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belizedeservesbetter · 3 years

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The In the Heights Movie Fucked Up Its Main Plot Point, or, Lin-Manuel Miranda Hit Shuffle on the Plot to His First Musical

and while we’re here, justice for Nina Rosario

(full review below the read more)

(full disclaimer that I actually really liked the movie overall [and this is one of my favorite musicals of all time], it’s just that the bad parts were REALLY BAD so if this review seems really negative just know it comes from a place of love)

Before heading into the In the Heights movie adaptation, one of the big complaints I heard was the movie ran too long. At first I was confused because it’s almost two and a half hours long, which is fairly standard for movies these days, and almost short compared to most famous movie musicals. And I thought that these people simply weren’t ~ musical people ~ so surely they did not understand the nuance of what In the Heights was and could be.

But then I saw it.

And then I understood the criticism.

Somehow, the plot of In the Heights was changed to avoid conflict at all costs.

Like there is very little conflict, and with what little there is the movie bends over backwards to solve as soon as possible.

Which is a shame because this was my favorite musical as a kid. I remember seeing the original Broadway cast and falling madly in love with every song and moment of the show. Seeing “96,000″ and “Blackout” live are still some of my favorite moments in theatre.

So to finally see the movie adaptation, the movie adaptation I’ve been waiting on for years, and to see the plot changed to be as conflict free as possible and lowering every single stake, is disappointing. It also makes the movie feel much longer than it actually is.

The book of the musical was always the weakest part, and unfortunately Quiara Alegría Hudes’ screenplay is the weakest part of the movie.

So right now I’m going to give a general SPOILER WARNING for both the plot of In the Heights the movie and In the Heights the musical, which I’m sad about having to make the distinction.

I wanna talk about my problems with the plot changes, and to do so we gotta break it down into the Three Major Plot Categories:

1. Usnavi and the Lottery Ticket (feat. Abuela Claudia)

2. Vanessa is Moving Downtown

3. Nina Drops Out of College

1. Usnavi and the Lottery Ticket (feat. Abuela Claudia)

In the musical, Usnavi runs his bodega with his cousin Sonny. He dreams of one day returning to the Dominican Republic, but for all of Act 1 he doesn’t actually put any action to that dream because he financially can’t. In the movie, some guy (lawyer? family friend?) is already putting in the work of getting Usnavi his father’s bar back in the Dominican Republic. There isn’t any real conflict here? Usnavi is just kinda like “yes we shall do this” without giving it any real thought, which is odd because literally moments before he is singing about how the store is barely hanging on because times are tough in Washington Heights

In the musical, the next song after “96,000″ is “Pacienca y Fé.” This works perfectly in the show because right after we’re left hanging with wondering who won the 96k, we learn it was Abuela Claudia! Abuela Claudia who appears more in the musical than she does in the movie! They really did her dirty in the movie. She sings Pacienca y Fé (which for some reason they move right after Blackout) and then immediately dies. AND THEN we don’t even find out the lotto ticket was hers until the last five minutes of the movie!!

For the life of me I can’t understand why they made this decision. It is literally the show’s MOST IMPORTANT PLOT POINT. Abuela Claudia wins the lotto ticket, and at the end of “Blackout” she shows Usnavi and he knows she won. Then, very very early into Act 2 they make plans with what to do with it - including Usnavi and Abuela Claudia moving to the Dominican Republic and leaving a third of the money to Sonny. Literally Abuela winning the ticket/showing Usnavi SOON AFTER SHE GETS IT drives Usnavi’s character forward for the entire rest of the show. Every single thing he does revolves around this. So moving this until the very end leaves Usnavi kind of just there. It reduces his plot to mostly being about Vanessa, which, to be honest, is the least interesting part of the show.

Yes, Usnavi has a huge crush on Vanessa. But Usnavi’s character is much broader than that! He’s a young guy who was left orphaned at a very young age and has essentially been an important fixture in the community for a long time. He’s obsessed with memories and dreams and thinks the only way of achieving his goals and finding his true home is to run away. But his idea of running away is essentially running backwards, not forwards. It’s not until Abuela Claudia’s death (which happens AFTER CARNAVAL DEL BARRIO) that he realizes home is the people around him and the community he built. His story ends with him taking Abuela Claudia’s place as the patriarch of the block and finding love and solace with the family he’s built around him. It’s when he finally realizes that by staying he is moving forward.

And it’s the lotto ticket, combined with his and Abuela’s plans that literally drive all of this.

Also, why would you have the huge song and dance number of “96,000″ and then just being like “and we never found out who it was.” That makes no sense? You have this whole number about it just to be like “oh well” and forget about it until the very end? Why bother keeping it in then?

Likewise, Abuela’s death was moved up very early which was really odd. The reveal of her death well into Act Two, right after “Carnaval del Barrio” really lands the perfect emotional suckerpunch because we’re coming off this big happy song where Usnavi reveals him and Abuela are leaving and suddenly Usnavi’s world crashes around him.

Going back to “the movie has no conflict,” Usnavi and Vanessa fight at the club, and then the very next day they talk and everything is fine. They even dance during “Carnaval del Barrio.” In the musical, they don’t speak again until “Champagne” and during “Carnaval” they actively avoid each other.

Also, in the musical, it doesn’t end with Usnavi and Vanessa getting married/having a kid like they do in the movie. Usnavi wants to ask Vanessa out on a second date, but what’s important is his family and community. Instead of a weird fashion show in the bodega, Sonny gets Graffiti Pete to paint a mural of Abuela Claudia on the grate outside the bodega. This is a really beautiful visual moment that I was really looking forward to in the movie that they cut entirely in favor of Vanessa.

2. Vanessa is Moving Downtown

Unpopular Opinion: The movie tries to make it seem like Vanessa moving to the West Village is a Very Bad Thing and when she finally gets there she is Very Sad and immediately moves right back. The musical takes a more neutral stance on this. In my opinion, it’s not a bad thing that she wants to move downtown. It’s okay that she wants to move. It’s totally fine to move to another neighborhood in NYC if that’s what you want. I believe in the musical Vanessa has alcoholic parents, which is another reason why she wants to move. Regardless, to me it was weird that the movie made it seem like the Worst Thing She Could Do when at most it’s a 40 min train ride.

They really pushed the Vanessa being a fashion designer thing in this movie, which I don’t recall being a big part of the musical. I was fine with it until the very end, when she sets up some mannequins in Usnavi’s bodega which somehow convinces him to stay more than Graffiti Pete’s painting.

Other than that I don’t think they changed too much of her plot from the musical, except they certainly put much more of the focus on her, which means they took her thin plot line and stretched it as far as it could go. So. It got kinda boring to be honest.

3. Nina Drops Out of College

Justice for Nina Rosario. Justice! For! Nina!

I can’t believe they changed her whole plot like that, AND reduced her from a main character to supporting at best.

Guys, in the musical, Nina is arguably the second lead. But in the movie they cut almost five of her songs (three that she sings and two that she is very present for) and most of her scenes, while completely changing the ones she has.

First, the big one. In the musical, Nina drops out of college because she is working two full time jobs while also being a full time student and her grades tank and she loses her scholarship. In the movie, Nina feels out of place at Stanford and that she doesn’t have a community so she willingly quits.

This brings us to:

3.2. The Rosario Family

In the musical, Kevin Rosario sells his car business so she can go back to Stanford. He feels extraordinarily guilty for her dropping out and feels that by not being able to properly provide for her he is continuing the cycle his father set before him. He sings the incredible song “Inútil,” which has been cut from the film and I think that was a bad choice. The song shows us so much about Kevin Rosario and who he is and why he’s doing what he does. Likewise, Nina is there to here this. In the movie, he condenses “Inútil” into like two lines of dialogue and says it to Benny instead of Nina. Even though Nina was the one who needed to hear it.

In the musical, Nina doesn’t accept the money at first because she feels guilty. She wants to go back but doesn’t want her family to suffer because she failed her classes. In the movie, Nina just doesn’t want to go back because she doesn’t have a community but ends up going back anyway without any real character growth.

