Lin-Manuel Miranda on How 'Rent' Changed His Life and Led Him to Direct 'Tick, Tick…Boom!'

Lin-Manuel Miranda comes full circle with his movie directorial debut Tick, Tick…Boom!

In a PEOPLE exclusive, the Tony winner, 41, shares a powerful story about key moments in his life, including the first time he saw Jonathan Larson's influential musical Rent on Broadway and how the experience impacted his writing. Miranda would go on to write his iconic musical Hamilton. He's now adapted Larson's autobiographical musical Tick, Tick…Boom! into his first film as director.

The story was told on June 30, 2021 at a Mainstage show at United Palace in Washington Heights, presented by global storytelling organization The Moth, in partnership with Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA).

Tick, Tick…Boom! was written by Larson in 1990 and follows an aspiring composer named Jon (Andrew Garfield) in New York City as he fears he has made the wrong career choice to be an artist.

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Larson is best known as the creator of Rent. He died on Jan. 25, 1996, at the age of 35 on the morning of the musical's first preview off-Broadway.

For his work on Rent, Larson was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and three Tony Awards for best musical, best book of a musical and best original score.

"Jonathan Larson's captivating storytelling in Rent first taught me that musicals could be contemporary, true to life, and depict your own experiences," Miranda said in a previous statement about the project, according to Variety. "But it was Tick, Tick…Boom! that solidified that drive in me to hone my own voice as a playwright."

Tick, Tick... Boom is in select theaters and on Netflix on Nov. 19.