On October 8, 2025, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a journalist and Shakespeare scholar currently affiliated with Portland State University, treated UC Irvine students, staff, and local communities to an engaging discussion about his new book, Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist, the singer-songwriter and playwright most famous for the creation of Hamilton.
Pollack-Pelzner shared his four-year deep-dive into Miranda’s life. Highlighting Miranda's growth mindset and structured around Miranda’s teachers and mentors, the book presents what Pollack-Pelzner called a “magpie way of piecing together” the evolution of the artist.He described his writings on Miranda’s path as a “90s young adult coming of age novel.”
A noted Shakespeare scholar himself, Pollack-Pelzner sees the Hamilton creator as a Shakespeare for the twenty-first century. Both wrote history plays and composed their works in verse. By casting Miranda as a modern bard, the talk offered fresh ways to think about both Shakespeare and Hamilton.
-- English major Melissa Anne Telliano is an intern for the New Swan Shakespeare Center.