The energetic hip hop musical “In the Heights” — with its “there’s-no-place-like-home” message — opens Friday at the Everett Performing Arts Center.
Eric Ankrim directs Village Theatre’s production of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony award-winning Broadway show. It’s top-notch and yet another reason that Seattle-area musical theater is some of the best in the country.
The story takes place over the course of three hot summer days in the multi-ethnic Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.
We are introduced to a community of characters, including Usnavi and Sonny, who run a bodega; hair salon owner Daniela and her employees, Carla and Vanessa; Camilla and Kevin Rosario, a couple who own a taxi business, their employee, Benny, and their daughter, Nina. The matriarch of the neighborhood is the grandmotherly Claudia.
Usnavi, who dreams of returning to his birthplace in the Dominican Republic, is smitten with Vanessa, who wants to leave behind the catcalls of the barrio boys and the tedium of the economically poor neighborhood. Nina lost her scholarship to Stanford University and she returns home, falling in love with Benny, who her parents trust but don’t want her dating.
After Usnavi finds out that a customer bought a winning lottery ticket at his store, things begin to fall apart. People fight, the summer heat causes a blackout and his store is burglarized.
“This story really touches a lot of people,” said Joseph Tancioco, who plays the charming neighborhood Piragua (snow cone) Guy. “I have often seen people in the audience crying.”
The message is universal, Tancioco said.
“It’s really a story about family, maybe not in the traditional sense, but about the community you build around you,” he said. “And that you can dream about something else and not see the good right in front of you.”
The cast draws from the local pool of musical theater actors as well as a few from New York, including Jennifer Paz (Carla), who was in the first national tour of “Miss Saigon” and Kyle Robert Carter as Benny and Perry Young as Usnavi, who were in the national tour of the “In the Heights.”
Along with Paz, Carter and Young, wonderful performances are turned in by Iris Elton as the gutsy Daniela, Tanesha Ross as the determined Nina, Naomi Morgan as the sexy Vanessa and especially Corinna Lapid Munter, a 5th Avenue Theatre regular who was delightful and thoroughly believable as Abuela Claudia.
It must be noted that ensemble dancers Jenna Lindberg and Arthur Cuadros are outstanding.
The choreography by Daniel Cruz, who also plays Graffiti Pete, gets better as the show goes on, especially the salsa dancing, and the hard-working ensemble has a lot of fun.
“This cast and our important crew are really tight,” Tancioco said. “On stage and off.”
As usual with Village, the show’s sets, lights, costumes and orchestra are Broadway quality.
Set designer Tom Sturge, a one-time resident of Washington Heights, was inspired by the Broadway set, with its centerpiece being the George Washington Bridge.
However, he included details from his memory of the place, such as the 40 years of chewing gum smashed against the street and sidewalk.
Look for it.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @galefiege.
If you go
Village Theatre returns to the Everett Performing Arts Center with “In the Heights,” Oct. 31 through Nov. 23. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays with an additional matinee on Nov. 20. For information about tickets, which range in price from $30 to $62, call 425-257-8600.
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