HAMILTON's Lin-Manuel Miranda Writes An Impassioned 'Plea For Relief For Puerto Rico'

As previously reported on BroadwayWorld, on March 15th, 2016, HAMILTON author/star Lin-Manuel Miranda delivered an impassioned speech at a Capitol Hill press conference, where he urged congress to pass legislation restructuring Puerto Rico's $72 billion debt.

Puerto Rico's economic fortunes were severely hampered in 1996 when congress ended tax laws that aided the U.S. territory's economic development, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs.

In today's New York Times, Miranda write an op-ed piece as "plea for relief for Puerto Rico."

"On August 31, 1772," he writes, "a hurricane devastated the island of St. Croix, the home of the teenage Alexander Hamilton. In a letter one week later, he described the force of the storm and the destruction it caused as 'sufficient to strike astonishment into angels.'"

He quotes Hamilton's please to his countrymen: "O ye, who revel in affluence, see the afflictions of humanity and bestow your superfluity to ease them. Say not, we have suffered also, and thence withhold your compassion. What are your sufferings compared to those? Ye have still more than enough left. Act wisely. Succour the miserable and lay up a treasure in Heaven."

So evocative were Hamilton's words that the letter was published by the press and helped gain relief for the island.

The composer/librettist is hoping that his words can help gain relief for the island where his parents were born.

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The cast of Hamilton is comprised of Lin-Manuel Miranda (Alexander Hamilton), Daveed Diggs(Marquis De Lafayette,Thomas Jefferson), Renée Elise Goldsberry (Angelica Schuyler),Christopher Jackson (George Washington),Jonathan Groff (King George), Jasmine Cephas Jones(Peggy Schuyler, Maria Reynolds), Javier Muñoz (Hamilton alternate), Okieriete Onaodowan(Hercules Mulligan, James Madison), Leslie Odom, Jr. (Aaron Burr), Anthony Ramos(John Laurens, PhilipHamilton) and Phillipa Soo (Eliza Hamilton).

From bastard orphan to Washington's right hand man, rebel to war hero, loving husband caught in the country's first sex scandal to Treasury head who made an untrusting world believe in the American economy, Hamilton is an exploration of a political mastermind. George Washington Thomas Jefferson, Eliza Hamilton, and lifelong Hamilton friend and foe, Aaron Burr, all attend this revolutionary tale of America's fiery past told through the sounds of the ever-changing nation we've become. Tony Award nominee Thomas Kail directs this new musical about taking your shot, speaking your mind, and turning the world upside down.