VIDEO: Lin-Manuel Miranda Reveals HAMILTON Secret To Bronx Theatre HS Students

"There's no rap battle like a rap battle for 1,300 11th-graders," Lin-Manuel Miranda tells the Wall Street Journal.

On April 13th, the forty students from Bronx Theatre High School the author/star of the Broadway smash HAMILTON visited yesterday will be among the first of 20,000 New York City public school students given access to $10 tickets for his revolutionary new musical through a nearly $1.5 million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. The tickets are made available to high schools with concentrations of poor students.

In the video clip below, Miranda reveals to his enraptured audience a secret ritual he partakes in during every performance, but one of the more important messages of his visit was to remind the young artists of the sacrifices that must be made in order to succeed.

He tells the story of how the inspiration for the song "Wait For It" occurred as he was on his way from his upper Manhattan apartment to a friend's birthday party in Brooklyn. He began writing the song on the subway train, arrived and wished his friend a happy birthday, and immediately left to finish the song.

"You have to say no to your friends to say yes to your work. What are you going to do, lose that idea because you decide to have a drink with your friends?"

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The new musical 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 "Alexander Hamilton."

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).

HAMILTON 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 fellow Founding Fathers and shot to death by Aaron Burrin their legendary duel.