Lin Manuel Miranda Essay

Lin-Manuel Miranda Brings Life onto a Latino Stage

Tony winning composer-lyricist, Lin-Manuel Miranda, said that, "Life is like a play, and a script can be created with each experience lived". His father always told him, "Lin Manuel...to be successful you must study." (Univision) That's because he always liked best the arts, music, and other afterschool activities. His parents helped him realize that an education was necessary and that his dreams would come true by finishing his studies and with the help from his parents, he did just that. Lin-Manuel was able to create a musical that reflected his own life, for which he won numerous accolades: records in sales, a Grammy, four wins out of a record breaking thirteen nominations at the 62nd Annual

Tony Awards. In this paper, I will discuss how the Broadway musical In the Heights defied box office odds by celebrating a culture that has been historically unrepresented in the theatre world, even though it took some musical patrons outside their comfort zone ethically, socio-economically and musically.
In the Heights was conceived by composer and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also played the lead role of Usnavi in the show’s original cast. Miranda was born in northern Manhattan, New York City, New York. He grew up in Manhattan's vibrant and diverse Washington Heights neighborhood, and his background in a close-knit Puerto Rican family has inspired his work as a writer, composer and performer. Growing up in Washington Heights, he was surrounded by music on every corner, from the salsa horn lines that wailed from fire escape windows to bachata guitar lines that blared from pimped-out car stereos. As a teenager, his father was the president and maybe the only member of the Puerto Rican chapter of the Debbie Reynolds Fan Club, so he grew up on a bizarre diet of Juan Luis Guerra, Marc Anthony, Fiddler on the Roof and Camelot. Meanwhile, he and his friends had an obsession for hip-hop music. He also studied piano and sang in the school choir while growing up. In a three-hour medley of plays in a big sixth-grade show his roles included Bernardo in West Side Story and Conrad in Bye Bye Birdie. Both of his parents worked five jobs each, while trying to offer their son the best education on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. This all soon became prominent elements of what would soon make him an award-winning success in the entertainment industry.

In the winter of 1999, college sophomore Miranda applied to put up a new show in the student-run ’92 Theatre at Wesleyan University. Being away from his Puerto Rican culture, he began to feel homesick and was soon inspired to write the biggest show of his career. At this time, he had one song and a title: In the Heights. He was given the theater for weekend the following semester in April and Miranda began the first revision of In the Heights his sophomore year of college. Because of the short amount of time, he barely slept, barely ate; he just wrote. Miranda put in all the things he’d always he’d always wanted to see onstage such as, propulsive freestyle rap scenes outside of bodegas and salsa numbers that also revealed character and story. He tried to write the kind of musical that he’d want to be in. He also saw Rent and it was the first time he'd seen a musical that took place "now" and a light bulb really went off. "You can write a musical about 'you'; about your 'life'." (PBS) Once he realized this, Miranda began writing about his life living in Washington Heights. Once his original college production was put up, two remarkable things happened for Miranda. First, In the Heights broke box-office

