Evolution Of A Love Letter

Crafted Over 7 Years, 'In The Heights' A Vibrant Collage Of A Neighborhood

By FRANK RIZZO | Courant Staff Writer

March 11, 2007

Lin-Manuel Miranda, right, lead actor and composer for the musical "In the Heights," and Thomas Kail, the show's director, respond during a 2007 interview in New York. (MARY ALTAFFER / AP / February 2, 2007)

Lin-Manuel Miranda walks down Broadway with an energetic strut of a man who's on top of the world. But he's far from the stretch of street near Times Square that most associate with the famous road. Miranda is strolling in the neighborhood north of the Washington Bridge in the area known as Washington Heights and Inwood, far from the dazzle of the theater district but with a vitality and vision all its own.

"See these little shops?'' he says. "They're all family-owned. It's a real people, it's a real community here.''

He passes bodegas, unisex hair salons, schools, health centers, coffee shops, Ecuadorian and Dominican eateries and the apartment building where his parents still live and not far from where he lives now. This colorful collage of sights, sounds and flavors is where Miranda grew up -- only to leave when he went to college at Wesleyan University.

But he didn't forget his neighborhood, and when he was a sophomore in the fall of 1999 he started working on a musical about the place he knows so well.

"In the Heights,'' a new off-Broadway musical that he conceived, wrote the music and lyrics for and stars in, opened in February, receiving the kind of reviews a novice composer dreams about. If some are suggesting that the exuberant show could be just the feel-good tonic to balance Broadway's more dark and disturbing brews, it's understandable. Its producers, after all, are the same who took hip and heartfelt off-Broadway shows such as "Rent'' and "Avenue Q'' and made them long-lasting Broadway hits.

But Broadway or no, this $2.5 million production is a triumph of perseverance and marks an impressive debut of a new musical star. In a recent performance, composer John Kander ("Cabaret,'' "Chicago'') was the first to leap to his feet, later saying that such talent as Miranda inspires him to go home and write. (Since that performance Kander and Miranda have been e-mail pen pals.)

The critical response has been as loving for the sweet-natured show that merges rap, hip-hop, salsa and merengue with traditional Broadway musical styles. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times calls the musical "a singing mural of Latin American life that often has the inspiriting flavor of a morning pick-me-up on a warm summer day.... You can't take your eyes off the performers and you won't want to.''

David Rooney of Variety writes that the show is "vibrant'' and that "musical theater welcomes a dynamic new talent in Lin-Manuel Miranda.'' Frank Scheck of the New York Post says "the exuberant work ... bursts with vitality and freshness ...''

All of which makes the 27-year-old Miranda grateful, humble and a bit overwhelmed.

"I'm sort of living in a looking glass these days,'' he says over a late breakfast at a neighborhood diner. Then, laughing, he adds," It's good being me these days.''

A Work In Progress

It's been a journey of more than seven years since Miranda began "In the Heights'' as an independent presentation at Wesleyan's student-run '92 Theater in April 2000. He wrote the entire show in a flurry over winter break. Only the title, some of the characters and five notes of the title song remain from that show, he says, adding that he has written more than 50 numbers that came and went during the show's evolution.

In that first audience of the 80-minute, one-act were two seniors: John Buffalo Mailer (son of novelist Norman Mailer) and Neil Stewart. They were planning to form a theater group with two recent grads living in New York City: Thomas Kail and Anthony Veneziale.

"I got a call from John,'' says Kail, now 30, "who said he had just seen this show at school and said when we form our company this is the show that we had to do.''

When Kail heard a self-produced recording of the musical he was "blown away by the energy that was coming out of this show. We literally said to each other, 'Let's circle the date when this kid graduates.'''

After the Wesleyan show, Miranda took a summer job working for a Manhattan newspaper, covering Washington Heights. "I wanted to know even more about the neighborhood,'' he says.

In 2001, the quartet of theater pals formed Back House Productions, which headquartered and presented shows in the 60-seat basement of the Drama Bookstore on 40th Street.

When Miranda graduated in 2002, Back House set out to further develop the show, giving it a series of readings. Miranda was cast as one of the characters -- a bodega owner called Usnavi -- because it was easier for him to perform the part than it was to teach someone else the intricate rap/hip-hop numbers.

"The idea of it being a love letter to a neighborhood was very much present from the beginning, and that was cultivated over the years,'' says Kail, who directed the show from Back House to off-Broadway.

A reading in 2003 attracted commercial producer Jill Furman. Later that year, Kevin McCollum and Jeffrey Seller came on board, and the trio became the producers who shepherded the show through its many stages. (They also produced Broadway's "The Drowsy Chaperone.'')