New York City is coming to Barrhead.
Or more specifically, one particular neighbourhood called Washington Heights, which is the setting of the Barrhead Composite High School(BCHS) drama department’s newest musical production of In the Heights.
The production, which is based on the Broadway musical, is set in a largely Latin-American neighbourhood on the brink of change.
The play takes place over the course of three days, in which time the audience is introduced to many of the neighbourhood’s colourful residents.
Among them is the narrator Usnavi, a first-generation Dominican-American corner bodega (convenience store) owner, who watches the joys and heartbreaks of his tight-knight community as they pass by his corner.
“It’s really an ambitious undertaking for us. It requires a high-level of singing, but this year I have a number of students with a singing background who are able to keep up with a lot of the fast-paced musical numbers,” said BCHS drama teacher Peter Bonnema, adding that much of the music is based on hip-hop, however there are also a number of ballads.
He first found out about the play through one of his students who attended Artstrek, a summer arts camp for high school students hosted by Red Deer College.
For those who are not familiar with In the Heights, Bonnema said they probably know about or have heard of its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Miranda is best known for having created and starred in the popular Broadway musical Hamilton. That sucess has allowed him to co-write the songs for the Disney film Moana, and he can be currently seen in the movie Mary Poppins Returns, where he takes over from Dick Van Dyke as the chimney sweep Bert.
Miranda started writing the first draft of In the Heights as a sophomore in college, basing it on a about a vibrant, diverse neighbourhood near where he grew up in New York City in 1999.
Bonnema said he was initially hesitant to put on the show, not because he didn’t feel his students were up to the challenge, or the material wasn’t suited for them, but because of potential controversy.
In recent years, a number of entertainment production companies have been criticized for cultural appropriation and the white-washing of characters by casting white actors in roles that are meant to be from a different ethnicity or cultural background.
What convinced him to stage In The Heights was a 2013 interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda on the YouTube channel THNKR.
“[Miranda] has endorsed high schools of any ethnic background to put on the play as long as they represent the stories of the characters honestly,” he said. “And I was so happy to hear that because of the qualifty of the message and the learning opportunity for my students this material provides.”
To be ready for the production, Grade 10-12 drama students started to prepare in early October.
For the most part, the larger roles are played by Grade 12 students,. However, because of the talents of the group, Bonnema said a number of Grade 10 students have been cast in roles that would be normally reserved for more experienced students.
Tickets are $10 and are available at BCHS. Performances run Thursday to Saturday, Jan. 17-19 and start at 7 p.m. nightly.
Due to the limited amount of tickets, Bonnema suggests people reserve seats as soon as possible.
It should also be noted that due to the subject of the material, there is some mild uses of mature language and situations.
“If this was a movie, it would be rated PG. It is something I would feel comfortable taking my kids to, but perhaps not everyone would,” he said.
