parents and my parents' generation were like, "He seems really great, but our country's just not ready." And Tommy always talks about the show like there's no way this show should exist -- except it does. That's kind of how we felt about Obama's presidency. There's no world in which that was going to happen -- except it happened. It seems crazy, but it's real."

And on how Hamilton would have survived in a digital world today, Miranda said: "If he was around today, he would have had his Twitter account deleted by a publicist because he would've responded to every troll."

Click here for the full interview.

HAMILTON has book, music and lyrics by Tony and Grammy Award-winning composer Lin Manuel Miranda, who also plays the title role. The musical is directed by Thomas Kail, with choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler and music direction and orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire. HAMILTON is inspired by Ron Chernow's biography "AlexanderHamilton."

HAMILTON which recently transferred to Broadway following a sold-out run at The Public Theater in NYC is the acclaimed new musical about the scrappy young immigrant Alexander Hamilton, the $10 Founding Father who forever changed America with his revolutionary ideas and actions. During his life cut too short, he served as George Washington's chief aide, was the first Treasury Secretary, a loving husband and father, despised by his fellowFounding Fathers and shot to death by Aaron Burr in their legendary duel.