I hate this change because it takes away every ounce of Nina’s complexity and agency. In the musical, Nina actively tried to succeed and could not. In the movie, Nina doesn’t even try. Nina not wanting to take the money came from a place of guilt and not wanting to be a further burden on her parents than she feels she already is. To be honest, in the movie, Nina comes across as kind of a brat.

Furthermore, the movie fully kills off Camilla Rosario, which means “Enough” is also completely cut. Camilla ties the family together and calls out both her husband and her daughter on their bullshit, which is important for their character growth.

Though I shouldn’t be surprised, famously not an orphan Lin-Manuel Miranda is for some reason completely obsessed with making his characters either orphans or down a parent.

And her family is a big part of the story which was greatly cut down, which brings us to:

3.3. Benny

In the movie, Benny and Kevin Rosario get along pretty well? Benny gets him coffee and they’re pretty nice to each other. Benny is upset about Kevin selling the car service for exactly five seconds before getting over it and never really mentioning it again. Like I said, no conflict.

In the musical, however, Kevin won’t let Benny ever take over the car service one day (which was Benny’s dream) because he isn’t family. And he doesn’t approve of Benny and Nina together because Benny isn’t Latinx. This is conflict that is interesting and isn’t easily resolved!! Even at the end when Nina goes back to Stanford, Benny calls Kevin out on his shit!

In the movie, Benny and Nina get together with absolutely no problem. In the musical there is actual conflict that stands in the way of them getting together. There is even a brawl that Benny starts during “The Club” over Nina, which the movie cuts completely.

Also, by cutting “Sunrise” and ending “Blackout” with a quick transition into “Pacienca y Fé” which goes immediately into Abuela Claudia’s death, it’s hard to tell that they got together that night. More so, this makes Daniela’s verses about them in “Carnaval del Barrio” make no sense cause it’s like “wait when did they hook up?”

By cutting the majority of Nina’s plotline and changing what they left, this in tern changed the entirety of the Rosario Family plot line, which ultimately makes Benny’s character just kinda there. He doesn’t end up doing much. Because his character is tied so tightly with Nina and The Rosarios, Benny no longer has much to do besides sing pretty songs with Nina, which is a shame because Corey Hawkins was really good.

Another cut to avoid any and all conflict: “Blackout” is supposed to be kind of frightening! The power has just gone out all over Washington Heights! The movie made it out like it was all fine and good and Graffiti Pete launched some fireworks so it was okay. In the musical, Sonny and Graffiti Pete try to save the bodega from being looted by using roman candles and yet they ultimately fail and the bodega is looted that night. This also goes back to Usnavi and him wanting to leave as soon as possible because he now has the lotto ticket.

Also, Cuca was pointless. Like, you cut Camilla entirely out of the show and add another salon lady who does absolutely nothing?

You know how in high school/middle school theatre the directors will sometimes add a random character just to have another female speaking part? That’s what Cuca felt like. Like I can clearly see a production of In the Heights Jr. where there’s like three more salon ladies because more girls auditioned than boys and they wanted to give them more to do.

Speaking of the salon ladies, I liked that they were a couple! However, if I did not know that going in/knew who was playing them, I would not have caught it. There is a split second where they’re in bed together but if I didn’t know they were Daniela and Carla I would not have known. So, I guess there’s that. I would’ve liked one kiss. I’m a lil disappointed that they said they’d be a couple but didn’t really show it but I guess not entirely surprised.

I actually thought they were going to have Sonny and Graffiti Pete end up together, which would have been a really nice change.

Okay one last disappointing/bad thing before we move onto the good.

What the hell was that long drawn out scene with Marc Anthony as Sonny’s deadbeat dad?? Like?? That was such a LONG SCENE that they could’ve spent doing literally ANYTHING ELSE. They cut “Sunrise”?? And kept THAT??

Also yeah the ending was weird because they made it all about Vanessa and Usnavi ending up together when that was literally not the point of the musical or their characters.

Anyways

The Good

The musical numbers did not disappoint! The choreography was stunning to watch and the whole movie was filmed remarkably well. It felt lively and vibrant and really really lovely! The opening was fantastic, 96,000 was fantastic, Paciencia y Fé was brilliant (but more on that later), When the Sun Goes Down was beautiful, and even The Club was really fun to watch.

And for the most part, the performances were truly fantastic.

Anthony Ramos is a star. He’s got that it factor that’s gonna propel him to superstardom one day. He can sing, he can dance, he can act and he’s charismatic as fuck! He was a fantastic Usnavi! Him playing Usnavi also made me realize just how young Usnavi really is too, which makes his storyline all the more poignant.

Corey Hawkins was fantastic. I wish he had more to do because he really shined in this role.

Daphne Rubin-Vega was amazing, as expected. She lit up the screen whenever she was there. The perfect Daniela! Stephanie Beatriz was also super fun and I loved that you could clearly tell she was having a blast doing this.

Jimmy Smits was really great as Kevin Rosario. I thought he was really stellar and I wish we got to hear him sing “Inútil.”

Then there’s Lin-Manuel Miranda, who, somehow, is giving the best performance he’s ever given as the Piragua man. I don’t understand!! The best acting he’s ever done, and by and far the very best he’s ever sounded was during “Piragua.” The last “keep scraping by!” line of the song made me gasp. I’ve seen him as Usnavi back when In the Heights was first on Broadway and I saw him in Hamilton and hands down this was the best acting and vocal performance he has ever given. You win this round, Lin, you win this round

Though I do have to mention the two performances I disliked, which was Melissa Barrera as Vanessa and Leslie Grace as Nina. Both felt like they were phoning it in to be honest. I wasn’t engaged with either of them. Luckily I love Nina as a character enough that it made Grace tolerable, but Barerra made some of the Vanessa scenes hard to watch.

Also, Barrera didn’t open her mouth enough when singing to match the vocals. Vanessa has a lot of BOOMING vocals and Barerra’s mouth was barely open, which makes me think they recorded the songs after filming? It was distracting. And if you’ve read this far (sorry, I know this is so fucking long) please let me know if it’s just me or if that was also distracting for you.

Lastly, my most favorite performance was of course Olga Merediz as Abuela Claudia. She is absolute perfection. I’ll start her Best Supporting Actress Oscar campaign right here and right now. She was stunning and absolutely stole every scene she was in.

Which brings us to the best part of the movie, “Paciencia y Fé.”

You know what? I can forgive a lot of the bad shit in the movie because Paciencia y Fe was so amazing. That number alone is the reason to see the movie. The way they film it with her walking through the trains was absolutely stunning. I was literally weeping the whole time. The dancing and the cinematography and Merediz’s acting was amazing and emotional and overwhelming in the best way possible.

Overall, I did really like the movie. I know a lot of this is negative, but overall the music is fantastic and the performances are mostly wonderful and the whole film is so fun and full of life

It’s just that I know the original musical so well and know what it could have been

#in the heights #broadway #theatre #lin manuel miranda #review #eh this is long but here we go

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writemarcus · 3 years

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HITTING NEW HEIGHTS

BY MARCUS SCOTT

ORIGINAL RENT STAR DAPHNE RUBIN-VEGA TAKES YOU INSIDE THE IN THE HEIGHTS FILM

Qué quiere decir sueñito?” The disembodied voice of a girlchild ponders. “It means ‘little dream,’” responds an unseen authoritative figure, his feathery tenor with a soft rasp and tender lilt implying there’s more to the story.

Teal waves crash against the white sand coastal lines of the Dominican Republic and a quartet of children plead with the voice to illuminate and tell a story. Usnavi de la Vega (played by Anthony Ramos), sporting his signature newsboy flat cap and full goatee, begins to narrate and weave a tall-tale from the comforts of his beachside food cart: “This is the story of a block that was disappearing. Once upon a time in a faraway land called Nueva York, en barrio called Washington Heights. Say it, so it doesn’t disappear,” he decrees.

