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Exploring New Heights, On Tour
By Sheryl Flatow
27 Oct 2009
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Lin-Manuel Miranda and his Tony Award
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben | The 2008 Tony Award–winning In the Heights gives the world a tour of a very musical Manhattan neighborhood.
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Like the neighborhood it celebrates, Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights is part of a rich continuum. The Tony Award–winning show, driven by the rhythms of the barrio, pushes the Broadway musical in a new direction. But just like Washington Heights, the singular section of northernmost Manhattan that helped shape Miranda, In the Heights is very mindful of the past.
In The Heights touches on universal themes: family and community, hopes and dreams, finding one's place in the world, discovering the meaning of home, tradition. The characters are Latino immigrants, living and working in an area of the city that has welcomed émigrés and refugees of all nationalities for more than a century.
The show, now touring the country, was conceived by Miranda, who also wrote the Tony Award–winning score, and features a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes, direction by Thomas Kail, and choreography by Tony Award winner Andy Blankenbuehler. "One of the challenges we had with Heights was how to embrace this musical theatre that we love and also make the show feel like something that spoke with an authentic voice," says Kail. "We were so conscious of trying to be respectful, to honor those shows that came before us. Because this is a show that effectively says, 'Without what happened, where are we?' We were interested in trying to find a sound that was slightly different, or a vocabulary that was slightly different. But it would also be structured in a way that would be immediately understood by people who have spent their lives going to see musicals."
Guiding the audience through the evening is Usnavi, a role originated on Broadway by Miranda. The character is a lot like Fiddler on the Roof 's Tevye, but with a New York accent. And that was a very deliberate choice. "Fiddler was a great influence," says Miranda. "It's in the DNA of Heights. Our opening number, 'In the Heights,' is 'Tradition' with hip-hop. Tevye speaks of 'the circle of our little village,' and Usnavi introduces the business owners and the people who are important in his life. Fiddler is about a community where nothing's changed for hundreds of years. Heights is about a community where everything changes daily. In Fiddler, the watchword was 'tradition.' In Heights, the watchword is 'home.'"
Another of the show's touchstones was the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," a favorite of both Miranda and Kail. "In both instances, you have a character who desperately wants to leave, and at every turn everyone else gets to go, and he has to stay," says Kail. "Why does George stay and fight for the building and loan, why does Usnavi stay and fight for the bodega?"
Miranda adds, "Without giving away the ending, Heights is the story of someone who is looking for home somewhere else, and then rediscovers it, just like George Bailey. The great thing about "It's a Wonderful Life" is that the ending is so earned. Most of us just think about 'George, the richest man in town' at the end, but you don't think about how much he wanted to get out of there, and the dark turns the story takes. So what we wanted for Heights was to get our 'Wonderful Life' ending, but really earn it. There's even a reference to '"It's a Wonderful Life' in our finale. Usnavi says, 'It's a wonderful life that I've known! Merry Christmas ya ole business and loan.'"
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In the Heights national tour stars Kyle Beltran and Arielle Jacobs
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The score is a thrilling amalgamation of hip-hop, salsa, meringue and, as Kail puts it, "an idiom that is much more recognizable to audience members." The characters sometimes sing or speak in Spanish, but their thoughts and emotions are clear in any language.
"Lin is able to tap into an honesty with his storytelling," says Kail, "and he imbues each of the characters that he and Quiara created with an openness that allows every person in the audience to find someone to relate to. Lin's love of musical theatre is also obvious, and you can see that he so much wants to carry this torch forward. But he does it in a way that's not self-conscious. This show is the truest expression of who he is."
For Miranda, who grew up and continues to live in Inwood, just north of Washington Heights, the neighborhood is a magical place. The highest natural point in Manhattan is located in the Heights, which has a terrain unlike any other in the city. It's also home to bucolic Fort Tryon Park and the medieval art of the Cloisters. But the area is slowly changing. "We're getting suspiciously nice restaurants around here," laughs Miranda. "The double-edged sword, of course, is that the people who make this neighborhood special will suddenly not be able to afford to live here.
"The block we've created in Heights is a place we are seeing as it exists for the last time. I think one of the things that fans of the show find really powerful is that this neighborhood that we fall in love with over the course of two hours is fleeting. By the end of it there are two boarded up store fronts, and a third one on the brink. There's real sadness, but at the same time these characters don't pity themselves. They do what they've got to do, and move on."
In the Heights captures a moment in time. "This was my little Camelot," he says. "This is the neighborhood that I grew up in. It was a really beautiful place, and really wonderful people lived here. It may not be here in five years or ten years, but this is what I remember."
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