tonys 2016

Why Lin-Manuel Miranda Wrote That Touching Tonys Poem About Love and Tragedy

2016 Tony Awards - Show
Lin-Manuel Miranda. Photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images

After delivering his moving “love is love is love is love is love” sonnet while accepting the Tony Award for Best Original Score, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda told Vulture how he came to write the piece earlier that day. “I hadn’t written anything going into today, and I only heard about today’s events after our Tony rehearsal,” he said, referring to the horrific attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday morning, in which a gunman killed 49 people. “I’d always kind of had this time between rehearsal and tonight to sit and think about what I would say if I was lucky enough to be called up, and it sort of informed all of it, obviously. You know, we live in this world where beautiful and horrible things exist at the same time, and sometimes on the same day, so you can’t let that go by; you can’t let that moment go by, particularly when theater is the cornerstone of, you know … theater doesn’t exist without the LGBTQ community. It’s the cornerstone of our industry, and so, you know, it’s heavy in my heart today.”

Why Lin-Manuel Miranda Wrote That Tonys Poem