And we’re off, this distant magic kingdom ensnared within the winding urban sprawl of farthest-uptown Manhattan, the music of the neighborhood chiming with infinite possibilities: a door-latch fastening on tempo, a ring of keys sprinkling a sweet embellishment, the splish-splash of a garden hose licking the city streets like a drumstick to a snare fill, a manhole cover rotating like vinyl on a get-down turntable, the hiss of paint cans spraying graffiti like venoms from cobras and roll-up steel doors rumbling, not unlike the ultra-fast subway cars zigzagging underground. So begins the opening moments of In the Heights, the Warner Bros. stage-to-screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical by composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) and librettist Quiara Alegría Hudes (Water by the Spoonful) that is set to premiere in movie theatres and on HBO Max on June 11, 2021.

This stunning patchwork of visuals and reverberations combine to create a defiant and instantly memorable collage of inner-city living not seen since Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic The Warriors or West Side Story, the iconic romantic musical tragedy directed on film by Robert Wise and original Broadway director Jerome Robbins. With Jon M. Chu at the helm, the musical feature has all the trademarks of the director’s opulent signature style: Striking spectacles full of stark colors, va-va-voom visuals, ooh-la-la hyperkinetic showstopping sequences and out-of-this-world destination locations.

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A Kind of Priestess

Joining the fray of proscenium stage vets in the film is Broadway star Daphne Rubin-Vega, who originated the role of Mimi in the Off-Broadway and Broadway original productions of Rent. She returns to major motion pictures after a decade since her last outing in Nancy Savoca’s Union Square, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011. When we caught up with Rubin-Vega, she was hard at work, in-between rehearsals with her In the Heights co-star Jimmy Smits on Two Sisters and a Piano, the 1999 play by Miami-based playwright Nilo Cruz, a frequent collaborator. Rubin-Vega netted a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as the enraptured Conchita in Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics; that same year Cruz was awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, making him the first Latino playwright to receive the honor. Despite significant global, social and economic disruption, especially within the arts community, Rubin-Vega has been working throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People around me have [contracted] COVID… My father-in-law just had it. I’m very fortunate,” Rubin-Vega said. “This collective experience, it’s funny because it’s a year now and things seem better. Last year it was, like, ‘Damn, how inconvenient!’ The one comfort was that, you know, it’s happening to every one of us. That clarity that this is a collective experience is much more humbling and tolerable to me.”

The last time Rubin-Vega graced Washington Heights on screen or stage, she acted in the interest of survival and hunger as a probationer released after a 13-year stint in prison and given a new lease on life as an unlicensed amateur masseuse in the basement of an empanada shop in Empanada Loca, The Spalding Gray-style Grand Guignol horror play by Aaron Mark at the LAByrinth Theater Company in 2015. In In the Heights she plays Daniela, an outrageously vivacious belting beautician with a flair for the dramatics, forced to battle a price-gouging real estate bubble in the wake of gentrification.

“She’s like the deputy or the priestess,” Rubin-Vega said. “Owning a salon means that you have a lot of information; you’re in a hub of community, of information, of sharing… it’s also where you go for physical grooming. It’s a place where women were empowered to create their own work and it is a place of closeness, spiritual advice, not-so-spiritual advice. Physical attention.”

She said, “Daniela also being an elder; I think she’s not so much a person that imposes order on other people. She’s there to bring out the best—she leads with love. She tells it like it is. I don’t think she sugar-coats things. What you see is what you get with Daniela. It’s refreshing; she has a candor and sure-footedness that I admire.”

With the film adaptation, Chu and Hudes promised to expand the universe of the Upper Manhattan-based musical, crafting new dimensions and nuances to two characters in particular: Daniela and hairdresser Carla, originally portrayed as business associates and gossip buddies in the stage musical. On the big screen they are reimagined as romantic life partners. Stephanie Beatriz, known to audiences for her hilarious turn as the mysterious and aloof Detective Rosa Diaz in the police procedural sitcom romp “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” co-stars as the fast-talking firecracker, Carla.

It’s been a year waiting, you know. It’s like the lid’s been on it and so we’re just so ready to explode.

Where Is Home?

“Well, Quiara and Jon really expanded on what Lin and Quiara originally created and now they’re partners—and not just work partners, right? But they’re life partners,” Beatriz said at a March press event celebrating the release of the film’s two promo trailers. “What was so gratifying to me as a person who is queer is to see this relationship in the film be part of the fabric of the community, and to be normal, and be happy and functioning, and part of the quilt they’ve all created.”

She continued, “So much of this film is about where home is and who home is to you. And for Carla, Daniela is home. Wherever Daniela is, that’s where Carla feels at home. I thought that they did such a beautiful job of guiding us to this, really, you know, it’s just a happy functioning relationship that happens to be gay and in the movie. And I love that they did that, because it is such a part of our world.”

Rubin-Vega said she had no interest in playing any trope of what one might think a lesbian Latina might look or act like, noting that the queer experience isn’t monolithic, while expressing that the role offered her a newfound freedom, especially with regard to being present in the role and in her everyday life.

“Spoiler alert! I felt like not wearing a bra was going to free me. Did I get it right? Am I saying that gay women don’t wear bras? No, it was just a way for me to be in my body and feel my breasts. To feel my femaleness and celebrate it in a more unapologetic way,” she said, laughing. “To be honest, I was really looking forward to playing a lesbian Latina. It’s something that I hadn’t really explored before. Latinos [can be] very homophobic as a culture, and I wanted to play someone who didn’t care about homophobia; I was gonna live my best life. That’s a bigger thing. It’s also like, maybe I’m bisexual. Who knows? Who cares? If you see that in the film, that’s cool too, you know?”

Stand-out performances abound, especially with regard to the supporting cast; newcomers Melissa Barrera (in a role originated by Tony Award winner Karen Olivo) and Gregory Diaz IV (replacing three-time Tony Award nominee Robin de Jesús) are noteworthy as the aspiring fashion designer Vanessa and budding activist Sonny. Olga Merediz, who earned a Tony Award nomination for originating her role as Abuela Claudia, returns to the silver screen in a captivating performance that will be a contender come award season. However, Rubin-Vega may just be the one to watch. Her performance is incandescent and full of moxie, designed to raise endorphin levels. She leads an ensemble in the rousing “Carnaval del Barrio,” a highlight in the film.

Musical Bootcamp

“We shot in June [2019]. In April, we started musical bootcamp. In May, we started to do the choreography. My big joke was that I would have to get a knee replacement in December; that was in direct relation to all that choreography. I mean, there were hundreds of A-1 dancers in the posse,” Rubin-Vega said. “The family consisted of hundreds of superlative dancers led by Chris[topher] Scott, with an amazing team of dancers like Ebony Williams, Emilio Dosal, Dana Wilson, Eddie Torres Jr. and Princess Serrano. We rehearsed a fair bit. Monday through Friday for maybe five weeks. The first day of rehearsal I met Melissa [Barrera] and Corey [Hawkins], I pretty much hadn’t known everyone yet. I hadn’t met Leslie [Grace] yet. Chris Scott, the choreographer, just went straight into ‘let’s see what you can do.’ It was the first [dance] routine of ‘In The Heights,’ the opening number. He was like, ‘OK, let’s go. Five, six, seven, eight!’”

Rubin-Vega said that she tried to bring her best game, though it had “been a minute” since she had to execute such intricate choreography, noting that they shot the opening number within a day while praising Chu’s work ethic and leadership.

“There was a balance between focus and fun and that’s rare. Everyone was there because they wanted to be there,” she said. “I think back to the day we shot ‘96,000.’ That day it wouldn’t stop raining; [it was] grey and then the sky would clear and we’d get into places and then it would be grey again and so we’d have to wait and just have to endure. But even the bad parts were kind of good, too. Even the hottest days. There were gunshots, there was a fire while we were shooting and we had to shut down, there was traffic and noise and yet every time I looked around me or went into video village and saw the faces in there, I mean…it felt like the only place to be. You want to feel like that in every place you are: The recognition. I could recognize people who look like me. For now on, you cannot say I’ve never seen a Panamanian on film before or a Columbian or a Mexican, you know?”

