“It’s not about belting it out. It’s about connecting,” says Peter Cooke, head of the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University, alma mater to Hamilton’s Goldsberry and Odom. “To me, the secret — the skill, really — is the individual idiosyncratic voice. Street voices that are merely rough and edgy may be popular, but longevity that way does not lie. God gives you the voice. But not the stagecraft.”

This quote is excerpted from a larger Rolling Stone piece extolling the virtues of Lin Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, which features two School of Drama alumni, Leslie Odom, Jr. and Renée Elise Goldsberry in the major rolls of Aaron Burr and Angelica Schyuler respectively.

Read more here.