In the Heights, the latest musical to make the transition from off-Broadway to Broadway is a big hit according to preview audiences. It's a panoramic view of three days in the life of Washington Heights, a vibrant and tight-knit Latino community in upper Manhattan. Twenty-seven year old Lin-Manuel Miranda came up with the original concept while in college. He was sick of seeing Latino performers always being cast as West Side Story-type thugs so he wrote his own show, a Latin and hip-hop filled love story to his neighborhood, his heritage and his musical idols. After four years of development, with the help of director Thomas Kail who reworked it and restaged it for a larger audience, it opened off-Broadway to critical acclaim. One year later it has found its home on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. Miranda who wrote the music and lyrics for the show, also stars in it as the Dominican narrator who owns a bodega (small grocery store) on the block. It's set in a block or two of his Latino neighborhood and the score was lovingly modeled after his lifelong idols, Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter and Richard Rodgers. (When he was a teen, he convinced Stephen Sondheim to attend his high school production of West Side Story.) The music pulses with the hopes and dreams of three generations as they struggle to forge an identity in a neighborhood on the brink of transition. Miranda won the 2007 Obie Award (for off-Broadway shows) for Outstanding Music and Lyrics. The producers, who also brought Rent and Avenue Q to Broadway from off-Broadway (both won the Tony for Best Musical), say they listen for new sounds that will attract fresh audiences and this one has attracted both traditional audiences and non-traditional including a younger and Latino crowd making it a good commercial move for them. Also in it is Broadway veteran Priscilla Lopez who was in the original cast of A Chorus Line for which she won an Obie while it was off-Broadway and was nominated for Tony's for Pippin and Applause and won a Tony in 1980 for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine.
It was announced last week that they will have a $26.50 (13 pounds 25) per ticket lottery two hours prior to each performance for the front row seats. (There is a limit of two tickets per person, tickets must be paid for in cash and you must be present for the drawing. Fair enough.) This is a wonderful idea and gives the demographic population who historically have not been able to enjoy theatre due to financial barriers a chance to see a Broadway show.
(There is a wonderful television commercial showing here in New York which you can view at http://www.broadwayworld.com/videoplay.cfm?colid=23493. (Miranda is the fellow in the red shirt. I think he will be a Broadway force to be reckoned with.)
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