Another Notion of Beauty

Rubin-Vega’s professional relationship with the playwright Hudes extends to 2015, when she was tapped to [participate in the] workshop [production of] Daphne’s Dive. Under the direction of Thomas Kail (Hamilton) and starring alongside Samira Wiley (“The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Orange Is the New Black”), the play premiered Off-Broadway at the Pershing Square Signature Center the following year. Rubin-Vega also starred in Miss You Like Hell, the cross-country road musical by Hudes and Erin McKeown, which premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 2016 before it transferred to The Public Theater in 2018. With her participation in the production of In the Heights, she is among the few to have collaborated with all of the living Latinx playwrights to have won the Pulitzer Prize; Hudes won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Water by the Spoonful, while Miranda took home the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Hamilton. Speaking on her multiple collaborations over the years, Rubin-Vega also acknowledged having known Miranda years before they would join voices.

“Lin to me is like a little bro or legacy; he’s a direct descent to me from [Rent author] Jonathan Larson, which is a bigger sort of all-encompassing arch,” she said, though she stressed that she auditioned like everyone else, landing the role after two or three callbacks. “Quiara and I have a wonderful working and personal relationship, I think. Which isn’t to say I had dibs by any means because…it’s a business that wants the best for itself, I suppose. […] So, when I walked in, I was determined to really give it my best.”

Life During and After Rent

Rubin-Vega has built an impressive resume over the course of her career, singing along with the likes of rock stars like David Bowie and starring in a multitude of divergent roles on Broadway and off. From a harrowing Fantine in Les Misérables and a co-dependent Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire to a sinister Magenta in The Rocky Horror Show, her evolution into the atypical character actor and leading lady can be traced back 25 years to January 25, 1996, when Larson’s groundbreaking musical Rent, a retelling of Giacomo Puccini’s 19th-century opera La Bohème, premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop. On the morning of the first preview, Larson suffered an aortic dissection, likely from undiagnosed Marfan’s syndrome and died at the age of 35, just ten days shy of what would have been his 36th birthday.

On April 29, 1996, due to overwhelming popularity, Rent transferred to Nederlander Theatre on Broadway, tackling contemporary topics the Great White Way had rarely seen, such as poverty and class warfare during the AIDS epidemic in New York City’s gritty East Village at the turn of the millennium. Rubin-Vega would go on to be nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for her role as sex kitten Mimi Márquez, an HIV-positive heroin addict and erotic dancer.

The show became a cultural phenomenon, receiving several awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and four Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Rubin-Vega and members of the original Broadway cast were suddenly overnight sensations, recording “Seasons of Love” alongside music icon Stevie Wonder, receiving a photo shoot with Vanity Fair and landing the May 13, 1996 cover of Newsweek. Throughout its 12-year Broadway run, many of the show’s original cast members and subsequent replacements would go on to be stars, including Renée Elise Goldsberry, who followed in Rubin-Vega’s footsteps to play the popular character before originating the role of Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

When the screen adaptation of Rent hit cinemas in 2005 under the direction of Chris Columbus, Rubin-Vega’s conspicuous absence came as a blow to longtime fans. The confluence of pregnancy with the casting and filming process of Rent hindered her from participating at the time. The role was subsequently given to movie star Rosario Dawson.

“First of all, if you’re meant to be in a film, you’re meant to be in it,” Rubin-Vega said. “That’s just the way it goes. It took a quarter of a century but this [In the Heights] is a film that I wanted to make, that I felt the elements sat right. I always felt that Rent was a little bit darker than all that. Rent to me is Rated R. In The Heights is not. It’s also a testament. Unless it’s sucking your soul and killing you softly or hardly, just stick with it. This is a business and I keep forgetting it’s a business because actors just want to show art. So, it’s really wonderful when you get a chance to say what you mean and mean what you say with your work. It’s a really wonderful gift.”

Rarely-Explored Themes

Like Larson’s award-winning show and the film adapted from it, In The Heights is jam-packed with hard-hitting subject matter, addressing themes of urban blight, immigration, gentrification, cultural identity, assimilation and U.S. political history. When Rubin-Vega’s character Daniela and her partner were priced out of the rent for her salon, most of her clientele moved to the Grand Concourse Historic District in the Bronx. Her salon, a bastion of the community, is met with a polar response when she announces she’s joining the mass exodus with the other victims of gentrification who were pushed out by rising rents. The news is met with negative response from long-time patrons who refuse to take the short commute to the new location. Daniela counters, “Our people survived slave ships, we survived Taino [indigenous Caribbean people] genocide, we survived conquistadores and dictators…you’re telling me we can’t survive the D train to Grand Concourse?”

The question is humorous, but also insinuates a more nuanced understanding of the AfroLatinidad experience in the Western world. The film also looks at the American Dream with a naturalistic approach. Leslie Grace, who plays Nina Rosario, a first-generation college student returning from her freshman year at Stanford University and grappling with finances and the expectations of her community, noted that while her character “finds [herself] at some point at a fork in the road,” she may not have the luxury to be indecisive because of the pressures put on by family, community and country.

“The struggle of the first-generation Americans in the Latino community is not talked about a lot because it’s almost like a privilege,” Grace asserted. “You feel like it’s a privilege to talk about it. But there is a lot of identity crisis that comes with it and I think we explore that.” Speaking on the character, she elaborated: “Home for her is where her heart is, but also where her purpose is. So, she finds her purpose in doing something outside of herself, greater than herself and going back to Stanford for the people she loves in her community. I really relate to where she’s at, trying to find herself. And I think a lot of other people will, too.”

Worth Singing About

For Miranda, a first-generation Puerto Rican New Yorker that grew up in Inwood at the northernmost tip of Manhattan before attending Wesleyan University where he would develop the musical, this speaks to a larger issue of what defines a home.

“What does ‘home’ even mean? Every character is sort of answering it in a different way,” he said. “For some people, home is somewhere else. For some people, home is like ‘the block’ they’re on. So, that’s worth singing about. It’s worth celebrating in a movie of this size.”

Given the current zeitgeist, it’s no wonder why Chu, Hudes and Miranda decided to pivot with adapting the stage musical for the big screen, leaning in to tackle the plights and predicaments of DREAMers [children of undocumented immigrants seeking citizenship] stateside. In one scene, glimpses of posters at a protest rally read “Immigrant Rights are Human Rights” and “Refugees Are People Too.” Growing up in a multicultural household as a Latina with a Black Latina mother, a white father and a Jewish American stepfather, Rubin-Vega said she was used to being in spaces that were truly multiracial. Nevertheless, there were times when she often felt alien, especially as a du jour rock musical ingenue who looked as she did in the mid-1990s through the 2000s.

“Undocumented people come in different shapes and colors,” she noted. “To be born in a land that doesn’t recognize you, it’s a thing that holds so much horror… so much disgrace happens on the planet because human beings aren’t recognized as such sometimes.”

The film “definitely sheds light on that, but it also talks about having your dream taken away and its human violation—it’s a physical, spiritual, social, cultural violation,” Rubin-Vega said. “There’s a difference between pursuing dreams and being aware of reality. They’re not mutually exclusive. What this film does, it presents a story that is fairly grounded in reality. It’s a musical, it’s over the top… but it reflects a bigger reality, which is like an emotional reality…that people that are challenged on the daily, have incredible resolve, incredible resoluteness and lifeforce.”

She said: “Growing up, looking like me, I got to ingest the same information as everyone else except when it came time to implement my contributions, they weren’t as welcomed or as seen. The dream is to be seen and to be recognized. Maybe I could be an astronaut or an ingenue on Broadway? You can’t achieve stuff that you haven’t imagined. When it talks about DREAMers, it talks about that and it talks about how to not be passive in a culture that would have you think you are passive but to be that change and to dare to be that change.”

