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Mandy Gonzalez with Lin-Manuel Miranda. (Courtesy of Mandy Gonzalez)<\/p>\nMandy Gonzalez with Lin-Manuel Miranda. (Courtesy of Mandy Gonzalez)<\/p>\n
Mandy Gonzalez has been friends with Lin-Manuel Miranda since 2004. She starred in his original production of \u201cIn the Heights,\u201d which won a Tony Award for Best Musical, and played Angelica Schuyler in \u201cHamilton,\u201d which you may have heard of.<\/p>\n
On April 25, Gonzalez will join the Philly Pops at the Kimmel Center to pay tribute to Miranda\u2019s career and music in \u201cEverything I Know: Mandy Gonzalez Sings Lin-Manuel Miranda.\u201d But the show will be about Gonzalez, too, a Broadway actor and singer with a Jewish mother and Latino father.<\/p>\n
Though her last name is Gonzalez, the Broadway star grew up Jewish. She often got questions about that, and she rarely felt fully Jewish or Latino. The experience motivated her to claim her identity at a young age.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to get comfortable being different and not fitting into any box,\u201d she said.
Gonzalez has played characters facing similar struggles. The one that felt most close to home was Elphaba from \u201cWicked,\u201d the green-skinned girl with magical powers who grows into the Wicked Witch of the West.<\/p>\n
\u201cElphaba was a big one, somebody who didn\u2019t really fit,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n
While the actor may have faced those perceptions and comments growing up, she never felt them from her own family. She has fond memories of large Jewish gatherings in<\/p>\n
Southern California with her maternal grandparents.<\/p>\n
They attended Shabbat services at a local synagogue in Tarzana, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. They went to High Holiday services at a bigger synagogue in Encino, another LA neighborhood. Perhaps most memorably, they would have huge extended family dinners.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything was about family,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n
The future Broadway star was raised Jewish because it was important to her mother. Her father, who grew up Catholic, had decided that his religion \u201cwasn\u2019t something he wanted to follow,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n
He was also in love with Gonzalez\u2019s mother. The two met in a way that could make for its own Broadway show.<\/p>\n
The actor\u2019s father was serving in the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War, and one of his soldier buddies was writing home to his wife. The buddy told his wife that Gonzalez\u2019s father had no one to write to him, and asked if she could get her sister to do so.<\/p>\n
The sister was Gonzalez\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough those letters, they fell in love,\u201d the actor said.<\/p>\n
After the war, her father had his pen pal\u2019s address, so he showed up on her doorstep. She opened, \u201cand they fell in love in person,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n
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Mandy Gonzalez with Lin-Manuel Miranda. (Courtesy of Mandy Gonzalez)<\/p>\n
In the letters, Gonzalez\u2019s mother also explained that she was Jewish, though her father had no idea what that meant. He had grown up in a family of farm workers in Fresno, California, that hadn\u2019t really met Jews.<\/p>\n
Yet all three of their kids were raised Jewish, with their dad\u2019s full support. As Gonzalez put it, \u201cHe even knows a good brisket from a bad brisket.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s like Jew-ish,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
For a long time, Gonzalez felt similarly, but she no longer does.<\/p>\n
The Broadway star had a bat mitzvah as a kid, and her daughter has now had one, too.<\/p>\n
When she spoke for this interview, she was preparing to host a Passover Seder at her North Jersey home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s integral to who I am,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez will sing about this and more on April 25 at the Kimmel Center. She will also sing some of Miranda\u2019s biggest hits.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez met Miranda, who wasn\u2019t famous at the time, when she got a call from her agent about a Latino composer who was putting together an all-Latino production. He wanted to meet Gonzalez in the basement of The Drama Book Shop.<\/p>\n
\u201cI walked downstairs, and there was Lin-Manuel,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n
He offered her the part of Nina Rosario, the smart girl in \u201cIn the Heights\u201d, who returns home from Stanford University and falls in love with Benny, the cab driver who works for her father. The show launched her career, as it rose from off-Broadway to Broadway, ultimately winning four Tony Awards.<\/p>\n
But while \u201cIn the Heights\u201d changed her life, \u201cHamilton\u201d might have been its most exhilarating experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the lights go out, we\u2019re all in this together,\u201d she said of Broadway shows. \u201cWhen the lights go out at \u2018Hamilton,\u2019 it\u2019s like a rock concert.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gonzalez has been performing with orchestras like the Philly Pops for over 10 years. While appearing with the Boston Pops a few years ago, she got the idea for the show she\u2019ll be headlining at the Kimmel Center. The Boston Pops asked her to sing \u201cEverything I Know,\u201d a song from \u201cIn the Heights.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wrote to Lin-Manuel, \u2018I have an idea to put together a concert of your music, but also how our lives have intertwined over the years,\u2019\u201d she recalled. \u201cThere are stories about our families and coming to America. There are stories and songs for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n