Pulitzer Prize Winners 2016: ‘Hamilton’ Raps Up Drama Prize, While Legacy Media Cleans Up In Journalism

The Broadway smash hit “Hamilton” took home a Pulitzer Prize for drama Monday, an announcement that surprised few. The hip-hop reimagining of the founding of the American republic has already won the near-universal praise of critics and broken records at the box office, so it was widely expected to take home the coveted gold medal.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the show’s creator and star, shared his gratitude on Twitter shortly after the announcement in the form of a blushing emoji and the hashtag #YayHamlet. He followed up by posting the word “grateful” 14 times and the phrase “great full” once.

“Hamilton” is the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize since 2010, when “Next to Normal” by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey took home the honor. Miranda’s show, which was hatched off-Broadway at the Public Theater in New York early last year, fuses hip-hop, pop rock and musical theater sensibilities to tell the life story of Alexander Hamilton and draw analogies between the Founding Fathers and modern-day rap artists.

The show’s cast recording won a Grammy Award in February and the musical is expected to clean up at the Tony Awards presentation in June. “Hamilton” is currently playing a run at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where it is reportedly sold out through 2016.

The Pulitzer Prize organization is celebrating the centennial of the honors this year. In delivering its highly sought journalism kudos, the Pulitzer board favored the usual legacy-media suspects, such as the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

The full list of winners appears below.

2016 Pulitzer Prize Winners

Journalism

Public Service — The Associated Press

Breaking News Reporting — Los Angeles Times Staff

Investigative Reporting — Leonora LaPeter Anton and Anthony Cormier of the Tampa Bay Times and Michael Braga of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Explanatory Reporting — T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Ken Armstrong of the Marshall Project

Local Reporting — Michael LaForgia, Cara Fitzpatrick and Lisa Gartner of the Tampa Bay Times

National Reporting — The Washington Post Staff

International Reporting — Alissa J. Rubin of the New York Times

Feature Writing — Kathryn Schulz of the New Yorker

Commentary — Farah Stockman of the Boston Globe

Criticism — Emily Nussbaum of the New Yorker

Editorial Writing — John Hackworth of Sun Newspapers, Charlotte Harbor, Florida

Editorial Cartooning — Jack Ohman of the Sacramento Bee

Breaking News Photography — Mauricio Lima, Sergey Ponomarev, Tyler Hicks and Daniel Etter of the New York Times and Photography Staff of Thomson Reuters

Feature Photography — Jessica Rinaldi of the Boston Globe

Letters, Music & Drama

Fiction — “The Sympathizer” by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove Press)

Drama — “Hamilton” by Lin-Manuel Miranda

History — “Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America” by T.J. Stiles (Alfred A. Knopf)

Biography — “Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life” by William Finnegan (Penguin Press)

Poetry — “Ozone Journal” by Peter Balakian (University of Chicago Press)

Nonfiction — “Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS” by Joby Warrick (Doubleday)

Music — “In for a Penny, In for a Pound” by Henry Threadgill (Pi Recordings)