Dreams Come True

Dreams are coming true. Alongside the nationwide release of the much-anticipated film, Random House announced it will publish In the Heights: Finding Home, which will give a behind-the-scenes look at the beginnings of Miranda’s 2008 breakout Broadway debut and journey to the soon-to-be-released film adaptation. The table book will chronicle the show’s 20-year voyage from page to stage—from Miranda’s first drawings at the age of 19 to lyric annotations by Miranda and essays written by Hudes to never-before-seen photos from productions around the world and the 2021 movie set. It will be released to the public on June 22, eleven days after the release of the film; an audiobook will be simultaneously released by Penguin Random House Audio.

Hinting at the year-long delay due to the pandemic, Rubin-Vega said, “It’s been a year waiting, you know. It’s like the lid’s been on it and so we’re just so ready to explode.”

Bigger Dreams

“Jon [Chu], I think, dreams bigger than any of us dare to dream in terms of the size and scope of this,” Miranda said. “We spent our summer [in 2018] on 175th Street. You know, he was committed to the authenticity of being in that neighborhood we [all] grew up in, that we love, but then also when it comes to production numbers, dreaming so big. I mean, this is a big movie musical!”

Miranda continued, “We’re so used to asking for less, just to ask to occupy space, you know? As Latinos, we’re, like, ‘Please just let us make our little movie.’ And Jon, every step of the way, said, like, ‘No, these guys have big dreams. We’re allowed to go that big!’ So, I’m just thrilled with what he did ’cause I think it’s bigger than any of us ever dreamed.”

Speaking at the online press conference, Miranda said, “I’m talking to you from Washington Heights right now! I love it here. The whole [movie] is a love letter to this neighborhood. I think it’s such an incredible neighborhood. It’s the first chapter in so many stories. It’s a Latinx neighborhood [today]. It was a Dominican neighborhood when I was growing up there in the ’80s. But before that it was an Irish neighborhood and Italian. It’s always the first chapter in so many American stories.”

#Marcus Scott #MarcusScott #Write Marcus #writemarcus #Encore Monthly #theatre #Theater #Musical Theatre #musical theater #daphne rubin vega #rent #rent musical #Jon M Chu #lin manuel miranda #in the heights #Anthony Ramos

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heademptycarla · 3 years

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∘₊✧ ─ ✧₊∘ ➵ @magslikesmusicals said; HELLO ITS ME AGAIN 😭 do you have any headcanons on vanessa, dani and carla’s relationship? i’m sorry that i’n flooding your inbox it’s just that i love your take on certain things!

you don’t need to apologise at all, it means a lot to me that ppl want to hear what i have to say about these things considering i’ve been sitting on a lot of my headcanons for a couple years but i’ve had no-one to tell them to !!

okay so the age difference between carla and daniela is considerable (like, twenty years), and no i won’t take any age gap slander here when it’s so obvious they’re both in a happy, loving, functioning relationship with no weird power dynamics – but this also makes the dynamic between the three of them quite interesting.

daniela isn’t traditionally very motherly, in fact at a first glance you’d wonder if she’s motherly at all because she has a tough exterior. but most everyone in the barrio knows that daniela is a ride or die, and if you need help she will help you, so long as you’re helping yourself too. (eg. in the original she refuses to help vanessa when vanessa refuses to put herself first above her mothers needs.) like i honestly consider daniela the next matriarch after abuela passes.

so because of this vanessa finds herself coming to daniela a lot, in fact i would say vanessa would come to daniela more than she came to abuela claudia during her young teen years because vanessa was worried about stressing abuela, whereas daniela would give it to her straight.

however, even though realistically vanessa and carla have the same kind of life experience despite their slight age difference (i headcanon vanessa like, early-mid twenties, and carla late twenties / just turned thirty ) carla often tries to give her advice and daniela isn’t afraid to step in and be like “no, this is what you want to do-“

but keep in mind, the second daniela suggests anything, carla immediately agrees. carla could be insistent on one thing one moment, dani steps in and suggests something else, and carla will be like “yep !!!! what she said !!!!!” ( she has the ability to think for herself, of course, but she just thinks dani is oh so v smart !! )

so instead of vanessa having two maternal figures in the couple, daniela is more like a maternal figure (giving tough love) and carla is more like a cool older cousin who doesn’t always encourage the best decisions.

dani is still very overprotective of carla, so if vanessa’s teasing gets a little much for carla to handle, she gives vanessa a look + vanessa knows to back off a bit. carla won’t always defend herself

i already said carla playfully bullies vanessa but dani also playfully bullies vanessa. daniela has been sending vanessa across the street for the most minor things hoping that she’ll catch feelings for usnavi, and carla doesn’t really understand this plan but she’s on board !!!!

#i'm so sorry this is so long hgjfkdhgkjlfdshgjkfdhgkjfdls #also idek if i gave you anything useful i'm sorry ghfdkjgfds #tell me something i don't know ∘₊✧ ─ ✧₊∘ ➵ answered #no me diga ∘₊✧ ─ ✧₊∘ ➵ personal #headcanon #headcanons #in the heights #in the heights film #ith #carla in the heights #daniela in the heights #vanessa in the heights #vanessa morales #also i know u won't judge the dynamic w dani and carla but i know others will ghfjdklsghfdlskj

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vrisbian · 3 years

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So Seeing In the Heights

The pros:

Beautiful cinematography- the way they set up the scenes, the directing, the artistic way to use the environment in the songs.

This isn’t a dance musical- but fuck if it won’t be considered one now. First the entire ensemble was brilliant in all their singing,,, but the dancing and how it added so much life into the show.

I think they were smart in cutting conflict from Nina/Benny- thats a tired concept and it makes wayy more sense for the conflict to be focused on Nina and her Father and how to move ahead.

I adored Sonny and his plot- bc its an important thing to show on screen, fits his character motivations in activism, and gave him more depth. (though I missed his part of Blackout in the musical- it was important for his chara and also a realistic aspect of citylife and why someone would want to leave again)

I love how much the made sure all the charas really felt like a connected family.

It did stand on its own as a solid musical movie.

Cons:

With Nina’s plot, while I understood her reasoning for wanting to drop out (no spoilers but damn that was *real*, I saw shit similar at my school)- it makes the ‘selling business’ aspect of the plot a bit confusing. In the musical she was working and studying, her grades dipped, and she lost her scholarship- so her dad came in clutch. Here despite Stanford still giving her the scholarships, her dad has to sell his entire shop? A school like Stanford gives near full scholarships. Like it removed some necessary real hardship working class kids face when having to work through college.

I miss Camilla, like I understand what they did with her as a plot point instead- but dammit I like Enough and there are never enough older women in movies.

EVERYTHING about shifting Abuela Claudia’s arc. Though she mattered of course, she felt soooo sidelined. Like her death in the musical is the big turning point of the story. Her memorial is what has Usnavi realize this block, where Abuela made home and raised them all up, that is *home*. They gave us the feeling of her as someone who cared for them, but the way that they turned some lines bc they shifted her death- like in Carnival Usnavi basically goes ‘well Abuela is dead annywaays’ and it felt odd. It took power from her and agency in how she helped Usnavi recognize going back was possible.

Besides that- why introduce the lotto like that if it is just gonna not really be a thing? Like it was brought up last min in the end but it felt so disjointed. And maybe its bc I know the musical so well, but they had to change sooo many lyrics to erase mention of the lottery and how important it was. And I know they wanted to emphasize hard work for little dreams, but for me part of the lotto happening was a highlight on how when you’re working people- it would take something like the lotto to accomplish these sorts of desires. I don’t know. Its what makes Usnavi have the tools to leave, otherwise his thing with the DR is a bit too simple?

With that, I completely understand the timing aspect, but I missed Hundreds of Stories, Inutil, Enough, and well all of them. Like some, like Everything I Know, and Inutil they blended in enough plotwise but STILL. Just bc I would’ve loved to hear them.

