HAMILTON'S Lin-Manuel Miranda to Receive Puerto Rican Day Parade 'Pride' Award

HAMILTON and IN THE HEIGHTS creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda will receive the Nuestro Orgullo Award during this year's Puerto Rican Day Parade. Fellow Puerto Rican theater star Rita Moreno will be this year's grand marshall at the parade.

In an interview with NY Daily News Viva, Miranda said, "This award is very humbling - (especially) to be celebrated alongside such an icon like Rita Moreno... I've attended as a spectator from the time I was very young. I remember my dad, Luis Miranda, marching every year with the late Mayor Ed Koch. We were either on Fifth Ave. or watching on TV."

The Washington Heights native is well-versed on his heritage. As a kid, he spent summers in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, with his grandparents and learned the history of men like educator Eugenio Hostos and independence movement leader Pedro Albizu Campos.

The Puerto Rican Day Parade Inc. takes place annually along Fifth Avenue in New York City, on the second Sunday in June, in honor of the more than 4 million Stateside Puerto Ricans and the 4 million Puerto Rican natives.

The parade marches along Fifth Avenue from 44th Street to 79th Street in New York City with close to three million spectators annually; it is one of the largest parades in the country.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway credits include: Composer-Lyricist-Usnavi of In the Heights (Tony Award, Grammy Award, Pulitzer Prize finalist); Bring It On: The Musical (co-composer/co-lyricist);West Side Story (2009 revival, Spanish translations). Off-Broadway: Merrily We Roll Along; tick, tick...BOOM! (both City Center Encores!). Emmy Award with Tom Kitt for "Bigger" from the 67th Annual Tony Awards. TV/film: "Freestyle Love Supreme," "How I Met Your Mother," "Smash," "Do No Harm," "Modern Family," "House," "The Electric Company," "Sesame Street," "The Sopranos," The Odd Life of Timothy Green and 200 Cartas.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride