| 07 December 2009
In the past year, you won four Tonys: Best Choreography, Best Orchestrations, Best Original Score and Best Musical, not to mention the Grammy for Best Musical Show Album. So what do you do next?
If you’re Lin-Manuel Miranda, you’ve already captured New York City and now it’s time to take on the whole country. One of many new projects Miranda undertook since his musical “In The Heights” sprang him to fame last year is a national tour that started in June and will continue through next spring in 23 cities, plus New York.
“We’ve cast an amazing group of people and we’re all getting back into [it], only this time I don't have to juggle writing and acting,” Miranda says. “I can really just be the composer, which I’m really excited about.”
For Miranda, seeing his musical — which he says was born out of his homesickness as a 19-year-old at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. — is a dream realized on many levels. From Latin and hip-hop-based songs to its majority-Latino cast, “In The Heights” was in many ways an experiment.
When it came to composing, one of the greatest creative challenges Miranda encountered was writing fast-paced songs that wouldn’t leave the audience behind. “When you listen to a hip-hop album at home, a really good song, you rewind it so you can hear the lyric again,” he says. “How much information can we [pack] into a hip-hop lyric when it only exists once in real time?”
As one of a few Broadway musicals to cast Latinos in starring roles, “In The Heights” provides a platform for what Miranda describes as “hungry Latino talent” in the theater world today. Despite that, Miranda does not consider that ethnic background is a prerequisite to be in the show. “If you’re fierce, you’re fierce.”
According to Miranda, many of the roles available to Latino actors today are stereotypical — the janitor, the drug addict, the maid. Henry Godinez, artistic associate director at the Goodman Theatre and curator of the Goodman’s Latino Theatre Festival, would say audiences expect another sort of standard Latino role: that of the Puerto Rican characters from “West Side Story.”
“'In The Heights’ presents a much more updated and urban and realistic view of the contemporary Latino experience,” Godinez says. “It talks about family, there’s the abuela, there’s the neighborhood, the community.”
It is with this spirit of experimentation that Miranda has since dabbled in other performances. He got his “dream gig” last year when “West Side Story” writer and director Arthur Laurents approached him with the task of translating some of the Sharks’ dialog and songs into Spanish.
With the revamping of this classic musical, Miranda again faced the challenge of pushing the limits. “There was a lot of playing with, you know. If you don’t speak Spanish, how much can you get away with and still have the audience know what’s going on?”
Following that experiment was Miranda’s jump to the small screen. During his two-episode stint on the hit FOX drama “House,” he says, “I spent a month palling around in a mental asylum with Hugh Laurie.” In a completely different role, Miranda will also guest star on the 40th season premiere of “Sesame Street.”
Despite all these new enterprises, the “In The Heights” national tour is still foremost in Miranda’s mind, and with it the excitement of exploring the country. “There’s so much of this country I haven’t really gotten to see,” he says. “The tour is a chance for me to check in and visit with the show and see these other parts.”
Chicago is a city Miranda is especially interested in exploring, from going to a Cubs game to exploring the theater scene. He spent a week in the city in June as part of the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project at Northwestern University. “There’s such a vibrant theater community in Chicago already, so I’m really curious to see ‘In The Heights’ settle itself in amongst all the exciting stuff that’s already going on,” Miranda says.
Godinez knows the challenge of attracting a Latino theatergoing audience in Chicago. Over the past ten years, the majority of shows that drew Latino viewers were so-called straight plays, not musicals.
“What’s cool is, I think, that ‘In The Heights’ casts even a wider net and can bring in a whole other Latino audience who feels more comfortable going to a commercial musical,” Godinez says. This show, he believes, could give Latino theater a broader appeal and attract people to other local Latino companies like Teatro Vista and Teatro Luna.
“In The Heights” will run at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago from Dec. 15 to Jan. 3. In the meantime, Miranda is working on a hip-hop concept album about the life of Alexander Hamilton, America’s first treasury secretary. He likens the project to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” in its experimental nature.
Looking back, Miranda’s proudest moments were when kids would come to “In The Heights,” and scream in recognition upon seeing the Dominican flag on stage. “There’s a sense of validation there,” he says, “There’s a sense of, ‘We’re part of this world, and we’re part of this community.’”
Whether through more Broadway musicals or hip-hop albums, Miranda will no doubt keep pushing the limits to the highest levels of performance art.
INFOBOX
In the Heights
When: Dec. 15 - Jan. 3
Where: Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St.
Info: (312) 977-1710, www.broadwayinchicago.com
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by Denise carrasco, December 10, 2009
-
- +0
-
-
