Lin-Manuel Miranda’s ‘21 Chump Street’ Makes Me Wonder Why I Ever Wrote One-Act Plays
Does everything this man touches turn to gold?
I thought I was a pretty big Lin-Manuel Miranda fan, but lately I’ve realized more and more that I don’t really have a great grasp on this virtuoso’s back catalog of work. I mean, it’s pretty telling that my first brush with Miranda’s In the Heights came from 2021’s film version.
A recent video made me aware that Miranda has a long history of music — and storytelling — that I’d never even realized existed.
Case in point? The one-act musical 21 Chump Street.
The musical, based off a series of real-life events, clocks in at 15 minutes — but it does so much in its short runtime. Every second counts with six cast members, five songs to perform, and a whole lot of social commentary to unpack. Basically — it’s a helluva accomplishment to do so much with the one-act structure.
Why does this feat surprise me so much? Not many people know this about me, but in college I wrote a few one-act plays that were chosen to be performed by a group of local actors. They were flimsy ten-page stories that could have used a few good rounds of peer review; even so, the actors brought those plays to life in such a way that I couldn’t help but feel…