So Overall, it has to be taken a bit seperate from the original musical. Bc they changed lyrics, order of events, and actual events themselves enough that they aren’t the same work. But in itself it was a really enjoyable show with fantastic emotional moments

#still cried during Breathe and gasped at Paciencia Y Fe #And hey Lin can sustain notes now! He was good and it was actually great having him add his voice into some chorus bc it fit the musical #in the heights

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howiscallmewhateveridctaken · 3 years

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OK SO

In the heights came out and I love it the cinematography is amazing and the music is obviously great but there’s a couple of things I want to talk about. (WITH SOME MINOR, SORT OF, NOT REALLY SPOILERS🚨🚨)

1. A lot of people don’t like that they cut the drama on Nina and benny’s relationship and I’m gonna be honest, I don’t mind at all that they did that because I was never that interested in their relationship in the original so I don’t mind they decided to focus on Vanessa and usnavi instead.But ofc that’s just my opinion and personal preference. I do however hate the fact that they killed her mom and made her dad a widower.

2. at first I liked cuca and I thought she was Gonna be my favorite but then she quickly got annoying for me. Specifically because her whole sex appeal thing was too much imo. She also added absolutely nothing to the movie, she was kind of just there. She barely had any new lines and the ones she did were mostly originally carla’s so there was no point in her being there really. Literally the most she did was third wheel Carla and dani. She was just there to be the “sexy Latina” which there was no need for and a bit stereotypical which idk if anyone else was as annoyed with but ig it could just be me.

3. And now for the more important and controversial thing. Ith is getting criticized for being colorist which honestly, yeah It’s obvious why. I still love the movie but I’d be dead lying if i said I didn’t almost immediately wonder these two things. 1, why whenever a a show or movie is about a Dominican (which is rarely) it’s always played by a Puerto Rican or some other latino of a different nationality (which ig isn’t THAT huge of a deal as long as it’s still accurate but then a again that ties into my next thing) and 2, it’s always a light skin latino. At first I sort of brushed this off and was like “well it’s not as of there aren’t light skin Dominicans” which is true there are a lot of light skin Dominicans but let’s be forreal, there’s almost way more dark skin ones. And if your gonna make a movie about a certain community you better do it of the WHOLE community.

I am Dominican myself and of a darker tone and all my life has been going to Washington heights (where my gma lives) and Dominican Republic (where my other gma lives). And let me tell you that for a long period of time most of the people I’ve been surrounded by have been black, to the point where I once thought white Dominicans were a minority. So to not have usnavi or at least sunny be black is purposely colorist at worst and ignorant at best. (SPOILER ALERT 🚨) there’s even a line in the movie where they mention being descendants of slaves as well as taínos, so then why don’t they show it?

Like I said I still love the movie everything else was pretty accurate in my opinion but there’s also a part of me that’s in no way surprised. I didn’t even realize they actually casted a Dominican (Leslie grace) I just assumed they were all Puerto Rican. In fact I would have been more surprised if they actually did cast a dark skinned latino and honestly that should say it all.

#in the heights #lin manuel miranda #black dominican #jon chu #washington heights #movie #colorism #musical #latinx #latina #latino #latin america #anthony ramos

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usedbooksworld · 3 years

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In the Heights: Finding Home

Hardcover – June 15, 2021

by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Author), Quiara Alegría Hudes (Author), Jeremy McCarter (Author)

The eagerly awaited follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestseller Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s new book gives readers an extraordinary inside look at In the Heights, his breakout Broadway debut, written with Quiara Alegría Hudes, soon to be a Hollywood blockbuster. In 2008, In the Heights, a new musical from up-and-coming young artists, electrified Broadway. The show’s vibrant mix of Latin music and hip-hop captured life in Washington Heights, the Latino neighborhood in upper Manhattan. It won four Tony Awards and became an international hit, delighting audiences around the world. For the film version, director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) brought the story home, filming its spectacular dance numbers on location in Washington Heights. That’s where Usnavi, Nina, and their neighbors chase their dreams and ask a universal question: Where do I belong? In the Heights: Finding Home reunites Miranda with Jeremy McCarter, co-author of Hamilton: The Revolution, and Quiara Alegría Hudes, the Pulitzer Prize–winning librettist of the Broadway musical and screenwriter of the film. They do more than trace the making of an unlikely Broadway smash and a major motion picture: They give readers an intimate look at the decades-long creative life of In the Heights. Like Hamilton: The Revolution, the book offers untold stories, perceptive essays, and the lyrics to Miranda’s songs—complete with his funny, heartfelt annotations. It also features newly commissioned portraits and never-before-seen photos from backstage, the movie set, and productions around the world. This is the story of characters who search for a home—and the artists who created one.

About the Author

Lin-Manuel Miranda is a Pulitzer Prize, Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning songwriter, actor and director, as well as a New York Times bestselling author (Hamilton: The Revolution; Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You). He is the creator and original star of Broadway’s Tony-winning Hamilton and In the Heights. Additional Broadway: Freestyle Love Supreme (Co-Founder, Guest Star), Bring It On: The Musical (co-composer/co-lyricist), and West Side Story (2009 revival, Spanish translations). He is a recipient of the 2015 MacArthur Foundation Award, 2019 Portrait of a Nation Prize and 2018 Kennedy Center Honors. Mr. Miranda and The Miranda Family actively support initiatives that increase BIPOC representation in the arts and government, ensure access to women’s reproductive health, and promote resilience in Puerto Rico. He lives with his family in New York. Quiara Alegría Hudes is the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright of Water by the Spoonful and the author of a memoir, My Broken Language. She wrote the book for the Tony-winning Broadway musical In the Heights and later adapted it for the screen. Her notable essays include “High Tide of Heartbreak” in American Theatre magazine and “Corey Couldn’t Take It Anymore” in The Cut. As a prison reform activist, Hudes and her cousin founded Emancipated Stories, a platform where people behind bars can share one page of their life story with the world. She lives with her family in New York but frequently returns to her native Philly. Jeremy McCarter is the author of Young Radicals and co-author, with Lin-Manuel Miranda, of the #1 New York Times bestseller Hamilton: The Revolution. He is the founder and executive producer of Make-Believe Association, a Chicago-based production company. He spent five years on the artistic staff of the Public Theater and has served on the jury of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He has written about culture and politics for New York magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He lives in Chicago with his family.

Publisher : Random House (June 15, 2021)

Language : English

Hardcover : 288 pages

ISBN-10 : 0593229592

ISBN-13 : 9780593229590

Item Weight : 2.49 pounds

Dimensions : 8.83 x 0.9 x 10.53 inches

#In the Heights: Finding Home

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thisstableground · 3 years

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So, now that Usnavi has sold the bodega, what does he do with his life. Like I know he's currently (in the timeline where you've written to) working at Dunkin Donuts, but what does he DO, ultimately. Like, does he ever find a career and not just a job? Does he ever have his own business again?

so i’ve actually been in two minds about this recently because i previously had an idea of what he was gonna do that i had for quite a while but never felt like writing (job search fic is no fun when you’re chronically unemployed) and then had another idea like two weeks ago, so nows as good a time as any to throw to the audience as to what he does next.

my original option was that he’s like a care assistant - you don’t need college for that, just a high school diploma which he has - generally with the elderly, a lot of his jobs are around washington heights with a lot of people who probably knew abuela and his parents and were around him growing up . i think this would be a really good fit for him just who he is as a person, but there’s also some mileage to be had in him stepping out of his comfort zone and realising that he has things that he’s good at and that add value to people’s lives (which is true no matter where he works but its always nice to hammer certain points home).

on the other hand i also just remembered that benny at some point wants to own his own business. and i absolutely love the idea of usnavi working with him - like, he’s got good business/management experience himself, good with people, him and benny trust each other implicitly and know how to communicate well with each other, and benny would know that usnavi definitely doesn’t wanna be a barista forever so it’s a logical first pick for him if he’s looking for someone to hire. i don’t actually know what the business would be yet, but that’s the very vague concept.

