Mandy Gonzalez has spent nearly two decades at the heart of GRAMMY®, Emmy®, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award® winner Lin-Manuel Miranda’s world. She originated Nina Rosario in In the Heights, spent six years as Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton, played Elphaba in Wicked and, more recently, took her final Broadway bow as Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd.
Now, she’s bringing her career-spanning tribute to her friend and longtime collaborator Miranda to The Lincoln Center on September 26, accompanied by the Fort Collins Symphony. Her extraordinary concert, Everything I Know, traces nearly three decades of Miranda’s songwriting, from a scrappy ninth-grade music class project all the way through Hamilton, Moana and Encanto, woven together with Gonzalez’s own story as a Broadway leading lady, breast cancer survivor and daughter of parents whose real-life love story inspired one of the evening’s most personal songs.
Ahead of the show’s New York premiere at Carnegie Hall, Gonzalez sat down with Playbill to talk about the concert, her friendship with Miranda and what audiences can expect. Here’s an excerpt from that conversation:
“Coming Full Circle” by Raven Snook, Playbill
You and Lin-Manuel Miranda have been working together for almost two decades. Can you share how this evening came about?
I thought of the idea two years ago while doing a concert with the Boston Pops. That was the first time I sang any of Lin-Manuel’s songs with a symphony. I think he is one of the most transformative voices of our generation, and he is like family to me. I realized his music needed to be heard with an orchestra, and I wanted to be the one to do it. A lot of times when I perform with symphonies, I’m the only one from the Latino community. My being there brings in a new audience, so that was also a big part of why I wanted to do this. I called and talked to Lin-Manuel about it, and he gave me permission to use his entire songbook. Then my director Dick Scanlan, my arranger Dan Lipton, and I began building the show. I sent Dick a playlist of songs I love and that’s how the story started to weave within the music.
Since you starred in two Broadway musicals written by Miranda, In the Heights and Hamilton, fans expect to hear that material. But will there also be surprises?
Definitely! There are going to be songs that everybody knows and loves from Hamilton and In the Heights, and the movies Moana and Encanto. But there are so many Easter eggs, like a short musical he wrote for This American Life called 21 Chump Street and songs from Sesame Street. You are going to learn so much about Lin-Manuel and his music, but you’re also going to realize how much his music is part of our lives and our culture.
While this concert is dedicated to Miranda and his work, will you also talk about your own life?
Yes! I talk about the many ways that our lives have intertwined — even though we grew up quite differently — and my own journey as an artist, an advocate, a wife and a mother.
Miranda certainly knows your backstory well. He even wrote the title song of your solo album Fearless just for you, chronicling your parents’ incredible courtship.
It’s a beautiful story. My Mexican American father was drafted at 19 into the US Army and went to Vietnam, and my Jewish mom grew up in the Valley in California. She wanted to join the Peace Corps, but her parents said no. So, she did the next best thing, which was to write to soldiers who didn’t have anybody to write to them. One of those soldiers was my dad, and he was the first to write back, and he sent a picture. My mom was 17 and they corresponded throughout my dad’s service. When he came back, he showed up on my mother’s doorstep. He didn’t have anything, but he had fallen in love and wanted to be with my mom.
Expect an evening packed with the songs you know and love — “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” “How Far I’ll Go,” and a sweeping Hamilton suite featuring “My Shot,” “Satisfied” and “The Room Where It Happens” — alongside deep cuts and surprises straight from Miranda’s own songbook. It’s a celebration of friendship, heritage and one of Broadway’s most beloved voices, brought to life with the Fort Collins Symphony under the direction of Maestro Wes Kenny. You don’t want to miss it! Tickets are available at LCtix.com and start at $44.