Broadway Star Lin-Manuel Miranda Uses His Tony Acceptance Speech As A Tribute To Orlando Shooting Victims

While accepting his Tony Award for Best Original Musical Score for his show Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda read a sonnet honoring his wife Vanessa and those who were gunned down in the Orlando, Florida club shooting this morning. Through intermittent tears, he recited the following:

My wife’s the reason anything gets done/ She nudges me towards promise by degrees / She is a perfect symphony of one/ Our son is her most beautiful reprise.

We chase the melodies that seem to find us until they’re finished songs and start to play/ When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised, not one day.

This show is proof that history remembers/ We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger/ We rise and fall and light from dying embers remembrance that hope and love last forever.

Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside/ I sing Vanessa’s symphony. Eliza tells her story. [we] fill the world with music, love, and pride.

Fifty people were killed and more than 50 others were injured after a gunman opened fire and subsequently took hostages in the gay dance club, Pulse, in Orlando. June is, of course, Pride Month, and is meant to honor LGBT citizens in this country around the world. The shooter, Omar Mateen, was shot and killed by local law enforcement after they entered the club to free the remaining hostages.

This is the worst mass shooting in United States history.