‘In the Heights’ cast has 28 Broadway credits, a record for Music Theatre Wichita
Exuberant, exhilarating and emotional, “In the Heights” wraps up Music Theatre Wichita’s season with peak performances from a talented company.
Winner of four 2008 Tony Awards – including best musical – it’s easy and comforting to see composer Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work that paved the way for his Broadway and cultural icon “Hamilton.”
Miranda’s Tony-winning lyrics are brimming with clever rhymes and sharp wordplay. They celebrate the culture of the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City without playing down to its audience. They gravitate from Spanish to English and back again without losing anything for an Anglo audience.
And, as MTW producing artistic director Wayne Bryan reminded the opening-night audience Wednesday, it’s full of universal themes such as a younger generation trying to make their parents happy and the older generation wanting their progeny to be better off than they were.
Our guide during “In the Heights” is Usnavi, the owner of a bodega – aka “a mom-and-pop stop-and-shop” – who sees his neighborhood struggle. As Usnavi (the role played by Miranda on Broadway), Ernie Pruneda is smart, funny and not afraid to be insecure, especially in his attempts to court Vanessa (Gabriella Enriquez), a leggy hairstylist at the salon next door who has her own set of problems.
Across the street, Nina (a winsome Camila Paquet) returns from California as the golden child back from her first year at Stanford University, dreading telling her parents (Danny Bolero and Natalie Toro, reprising their roles from the touring production) that she dropped out of school.
Nina’s father, owner of a car-and-limo service, is fighting off lowball bids to buy his business, while longtime employee Benny (Grasan Kingsberry) tries to prove himself in his job, while making connections with Nina.
Usnavi tries to flick away get-rich-quick schemes at the bodega by his cousin Sonny (Alex Aponte), while everyone is overseen by Abuela Claudia (Alma Cuervo), seemingly everyone’s grandmother.
“In the Heights” gives a nice slice-of-life aspect to the neighborhood, until something out of the ordinary happens – one of the characters wins big money in the lottery.
The cast is uniformly excellent – Bryan estimated before the show that there were 28 Broadway credits among them, perhaps an MTW record – and the experienced hands of Bolero, Toro and Cuervo are especially evident. Toro’s song “Enough,” a soliloquy where she tells off both her husband and her daughter, got some of the loudest audience response at Wednesday’s opening night.
Along for a bit of comic relief is Jonathan Arana, the Piragua Guy, a street vendor selling sno-cones on the hot NYC days. Arana is among the cast of a film version of “In the Heights” (where Miranda plays the Piragua role), scheduled for release next June.
The Piragua Guy makes for seamless transitions in director-choreographer Carlos Mendoza’s work, creating a lively atmosphere in the gritty, realistic multilevel set (from Anna Louizos’ designs for the national tour) one minute and creating a pinpoint focus the next.
Mendoza’s dance work is excellent as well, whether it’s in a nightclub setting or in the pandemonium of a neighborhood blackout and its aftermath.
Music director Thomas Douglas leads a pit orchestra that smoothly navigates Miranda’s score, which incorporates hip-hop, rap, Latin rhythms and jazz while still keeping some of the conventions of musical theater.
While Wichitans continue the countdown until Miranda’s “Hamilton” might finally make it to a Wichita stage, they should take a trip “In the Heights,” not as a substitute for the more-acclaimed show, but as a fully flourishing, empowering and triumphant piece all its own.
‘IN THE HEIGHTS’
What: Music Theatre Wichita’s 2019 season closer, the 2008 Tony Award-winning musical that launched the career of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who went on to write “Hamilton.”
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 8; 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Aug. 9-10; 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Aug. 10-11; and 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 11
Where: Century II Concert Hall, 225 W. Douglas
Tickets: $25-$70, from the Century II box office, by phone at 316-265-3107, or online at www.mtwichita.org.
More information: Show is rated PG. Running time is 2 hours and 10 minutes. Children must be at least 5 years old to attend.
This story was originally published August 8, 2019 at 10:51 AM.