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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

@pollackpelzner.bsky.social
409 followers 252 following 43 posts

Teaching English/theater at Portland State University. Writing in The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist (Simon & Schuster, 2025). Zeugmas welcome. www.danielpollackpelzner.com

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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
ME: I hadn’t know that in bradykinesia, the prefix brady- means slow. WIFE: Yeah, like a slow heart rate is bradycardia. SON: Or like Tom Brady.
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Stephen Fishbach @stephenfishbach.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
My latest episode of Paraphrase podcast is about one of my favorite new books: Lin-Manuel Miranda-The Education of an Artist by @pollackpelzner.bsky.social. The book is both a fascinating exploration of Lin-Manuel's life & work, and a deep dive into the very process of creativity.
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
What’s your top Stoppard? Mine: 1. Arcadia 2. Travesties 3. Shakespeare in Love 4. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead 5. Rough Crossing (h/t OSF 1997)
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Is “cloaked in Gucci and in scandal” Taylor’s first zeugma?
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Loved talking to the brilliant Sondheim Hub!
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Harvard Book Store @harvardbookstore.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
📅 Tues. 9/20 @ 6PM: We join the Cambridge Public Library in welcoming Daniel Pollack-Pelzner for a discussion of his highly anticipated biography "Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist". He will be joined in convo by Dani Snyder-Young. Learn more and RSVP for free here: buff.ly/dFtjete
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
The most thoughtful and perceptive review of my book I’ve seen so far. Thanks @npr.org
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Stephen Fishbach @stephenfishbach.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Happy pub day to my great friend @pollackpelzner.bsky.social and his extraordinary biography of Lin-Manuel Miranda. This book is a delight. It tells Lin's story through the lens of how he became such an incredible artist. It's fast-paced, funny, and humane. I loved it and believe you will too!
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
Book excerpt in the New York Times! www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/t...
nytimes.com
How Lin-Manuel Miranda Weathered the Storm
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Thanks for reading and reviewing, Martin. I’m so glad you took comfort, as I’d hoped, in finding that the creative process poses challenges for everyone.
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Scarlett Harris @scarletteharris.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
Book 129: Lin-Manuel Miranda - The Education of an Artist by @pollackpelzner.bsky.social
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Glad to write about the resonance of #Hamilton on its 10th anniversary for @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | ‘Hamilton’ Feels Different 10 Years Later
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
The play I identify most strongly with is A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. It’s the tragedy of what happens when your in-law comes to stay with you and you only have one bathroom.
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
Friends, I'm thrilled to share that my biography of Lin-Manuel Miranda is available to pre-order before its Sep 9 release. I talked with LMM and 150 of his inspirations about how he learned to become an artist. Hope the story inspires you! www.simonandschuster.com/books/Lin-Ma...
simonandschuster.com
Lin-Manuel Miranda
An intimate and captivating exploration of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s artistic journey, revealing how the creator of the Broadway musicals Hamilton and I...
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Is there a more thrilling sequence of songs than You Don’t Know / I Am the One / Superboy and the Invisible Girl / I’m Alive? #NextToNormalPBS
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Am I wrong to hear Remmick’s lusty “Sammie!” as an echo of Al Jolson’s “Mammy!”—minstrelsy as a kind of vampirism? #Sinners
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
I was so sorry to learn of Misha Berson's passing. I loved reading her Seattle theater dispatches; I relished her book on the making of West Side Story; and after I had the pleasure of serving with her on a Chekhov panel, I was delighted that she'd keep in touch. www.orartswatch.org/a-farewell-t...
orartswatch.org
A farewell to theater critic Misha Berson • Oregon ArtsWatch
The longtime Seattle theater and culture writer, who also contributed often to Oregon ArtsWatch, embraced life and art with passion and a constant case of curiosity.
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Aisha Harris @aishaharris.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Black history is every month all the time, of course, but I’ll play this game. Almost a decade ago, Dan Kois and I put together the Black Film Canon, then we updated it in 2023, and it’s a great (but def not exhaustive!) primer for black film history: slate.com/culture/2023...
slate.com
The 75 Greatest Films by Black Directors
As chosen by critics and filmmakers—and including four movies from 2022.
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
ME: Who’s the most popular singer with your high school friends? SON: Probably Billie Eilish. ME: Honestly—and this is my shortcoming—I don’t really get her. She always sounds half-asleep. SON: Have you met any high schoolers?
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
Hope so. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/a...
nytimes.com
Only 3 Black Women Have Won the Grammys’ Top Award. Is Beyoncé Next?
Natalie Cole, Whitney Houston and Lauryn Hill’s album of the year wins all came in the 1990s. Beyoncé’s fifth shot, for “Cowboy Carter,” arrives Sunday night.
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
My favorite intersection.
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
I’m sure this is all over Disney’s internal memos, so let’s just say it outright: Mufasa is the Henry VI Part 3 to The Lion King’s Richard III.
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
MACBETH: I don’t know what the poor cat does in the adage, okay? Every time you bring it up, I just nod. 😂😂😂 @katepitt.bsky.social www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...
mcsweeneys.net
The Macbeths Listen and Don’t Judge
We listen and we don’t judge. LADY MACBETH: I hate it when you introduce me as your “Dearest partner of greatness.” What’s wrong with “wife”? We li...
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
Love this! deadline.com/2024/12/keta...
deadline.com
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson To Make One-Night-Only Broadway Debut In ‘& Juliet’, Fulfilling Lifelong Dream
United States Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will make her Broadway debut – you read that right – with a one-night-only walk-on role in & Juliet, the hit musical comedy in which the femal...
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
‘Tis the season… medium.com/@rachelaxler...
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
No better way to encourage students to write plays than a Paula Vogel bake-off!
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
10 musicals to get to know me: Hamilton Hamilton Hamilton Hamilton Hamilton Hamilton Hamilton Hamilton Hamilton In the Heights
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
My favorite new musical this month: Serial hired Pasek & Paul to write a sea chanty for a killer whale. Is it almost a parody of my liberal fantasies? Yes. Is it also haunting, clever, and searching, befitting human attempts to describe the orca himself? Yes. 🐳🎶🌊 open.spotify.com/episode/7Jbo...
open.spotify.com
Episode 5: At Sea
The Good Whale · Episode
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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
I recommend setting aside some time to read this thoughtful essay. I found it to be very clarifying and grounded in actual detail rather than pundit-y projections.
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Rebecca Nagle @rebeccanagle.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
In response to the election, a lot of people have been talking about the importance of organizing. Here are some Native groups doing THE WORK to consider donating to or volunteering with:
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Best rhyme in #Wicked? 1) absurd degree/verdigris 2) analysis/dialysis/a pal, a sis 3) were…well, are/pop-u-lur…lar
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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner @pollackpelzner.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
ME: Not really feeling Moana 2. MY DAUGHTER: Et tu, Brute?
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