On Saturday night, I had an opportunity to see a live production of one of my all-time favorite musicals, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights. To make it even better, I got to go with one of my best friends from high school. After a tasty dinner at Café Flora in Seattle, we walked around Seattle Center until it was time for the show.

Thinking back, the first Broadway cast recording I ever listened to was Miranda’s smash hit, Hamilton. I remember hearing people rave about the show and decided to see what all the hype was about for myself. I was blown away by the creativity, complexity and passion that was conveyed through just the music for Hamilton, let imagining what a full stage production would entail.

After Hamilton, I got hooked on musicals and started listening to everything from School of Rock to Pippin. What amazes me about Broadway musicals is the amount of attention to detail that the writers pour into their craft. Every lyric and note is essential to developing a character, conveying their struggles, depicting their triumphs or carrying themes that are essential to the message of the story.

While many are familiar with Miranda’s Hamilton, which premiered off Broadway in 2015, his lesser-known work In the Heights presents an intricate cultural and political commentary that is a hallmark of Miranda’s writing. As a composer, lyricist and performer, Miranda has won numerous awards for his work including a Pulitzer Prize, three Tonys, three Grammys, one Emmy, two Olivers and an Academy Award nomination. In addition to In The Heights and Hamilton (in which he cast himself as the lead in both shows), Miranda wrote music for Moana and Mary Poppins Returns as well as making contributions to a Broadway run of West Side Story and Bring It On: The Musical.

From growing up in New York to spending summers with his grandparents in Puerto Rico, Miranda’s personal life clearly influenced the theme of In the Heights. After finishing the first draft of the show in 1999, Miranda first performed In the Heights at Wesleyan University. In March 2008, the show opened on Broadway and was nominated for thirteen Tony Awards. In the end, In the Heights won four Tonys for the Broadway run, including Best Music and Best Original Score.

After listening to this soundtrack repeatedly for the past couple years, I was thrilled to finally be able to see a live production of In the Heights. The show is similar to Les Miserables in that there really isn’t a plot – it’s just a show about people who are trying to make the best of what life has handed to them. Set in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, In the Heights follows characters of Hispanic descent through the joys and trials of their daily lives.

While there is no clear “main character” in this show, the story begins at a corner convenience store where Usnavi once again finds himself chasing a punk kid away from his storefront grate. Having been “adopted” by an older woman that the community calls Abuela Claudia, Usnavi’s loyalty to “the heights” clearly contrasts his character with the character of Vanessa, who makes it clear that she intends to leave Manhattan as soon as she can. Nina Rosario, however, becomes the “one who made it out” by accepting an offer to study at Stanford. After unforeseen circumstances cause her to drop out and come home, she finds herself falling for Benny, a guy who has worked at her father’s cab company for the past few years. Meanwhile, the women at the local salon dish out juicy gossip and the piragua (shaved ice) man profits from a power outage in the middle of the summer, which is an inconvenience that appears to be quite common in this community.

I mentioned earlier that In the Heights won a Tony award for Best Music during its initial Broadway run and if you listen to the recording, you will be able to see why. In the Heights is filled with passionate, powerful numbers from opening to close. The opening number, “In the Heights” kicks show off by immersing the audience in culture of the story. The song conveys that these people feel that their lives are far from perfect and most days it is a struggle to just get by. In the end, the heights are their home and they will make it through as a community.

While every song in this show has something valuable to contribute to the story, the energy and passion in tracks like “96,000” and “The Club” make me want to dance. In contrast, the raw emotion found in songs like “Breathe”, “Inutil” and “Enough” provide insight into the inner conflicts experienced by the individual members of the Rosario family as they wrestle with difficult decisions.

One of my favorite characteristics of excellent Broadway musicals is when a phrase of music or a song lyric gets repeated elsewhere in the show. To me, the use of repetition not only reinforces key themes, but it also speaks to the inherent complexities of language. Using this technique, musicals capitalize on the notion that a singular phrase or idea can have multiple meanings, which is entirely dependent on usage, tone and context.

For example, two key recurring metaphorical phrases in In the Heights are “just scraping by” and “we are powerless”. Regarding the first example, the piragua guy has two seemingly cheery songs about to make his living, since he is literally “scraping by” as he makes shaved ice. If we dig a little deeper, the phrase and the context of the song serve as a metaphor about poverty – how there are people all over the world who live in incredibly difficult circumstances yet are still expected to put on a cheery face day in and day out.

Making a similar cultural commentary, the second metaphorical phrase appears in the song “Blackout” and reappears later in the show. When the power goes out in the club, the characters start to panic and the lyrics to their song include the phrase, “we are powerless.” In addition to the power being out, this phrase also makes a social comment on people who live in poverty and feel at times as though they are walking in darkness, lost and powerless.

Overall, I thought that the Seattle Rep did a wonderful job of bringing this show to life. I felt that each singer had the power, passion and style that was necessary to truly embody their assigned role. Since I already was familiar with the songs in the show, I found that the choreography, costumes and set pieces really helped enhance the story and advance the plot.

If you are looking for a show filled with passion and pride, look no further than Seattle Rep’s production of In the Heights. However, if you can’t make it to the live show, the Broadway cast recording is not one to be missed.

*All of the information in this article came from Wikipedia

**Show tickets can be found on the Seattle Rep website

***The original Broadway cast recording can be found on Spotify and I have listened straight through many times. “In the Heights”, “Benny’s Dispatch”, “96,000”, “The Club” and “Blackout” are perfect for the gym!