Lin-Manuel Miranda Chats HAMILTON & Modern Politics Before Musical Lands in Chicago

In an interview ahead of Hamilton's Chicago debut on September 27, its creator Lin-Manuel Miranda spoke with Time Out Chicago about how in this high-stakes election season, the show's 200-year-old themes about the birth of a nation feel improbably resonant.

He told Time Out, "The thing that is so funny about the show is that it is about the themes and the contradictions inherent in the founding of our country, and those don't ever go away."

The full interview with Miranda appears online at timeout.com/chicago today, August 30, and in the Time Out Chicago free magazine, out September 7, with an exclusive 'Making American History Great Again' cover (pictured).

Scroll down for some highlights from the interview!

Lin-Manuel Miranda on why the themes of the show are just as relevant now as they were during America's founding: "The things we fight about as a country, they're just our things. It's like when you fight with members of your family; you're not having a new fight with your brother or sister. You're having variations on the same fight you've been having since you were 8 and 10 years old."

Lin-Manuel Miranda on the Chicago cast: "It's a really thrilling mix of people you know and people you don't who we think are stars. Which was kind of how we felt about our Broadway cast-there were names you'd recognize and names you'd never heard of that you know now because of the success of the show. I'm confident that's going to happen again in Chicago."

Miranda on deeply invested Hamilton fans who've yet to set foot in the theater: "What's wonderful about most Hamilton fans is they fall in love with the show the same way I used to fall in love with the shows; it's the cast album. I can't tell you how many hilarious Tumblr posts I've seen of, like, 'Hamilton as I picture it in my head since I haven't seen the show'. People imagine the show, and I love that because I think Hamilton is gonna be around hopefully long enough for most people to get a chance to see it. But also, I've never seen a production of Camelot, but I can tell you the version in my head, and it's incredible."

Miranda on his Twitter addiction: "I kind of got addicted to Twitter while I was working on Hamilton. And that has provided a weird way in for a lot of people. I find that's an interesting substitute for coffee when my stomach hurts, to have the dopamine of interacting with people in real time while I was working to unlock the thing that was very hard to unlock."

With book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, direction by Thomas Kail, choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler and musical direction and orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire, Hamilton is based on Ron Chernow's biography of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. The musical recently celebrated its 1st anniversary on Broadway on August 6.

HAMILTON won eleven 2016 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Score, Book of a Musical, Direction of a Musical, Choreography and Orchestrations. Mr. Miranda received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Hamilton.

HAMILTON is the story of America's Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant from the West Indies who became George Washington's right-hand man during the Revolutionary War and was the new nation's first Treasury Secretary. Featuring a score that blends hip-hop, jazz, blues, rap, R&B, and Broadway, Hamilton is the story of America then, as told by America now.

A Chicago production of Hamilton will open in October 2016. A touring production begins a 21-week run in San Francisco in March 2017 followed by a 21-week engagement in Los Angeles. A London production will be mounted, also in 2017.

The musical is produced by Jeffrey Seller, Sander Jacobs, Jill Furman and The Public Theater.