records for the ’92 Theater that year and second, he caught the attention of certain seniors at that time, John Mailer (son of famous writer Norman Mailer) and Neil Stewart, who were both interested in helping Manuel bring the show to New York. (Hispanic) They were looking to start their own production company once they graduated and were eager to be involved with In the Heights once Miranda graduated from college. Miranda continued revising In the Heights, but completely forgot about their offer as the years passed. It wasn’t until June 2002 when he was reminded of that offer he was made two years prior. He first met director Thomas Kail in the basement of the Drama Book Shop the week after he graduated from college. It turned out that John Mailer kept his promise and founded Back House Productions with Kail, Anthony Veneziale and Neil Stewart. This team collaborated with Miranda and they first began talking about how to make Heights better. They knew that they had something good, but they wanted to great, which was a challenge. Through many discussions they went straight to work and began to cut songs or ideas that just didn’t fit the show. The team of Back House built an underground black box theater (a small unadorned performance space), in the basement of the Drama Bookshop on West 40th Street. Miranda and Kail started putting on workshops and readings of the musical. Over the next year, while Miranda taught seventh grade English at his old high school, Back House hosted at least five readings of Heights in stages. It soon attracted the attention and support of certain producers such as, The Drowsy Chaperone producer Jill Furman, who saw it at the end of 2002 and Rent and Avenue Q producers Kevin McCollum and Jeffrey Seller, who also saw a reading on Theater Row in June 2003. Once these producers were on board, the real hard work began. By the time an off-Broadway production was being staged at 37 Arts in Manhattan in 2004, Book Writer Quiara Alegría Hudes and Musical Director/Co-Orchestrator Alex Lacamoire had also come aboard (Hispanic). During this time, there has been readings at the Manhattan Theatre Club and when the collaborators began changing Heights from the original college version, they really looked at a lot of classic musicals. Fiddler on the Roof was their template. “We we’re like ‘We’re the sequel to Fiddler!’ Well you know, if Fiddler was about Latinos” (Dramatist 22-26). They really wanted to stick to the importance of traditions; the traditions that people may hang on to and what’s non-negotiable or even the traditions that may be harder to let go of. After more workshops and more collaborators, Miranda presented the first completed version of In the Heights in July 2005 at the National Music Theatre Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater in Waterford, Connecticut. Several years of revisions later, In the Heights was ready for its New York theatrical debut at Off-Broadway’s 37 Arts Theater. This production opened at 37 Arts on West 37th street and won 2 out of 9 nominations for Drama Desk Awards. From that point, In the Heights achieved just enough success to send the show to Broadway in 2008. (Broadway.com)
As In the Heights proceeded to make its Broadway debut, they faced a numerous amount of challenges. The collaborators of Heights tried to display the problems Broadway has with the Latino culture today. From his original idea in college, part of Miranda’s prolonged goal was to give Latinos something to embrace as their own on Broadway. Miranda has described this show as a personal response to the limited roles for Latinos in commercial theatre, explaining during a panel on Latino theatre: “I knew I wanted to have a life in musical theatre. I knew I didn’t dance well enough to play Bernardo [in West Side Story], and I knew I didn’t dance well enough to play Paul [in A Chorus Line]. And that was about it. That’s what we get” (Studies in Musical Theatre 51, Miranda in ‘Latino Theater Panel’ 2008). He wanted to redeem the reputation of his old neighborhood, which was often portrayed by the media as a high-crime area. Additionally, shows about Latinos, even those like Zoot Suit that have been written by Latino authors and composers, tend to focus on crime and violence. Many of these stories have been rooted in real world events and problems; nevertheless, with Heights, Miranda sought to avoid these tired stereotypes. Even when trying to avoid those ideas, the odds for a Latino-themed or Latino-created show were slim, especially because of the demographics of Broadway’s audience. As of the 2007-2008 season, Broadway theatre-goers were an overwhelming 75 percent Caucasian. Hispanics consisted only about 5 percent of US resident Broadway audiences. The average Broadway attendee is a female, middle-aged, highly educated and affluent tourist (Studies in Musical Theatre 52). Thus, a musical about Latinos using hip-hop would not appear to be an easy fit for traditional, or so-called ‘mainstream’ Broadway audiences. They were also challenged by the fact that they were doing something original, as opposed to taking a story that we know people already relate to, through a movie, through a book, and trying to fit that onto the stage in a creative way. This team really started from the ground up. Also, it did not have a recognizable composer and it had no celebrities. ¾ of the cast were making their Broadway debut. In other words, it lacked any form of name recognition. Heights choreographer, Andy Blackenbuehler had some trouble with the casts’ delivery.
“¾ of the cast is making their Broadway debut of the show. They’re not used to analyzing the shape. Almost all of our steps in the show, we have to understand the focus of the step. All of those steps have like the zeroed in raise of energy. If we keep dancing with our bodies, it’s not going to happen. The thing that a lot of the cast doesn’t understand, if we open Broadway, we have to be the best that’s possible. You have to be on fire every night.” (PBS)
Generally, audiences and critics really enjoyed the show, except Hudes book. Most thought it was droopily sentimental and untruthful. Some believed that there was no real plot, no true drama (New York Post). But the reviews for the show as a whole were positive to mix. In an article from Dramatist magazine, there was interview between composers, Manuel and Jeanine Tesori, who talked about reviews from In the Heights. Tesori tells Miranda over all the wonderful reviews, she came across a bad one said it “wasn’t hard-edged enough. It was too sweet.” Manuel fired back with,
“…In terms of the Heights reviews I expected reviews saying ‘Well, Washington Heights has crime and Washington Heights has drugs and where are those things?’ And that was something Quiara and I purposely decided to leave out of the show.

We felt we could spend two days in this world without a knife showing up… The real dramatic issue in Heights is really economic, understandably a hard thing to dramatize and feel really prevalent…So for some critics who said there wasn’t enough conflict in the story, I don’t think they get how hard it is to own a small business in New York City… You don’t need a knife or a crack dealer on the corner to understand that this is not an easy life.”

(Dramatist)
In the Heights reached many successes. It received a $10 million investment only ten months after opening on March 9, 2008 on Broadway. It also won four of a record breaking thirteen Tony nominations and won a Grammy Award for Best Musical show album. Additionally, it was nominated for a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (Studies in Musical Theatre 52)
Tonight I had the opportunity to witness a brand new Broadway sensation called In the Heights. When I first arrived at the Richard Rodgers Theater, I felt a great sense of this electrifying energy from the crowd. There was a bright red carpet surrounded by press and celebrities from Broadway, television, music, and film, like David Hyde, Kenny Ortega, Sarah Paulson, Sherrie Rene Scott, Anthony Rapp and Wilmer Valderrama. The overall setting of the entrance to the theater contained a warm color pallet with hints of cool tones and the bright lighting really enhanced the opening night excitement from the crowd. The red carpet then had led us audience members into the historical theatre. The minute people entered for seating, you could hear an overwhelming feeling of reverence from its set alone. Anna Louizon’s set design was stunning, as well realistic. Once it was time to open the show, the audience fell silent and waited for an evening of musical storytelling. In the Heights opened with a solo dance performance from Seth Stewart who played Graffiti Pete. The dance was very powerful and controlled, until the show’s creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda stops Pete from tagging his character’s small business. Miranda commanded the spotlight by being natural and vibrantly alive on stage. As the show went on, the theater had expressions of collective joy. I think we were all glad to finally a show that was new and fresh, but yet it was also a universal story about the importance of family and tradition. What a loved most about the spirited musical was that it gave off great energy and passion from the rookie cast. It was admiring to watch new faces on the Broadway stage that contained no divas, just an ensemble giving it all they got like if they had nothing left. Once the show had ended, the cast and crew received an instant standing ovation and the audience definitely roared with Manuel made his bow. Manuel was handed a microphone to say a few words, but couldn’t get any words out at first because of how overwhelmed he felt from the cheers of the jubilant audience. The actors had tears of joy and as a whole, you could tell that the cast and creative team were proud of themselves and that they were united as a family. The first thing Manuel said was, “I’m gonna speak really slowly. I don’t ever wanna forget this moment for as long as I live.” Then director, Thomas Kail came out for a bow and the two embraced. It was emotional and inspiring as a Hispanic artist, knowing that they successfully brought life onto a Latino stage, which isn’t an easy thing to do on Broadway. Manuel finished off by saying, “Ay mama, what do you do when your dreams come true?” (Broadway.com)