Spirited performances make In The Heights, Lin Manuel Miranda’s celebration of life in New York’s Washington Heights, a Morgan-Wixson Theatre crowd-pleaser, however the production loses points for its lighting and sound designs.

With Tony-winning music and lyrics by Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tony-nominated book by Quiara Alegría Hudes, In The Heights turns its audience into flies on the walls of the Washington Heights neighborhood where, over the course of its three-day time frame, we get to know and care about an entire neighborhood of Latin-American immigrants.

Our guide to the vecindad is Dominican-born Usnavi (Gabriel Ramirez), the Washington Heights bodega owner whose syncopated raps about his life and the lives of his family and friends alert us from the get-go that we’re in for something out of the ordinary in musical theater.

We also meet Nina Rosario (Natalie Chavez), the first in the neighborhood to go to college (Stanford University no less), who’s returned home with un secreto she’s terrified to reveal to her proud-as-peacocks parents Kevin (Adrian Ayala) and Camila (Samantha Barrios). Kevin runs the financially struggling Rosario’s Car Service, where African-American Benny (Deonte Allen) works as a dispatcher and harbors a not-so-secret crush on Nina.

Also forming part of In The Heights’ core cast of characters is Vanessa (Olivia Leyva), the object of Usnavi’s affection, a curvy chica with dreams (and money troubles) of her own who works alongside born-again bubble-head Carla (Stephanie Jauregui) at the beauty shop run by sassy Daniela (Joyce Blackmon), about to close its doors forever.

There’s also Sonny (Eadric Einbinder), Usnavi’s mischievous teenage cousin; Piragua Guy (Rubén Gabriel Hernández), who supplies the neighborhood with Puerto Rican-style snow cones; and Graffiti Pete (Jenna Small), whose street art will prove of supreme importancia in Usnavi’s life.

Finally, there’s Abuela Claudia (Bianca Flores), the neighborhood matriarch who has been Usnavi’s surrogate grandmother since the death of his parents years ago.

These characters reveal their hopes and dreams in musical soliloquies that along with Usnavi’s “salsarap” songs, some infectious Caribbean rhythms, and the kind of “conversation songs” usually found in sung-through musicals, give the Miranda’s score a sabor latino not heard on Broadway since West Side Story some fifty years before.

Also, in this age of draconian anti-immigration laws, In The Heights shows us how very alike we all are, even as it refuses to shy away from prejudice within the Latino community, as when Kevin learns that his daughter is falling for his African-American chief dispatcher.

Ultimately, though, In The Heights is about familia and comunidad—the village that it took to raise Usnavi and Sonny and Nina from childhood to adulthood, and the Morgan-Wixson was smart to invite Ariella Salinas Fiore and Leonel Ayala, each of whom has appeared in four previous productions, to (respectively) direct and choreograph the show.

It also helps that In The Heights lends itself particularly well to a community theater staging, given a cast of characters you might find celebrating life in East L.A. or Boyle Heights rather than on a Broadway stage.

Ramirez plays Usnavi with such confidence and charm, you’d hardly guess this is his first musical theater lead, and supporting cast members deliver equally committed performances, from Chavez’s enchanting Nina to Barrios’s forceful Camila to Ayala’s passionate Kevin.

Leyva makes for a sultry, spicy Vanessa, Einbinder brings teenage Sonny’s to feisty life, Allen’s Benny is a charmer, and Flores gives Abuela Claudia plenty of verve.

Add to that Smalls’ dancetastic Graffiti Pete, Blackmon’s sassy Daniela, Jauregui’s ditzy Carla, and Hernández’s dulcet-voiced Piragua and you’ve got a lead cast sure to inspire cheers from assembled friends and family.

Chorographer Ayala knows precisely how to bring out the best from a featured ensemble (Michael Dumas, Sebastian Estrada, Julian Hennech, Lauren Josephs, Caitlyn Rose Massey, Yessenia Buezo Munoz, Karla Romo, Ethan Trejo, Jorchual Gregory Vargas, Cynthia Vassor, and Javon Willis) who may not be trained dancers, but look almost as if they were, and the entire cast vocalizes terrifically under Jenny Chaney’s expert musical direction.

Scenic designers Melodie S. Rivers and William Wilday’s set ably scales down the Broadway original to a community theater budget and Samantha Jo Jaffray’s costumes and Nicole German’s props are just what you’d expect to find on the streets of Washington Heights.

Unfortunately, despite the Morgan-Wixson’s better-than-average acoustics, the production suffers from not having its lead performers miked and amped, particularly when singing upstage as they frequently do.

Equally problematic is Antonio Cruz’s overly subdued lighting design, one which makes most scenes look as if they’re being played in the fading light of sunset and not on the brightly illuminated summer streets of New York.

Jon Sparks is wig designer. McBride is projection designer. Rivers is scenic artst. Mikael Mattsson is fight choreographer. Cameron McCarthy is sound board operator. Charli Austin is sound mixer.

Emily JoLynn Ellis is production stage manager and Andrew Chorbi and Emily OckoMichalak are assistant stage managers. Amanda Meade-Tatum is production associate. Melanie Anthony is dramaturg.

In The Heights is produced by Philip McBride and Rivers.

With the much needed representation it provides, Morgan-Wixson’s latest marks another step forward in the venerable community theater’s efforts to diversify it casts, creative teams, and audiences. Design shortcomings aside, it makes for an engaging, entertaining two-and-a-half hours spent In The Heights.

Morgan-Wixson Theatre, 2627 Pico Boulevard, Santa Monica.
www.morgan-wixson.org

–Steven Stanley
July 9, 2023
Photos: Joel D. Castro

Tags: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Los Angeles Theater Review, Morgan-Wixson Theatre, Quiara Alegría Hudes