one of the most crucial things about either of these jobs is that usnavi gets back involved with the barrio and the community and all the people, and that he isn’t working for a big corporation, basically all the things that he misses and found fulfilling about the store but now he can do them in a way that’s less exhausting. still challenging jobs, still not making a huge amount of money, but he chose to do them and that’s important. i can’t decide which to go for. i thiiiink maybe the benny one might open up more interesting storylines and character interactions with canon characters as well as having a bit more freedom to roam around the barrio with any potential stories vs being confined to individual OCs apartments for the duration of a shift as a care assistant, but i’m very open to input (also open to input about what business benny would actually start because I Do Not Know A Jobs)

so that’s the options in terms of fic i’ll definitely be getting to at some point, but just in terms of some extra character work i do think that whichever one he doesn’t do during whenever i’m writing about, he ends up doing maybe 5, 10 years in the future or something. i don’t think he stays in one job forever, but they’re definitely career jobs that he gets a lot out of while he’s there and then just changes over when he feels like it’s time to do so.

either way, whatever careers he does first, i also have this image in my head of a much older usnavi opening up a coffee shop in the heights. its sort of familiar to when he owned the store, but it’s not like the bodega: he works there a lot of hours himself, especially for the first few years, but he also has staff, and a level of financial stability that he never had in the store. and when he gets older and tireder then he has the freedom to cut down his shifts a little until eventually he hands off the keys to one of the long-term members of staff (not sonny, sonny has his own thing going on, but definitely sonny is around on an almost-daily basis to get coffee and attempt to annoy usnavi) but even after he’s said he’s retired he’s still in there every day, either insisting on coming behind the counter, or sitting at the same back corner table, chatting away to regulars. there’s a slightly busted piano against one wall that he likes to play. abuelito usnavi’s coffee place is as much a fixture of the barrio as the bodega was before it and he’s very happy there.

#Anonymous #challenge to myself: dont start crying at the concept of usnavi as an old man #with all the happy wrinkles at the corner of his eye and he always has candy to share #has a million stories to tell and all of them are ridiculous #playing his piano and just living his best old man life #headcanons #fandom: do no harm/in the heights

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ruvieracd · 3 years

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Should we expect smut in Rochambeau? 🙈 What is a "turn on" for the boys? Does Lee Scoresby have a romantic/sexual interest?

So...no smut in this one, just some hints of stuff (b/c this fic was originally written for my eleven year old niece who came up with the idea) but that’s not to say we can’t have separate parts for ‘missing’ pieces of the story as a separate work.

We can indulge the other part of your question though.

- Lee is pretty hard for us to ship him with anyone b/c his focus is Lyra. I can’t really picture him putting attention on anyone else, but that’s not to say he probably doesn’t get out and get laid once in a while. He’s just not really interested in a committed relationship right now.

So....Alexander, I’d say his turn ons...back in the day, he probably got laid every week and you know then Eliza was never not pregnant so every time she sneezed was probably a turn on. After his life with Eliza, it’s not realistic to think he took to celibacy. He probably even attempted to start over a few times, but he just couldn’t get over Eliza. He probably had sex though, just meaningless sex. This will shock everyone, but I think he’s honestly kind of vanilla-y. I think at this point in his life, his biggest turn on is love and stability.

Usnavi, of course, has Vanessa and he’s happy. They live together and get to be parents to Sonny basically. Usnavi likes to be dominated. He’s a bit on the submissive side of sex-and don’t forget he has the cheat factor of telepathy so he knows what Vanessa wants. He’s a “Yes, Dear” kind of guy in every sense of the way. I promise you he’s been pegged and probably doesn’t care who knows.

Ruben’s pretty easy. He’s turned on by affection. Not necessarily a ‘dominate me’ (he’s had enough of that in Jamaica), but a ‘please make the first move’ kind of mentality. About to get a little bit dirty from the RACD side (my other fic series if anyone’s interested) but Ruben’s what Alvie calls a unicorn and can basically ‘finish’ without ever being touched. He’s pretty happy and satisfied just to have intimacy and kissing and cuddles and good love making.

Alvie and sex are a little tricky because he’s used sex a lot to get by. Sometimes hooking up with a dude at a bar meant a place to shower and sleep for the night. He’s extremely sex-positive and is more scared of the emotional aspects of a relationship than sex. He does like to get a little rough now and then (get tossed on the bed, held down, tied up, biting) but Ruben’s not totally into that (yet) but no worries because Alvie is turned on by just about anything. Good coffee? Sure. Cute laugh? Sure. SpoilernotSpoiler he’s also really turned on by Ruben being in control of his powers and taking bad guys down.

I’ll attempt Lee, but like I said, I only see him as a loveable cowboy dad. I feel like Lee would kind of like to be dominated and take on a submissive role in the bedroom, but don’t call him Daddy. That’s weird.

@break-so-beautifully has her own opinions (as we are two different writers) so here are hers:

I agree with Alex. The whole thing. He's old fashioned and vanilla. He's never had another real relationship other than Eliza. He's been with other women, but it just wasn't the same, so he's sort of given up on ever finding real love again.

Lee - fairly similar , but I think he'd be more dominant but would not be opposed to being submissive every so often. I think that Lee's primary focus is Lyra and I absolutely do not ship him with anyone as a result.

Ruben just wants to be loved for who he is. He doesn't want to be dominated, but he's not opposed to someone else taking the lead. Also, he's not opposed to experimenting with new things either. He's a cuddler after going so long with people just using his and not really taking his feelings, wants, and needs into account. And he's loyal like a dang puppy.

Alvie is way more sexually experienced than Ruben and that's not necessarily a good thing. Alvie's been hurt, rejected and used which only complicates his sometimes fragile mental state. He's always game to try new things and as such, he keeps Ruben on his toes. At the end of the day though, he's also loyal like a puppy dog.

Ruben and Alvie sort of see each other as their lights at the end of the tunnel. Ruben thinks Alvie saved him and Alvie thinks Ruben saved him. They just work. They shouldn't, but they do. This is further evidenced by the fact that their abilities and control of said abilities are enhanced when their together.

That leaves Usavni. Usnavi is VERY content to be at home with Vanessa. Like Eliza is for Alex, Vanessa is his one true love. He'll do anything for her. I agree that he's more submissive in the bedroom, but he also sometimes like to show her that he can be the protector. I would imagine they have some interesting role play that would probably involve wresting for control. He lets her win. Or at least that what he tells himself.

#Rochambeau asks #Rochambeau stuff #Lee Scoresby #Alexander Hamilton #Usnavi de la Vega #juan alvarez #Ruben Marcado #His Dark Materials #Hamilton #In the Heights #Do No Harm fic #fic stuff

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neptrabbit · 3 years

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So. Here are some of my personal thoughts on ith movie. since this post is LONG, most of the thoughts are leaning towards criticism & ofc it contains spoilers so imma put my bad takes under cut. they’re my personal, subjective opinion, so it’d be normal if you agree/disagree. anyways, you’ve been warned.

The opening song

stage performance & movies are two VERY different media, so unavoidably they had to make many changes to adapt the musical to big screen. One thing they were trying to adapt was the breaking the fourth wall narration in the opening song. they changed the setting of a lot of these lines to Usnavi telling a bunch of kids in an unknown future timeline abt Washington Heights. I personally am not a fan of this decision. the cut between the two different timelines in that 8 min release got me pretty confused & taken out & that feeling did not change much when i was watching the movie either. in the course of the movie, suddenly cutting to future timeline breaks the flow & consistency of the narrative for me, esp since the future scenes rlly aren’t that long. Ik it's for the reveal in the end. I still don't like it.

