Lin-Manuel Miranda's new musical is based on a cult movie — and is for your ears only
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Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, and playwright Eisa Davis, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, have created a new Broadway musical — which is not actually on Broadway.
Instead, it’s a concept album, meant to be listened to in one sitting. That idea came about because Miranda wanted to write something about The Warriors, the 1979 cult-classic movie about members of a Coney Island street gang who are trying to get back home to Brooklyn after they're accused of assassinating a leader advocating for peace.
It’s one of his favorite movies. And he couldn’t stop thinking about how he could do his own love letter to it. Then he brought Davis on board — and they started thinking about the 1970s.
“We were inspired by the concept albums from the ‘70s that we love,” Miranda said, “where you would sit on your living room floor and read the liner notes to your vinyl. And we wanted to create that feeling.”
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The album tells the Warriors’ story by using music that crosses genres, including hip hop, rock, ska and salsa; it's sung by a cast that includes everyone from artists like Lauryn Hill, Nas, Ghostface Killah and Billy Porter to Broadway stars Phillipa Soo, Jasmine Cephas Jones and Amber Gray.
“We just got this dream team” of musical artists, Miranda said. “So it was very freeing, always full of joy.”
Mixing it up
Miranda and Davis flipped the gender of the Warriors so that, in their version, the gang is all women. This means a central romance is one between women as well.
“The gender flipping allowed us to angle in on the sexism and homophobia in the film and make sure that we left that in ‘79,” Davis said. “We’re in 2024 here.”
Miranda and Davis say they have no plans for Warriors to come to Broadway, but that “We’d love to see a stage adaptation of this down the road.”
There likely won't be a movie version, though, because, as Miranda says, “That already exists.”
Ciera Crawford edited the audio and digital versions of this story. Chloee Weiner mixed the audio.
Copyright 2024, NPR
