Jeffrey Seller

No, I had, of course, become completely enamored with In the Heights.

And, you know, that first time Lynn Sang lights up on Washington Heights at the break of day.

It was so warm.

It was like this Caribbean water that's just enveloping me.

And then when, after that, the Broadway chorus came in with, In the Heights I Wake Up and Start My Day, my God, I already had the goosebumps.

And in many ways, Hamilton was just Lynn's next musical.

Well, I'm going to give real credit to that to his colleague, friend, and director, Thomas Kaelb.

And Tommy had an idea, which is that if he could get Lynn to do a public cabaret performance of just the songs, that would persuade him that this could be a musical.

So in early 2012, they did like eight songs from Hamilton at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

And it was so clear from that performance that this was a book musical that after that, I wrote a letter to both of them saying, if you want to get going on a musical, I want to be your producer and I'll clear the decks.

I'll be your cheerleader.

I'll be your nurturer.

I'll be your critic if you want to go.

I had a new company at that point.

I named it Adventureland.

And I said, let's go on this adventure together.

And that was early 2012.

Sometimes it was to make lunch.

Like at one point, Lynn and Tommy and another writer we were considering working with came out to my house and they would work in the morning.

I would make egg salad with my own mayonnaise that I had learned how to make from the New York Times cookbook and serve.