Lin-Manuel Miranda: Scaling the Heights
About the author:
Lin-Manuel Miranda grew up in Manhattan's vibrant and diverse Washington Heights neighborhood, and his background in a close-knit Puerto Rican family has inspired his work as a writer, composer and performer. A co-founding member of Freestyle Love Supreme, Miranda has toured comedy festivals with his group's fusion of hip-hop, storytelling, improv and musical theater. His first full-length musical, In the Heights, began life when he was a student at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and after four years of development, it has found a home at off-Broadway's 37 Arts Theatre. Miranda, who is part of the cast of his show, won the Georgia Holof Lyricist Award at the 2005 O'Neill Music Theater Conference for In the Heights. While waiting for his commercial break, he taught middle school English at his alma mater, Hunter College High School, and composed commercial music for political candidates Fernando Ferrer, Carl McCall and Eliot Spitzer. Broadway.com asked this fresh young talent to talk about his journey from the Heights to off-Broadway.
My earliest memory takes place in a bodega on Dyckman Street in Washington Heights. I am three years old, and walking hand in hand with my Abuela Mundi. Abuela Mundi isn't biologically my "abuela" grandmother, but she lives in my house, feeds me, tucks me in and walks me to and from nursery school. She took care of my father when he was a kid in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico his parents never stopped working, and when I was born, she came to take care of me and my sister our parents never stop working. It's a hot summer day; there's an open hydrant on Beak Street and I can see the top of the Cloisters across the park as Abuela and I walk down Seaman Avenue. Dominican and Puerto Rican flags hang from nearby windows.
The bodega's glass door is covered in Corona ads and half-scratched decals. Merengue plays on the stereo as Abuela Mundi exchanges a wink and a smile with the man behind the counter. We walk past aisles of plantains and canned goods to the storeroom in back, where we see Abuela Mundi's true passion: three gleaming Vegas-style slot machines. For the next few hours, it will be my special job to pull the machine's arm as Abuela feeds it quarters, watching rows of fruit spin around and line up just so, hoping for the lucky spin that will make her rich and change her life. She wins some quarters and sinks them back into the machine. The bodega man gives me candy, I'm pulling the arm for Abuela, music is playing and life is good.
I wrote the first incarnation of In the Heights my sophomore year at Wesleyan University. In the winter of 1999, I applied to put up a new show in the student-run '92 Theater. At the time, I had one song and a title: In the Heights. I was given the theater for the weekend of April 20-22—now all I had to do was write a show. I barely slept, I barely ate; I just wrote. I put in all the things I'd always wanted to see onstage: propulsive freestyle rap scenes outside of bodegas, salsa numbers that also revealed character and story. I tried to write the kind of show I'd want to be in. Two remarkable things happened. One, we broke box-office records for the '92 Theater that year—it was insanity. Two, I was approached by John Buffalo Mailer son of Norman, a senior at the time. He loved the show and said, "My friends and I are starting a production company when we graduate, and we want to help you bring it to New York." I said, "That sounds awesome," went to the cast party and promptly forgot about his offer.
Fast forward to the summer of 2002, when I meet director Tommy Kail for the first time in the basement of the Drama Book Shop. John Mailer has made good on his promise and has founded Back House Productions with Tommy, Anthony Veneziale and Neil Stewart. I've just graduated, and Tommy is breaking down what he likes about Heights and what he would do if he directed it. Two thoughts occur to me. The first is: "This guy is smarter and understands the show better than anyone I've ever met." The second is, "Crap. I have to completely rewrite this show."
Over the next year, while I teach seventh grade English at my old high school by day, Back House hosts at least five readings of Heights in its various, pupating stages. Producer Jill Furman comes to a reading, enjoys herself and joins us on the journey. Rent producer Kevin McCollum comes to a reading in June 2003. He digs the music, he digs the bodega and he wants more. His producing partner, Jeffrey Seller, concurs, and the hard work begins.
Fast forward to January 1, 2007. I'm house-sitting for my parents tonight, writing this essay in exactly the same room I wrote the first draft of In the Heights. I'm not alone in this endeavor anymore: I'm sure our brilliant book writer, Quiara Hudes, is up late tweaking dialogue, and our arrangers, Alex Lacamoire and Bill Sherman, are orchestrating the latest music at Alex's house. Somewhere Tommy is working on script notes, and Andy Blankenbuehler is refining and tightening his incredible choreography. The payoff for me will be in late January, when my Abuela Mundi comes to see the show for the first time. There's an Abuela character in the show now, Abuela Claudia. She plays Lotto every day, hoping for the lucky numbers that will make her rich and change her life. I don't know what I've done to deserve the luck I've had, but while I'm here, I'm pulling the arm for Abuela, music is playing and life is good.
