Congratuations to Lin-Manuel Miranda! He will be taking is final bow tomorrow February 15th as Usnavi in the Broadway production of "In The Heights". Miranda wrote the music and lyrics along side Quiara Alegria Hudes who wrote the book. It tells the story of a New York city Dominican-American neighborhood in Washington Heights set in present day. The Tony award winning best musical of 2008 is a mix of hip-hop, salsa, merengue, and Latino music. The musical is rumored to be planning a national tour to start this fall and a movie is in the works with Universal Pictures for a release in 2010. 
Whats up next for Miranda? REST no way, he has just finished helping Stephen Sondheim translate some lyrics into Spanish for the upcoming revival of "West Side Story" which is almost ready to hit Broadway after its test run in Washington D.C. He also is working on the revival of "The Electric Company" for PBS (click the title to see a sample of the show its so cool for kids).
I will leave you with a video. Nicholas Dayton is a young boy who is the "In the Height's" number 1 fan. The cast saw Dayton's YouTube videos of himself performing the songs in his bedroom and they invited him to come and perform the closing number with the cast as Usnavi (Miranda's character). This kid is amazing!
"I'm home"- lyrics from song Finale from "In the Heights"
Hi! I'm Nicholas Dayton's mom. Thank you so much for your kind words about Nicholas. Even all these months later, he's still overwhelmed by the entire experience. Thank you.
ReplyDelete