Choreography

the choreography & cinematography by themselves are hella fantasitc. there’re VERY pretty scenes and choreography, esp during songs. from top of my head i can name a few: the reflection of dancing in the opening song, the running scene in It Won’t Be Long Now, the pool scene (with Vanessa floating on a life saver in the middle) in 96000, THE FUCKING ENTIRETY OF PACIENCIA Y FE, the dancing in The Club, the horizontal dancing scene in When The Sun Goes Down, etc. But a lot of the scenes, esp those that involve group dancing, seems a bit out of place when they seem to take place in the real world rather than on stage. This is prolly another demonstration of the difference in the media of stage performance & movies. I had a hard time to suspend my disbelief, and the movie trying to place some of the dancing in the actual narrative rlly didn’t make it better for me.

(at first I thought for some reason the pool scene in 96000 was everyone’s imagination coming together & was looking forward to it. I did not expect it to actually take place in a pool in the movie & they even used a whole sequence of them going to the pool to show them going to the pool to set it up. So is the dancing in the intro. i did not expect an overhead shot to reveal that it actually happened. Moments like these gave me serious pauses & made me unable to rlly appreciate the fantastic cinematography & choreography.)

bc of the reason i stated & the fact the movie is so centered around these songs & the plot gets cut by the narration from the future, this movie kinda strikes me as a series of well-made music videos connected by loose plots & themes rather than an actual movie.

Plot change

as we all are aware, they made several choices regarding the plot.

changing nina’s reason to leave Stanford from unable to take care of school & jobs to provide for her living at the same time to experience of racism. i’m personally not a fan of this change - i am not implying that racism is not an issue that poc experience daily. It’s just, I expected a more nuanced discussion on racism & identity in a movie centered around a socially & financially marginalized minority group than a few lines of “my roommate lost her shit so her & RA searched me”, “the school board thought i was a waitress at diversity dinner”, “the waiters looked at me in the looks that question if i am with them”, and “i felt lonely and without a community there”. They are pretty superficial considering their impact in the story. tbh the line “when i was younger i’d imagined what would happen if my parents had stayed in Puerto Rico” did a much better job to capture the identity crisis that first gen immigrant children go thru and gave me more emotional impacts than all the horrible things stanford did to nina.

deleting Hundreds of Stories and putting Paciencia y Fe right before abuela’s death. i understand it’s a narrative choice bc they decided to reveal that abuela won the lottery later & make it that Usnavi had saved to move to DR in the beginning. in the changed lyrics of Paciencia y Fe we also had a peak of abuela’s struggle of deciding whether to leave or stay in Washington Heights. which is nice. but putting that song right before abuela dies rlly makes her conflicting feelings unimportant to the story... maybe the leave or stay refers to her dying, but she doesn’t rlly have much of a choice either way, does it. she’s just.. kinda like some characters in anime.. whose tragic backstory is narrated right before they die to get the readers emotional... but in a pretty song sequence... the choreography & lighting is very pretty tho. gotta give credit where it’s due.

Sonny’s subplot. i rewatched the movie and realized that there was some foreshadowing of his illegal status in the beginning when Daddy Sonny was talking to Usnavi, but tbh it was quite easy to miss.. so i was a bit surprised when they brought up Sonny’s subplot when there was only 45 min left of the movie. that was not enough time to fully develop this plot, esp given that time is used for other subplots too. we know Sonny is very aware of the politics & is sorta an activist, but him wanting to be like Nina & wanting to get into college wasn’t established earlier, so that part following the protest scene feels a bit flat.

Other things

I’ve seen the discussion of the film’s lack of rep of Afro-Latinos, but I am not the most qualified person to talk abt the experience of Afro-Latino community. I’m keeping my ears open and learning on this subject.

I liked that they made Daniela & Carla a couple and was excited when i heard the news. The movie itself was not rlly explicit on their relationship tho - there were scenes of Carla pulling Daniela outta bed in the beginning & their dancing. but tbh the fact that they added a third Salon lady, Cuca, who’s always hanging around, makes D&C relationship harder to notice. Im not gonna say blink and you’ll miss it, but it’s pretty easy to miss. obv their relationship has nothing to do w the main plot, but eh. wished it was more explicit.

Tl;dr: i think they have a lot of interesting ideas that they didn’t explore fully so the movie feels a bit all over the place. this goes for Vanessa’s hope to become a fashion designer, Nina’s experience of racism & identity crisis, Sonny’s illegal status. Loved Daniela and the songs tho. Piragua song’s funny as hell. A bit sad they didn’t paint abuela in the finale :(

i am familiar w the source material & liked it a TON but i don’t like it enough to feel nostalgia.. so i can’t go in there with a fresh mind & see it without comparing it to the original, and neither do i hold so much affection for it that i can happily ignore the defects. so honestly i’m probably in the group that has the worst experience watching it

also: pls lmm i beg u pls don’t make a live action adaption of hamilton, pls

#ith movie #ith spoilers #my bad takes

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keepingupwithlinmanuel · 4 years

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In the Heights cast and creatives launch movie trailer in the Heights

Lin-Manuel Miranda started writing In the Heights in 1999. Writer Quiara Alegría Hudes joined him in 2004 and the resulting play, of the same name, premiered at Waterford, Connecticut in 2005 and had an off-Broadway run in 2007. The spectacle narrating the story of the resilient immigrant, largely Latin American, community living in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood finally saw a Broadway run in 2008.

On December 11, 2019, the official trailer for the film, In the Heights, was revealed at a venue right off Dyckman Street—a stone’s throw away from where Miranda grew up and where the movie’s plot unfolds. Directed by Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians), In the Heights is produced by Miranda and Scott Sanders, and written by Hudes, and is slated for a Summer 2020 release. “It was important to preserve the spirit of the Broadway play especially the resilience and the struggles of the community but I also didn’t want the film to feel like watching a taping of a play,” Hughes said at the event.

...

The trailer begins with a little girl asking Usnavi what “suenito” means. “A little dream,” he says. As the words “dreams” and “magic” kept being repeated throughout the trailer launch, it was evident that In the Heights is essentially the realization of a long-awaited dream made possible by the magical perseverance of a community that refuses to be silenced, erased, and invisibilized. “We are in all these colors, all these origins and we are courageous enough to ourselves in front of everybody and say that we are valuable enough,” Polanco declared to an audience erupting in cheers.

Chu realized a part of that dream with Crazy Rich Asians and he is all set to do it again with In the Heights. “There are so many reasons that I shouldn't be up here, so many reasons why none of us should be up here...but here we are,” said Ramos. According to a recent Annenberg study, Latinx actors have constituted only three percent of lead or co-lead roles in top-performing movies during the last 12 years but In the Heights is here to change those numbers.

“Our parents came to this country with their bags and this film is our metaphorical bag that we are passing on to our children,” Chu said. “This film is about Washington Heights but it’s universal. You could be from Washington state and yet feel the love in the film,” Merediz added.

“When I saw the show years and years ago, it reminded me of my family,” Chu said. “I grew up in an immigrant family. The community and the fight to survive and the right to dream was everything to me. That’s the American story. I said, ‘I know how to make this movie and how to express it.'”

He joked of Miranda, “I know everyone’s very jealous I got to work with our Shakespeare of his time. I’ll make a vlog all about it.”

...

Before the evening ended, Chu harkened back to his experience on 2018’s “Crazy Rich Asians,” the first Hollywood film in 25 years to feature a cast of predominately Asian descent. “In the Heights,” with a largely Hispanic cast, has a similar universality to its story.

“You can’t change the world if they don’t want to change, but never underestimate the power of planting a seed,” Chu said. “I believe that this movie is an amazingly beautiful seed that can change a lot of minds.”

“I felt a huge responsibility, but I also didn’t feel any pressure,” Ramos, 28, said, explaining that the producers did their best to encourage him and the cast to bring their own personalities to the characters.

“The fact that Lin trusted me with this role means more than you’ll ever know, bro. Ever,” Ramos said to Miranda, 39, who was standing a few feet to his right.

“This show was the show I saw when I wanted to quit,” he told the crowd, growing emotional as he recounted his journey. “I remember my college was giving away tickets to this show, and it was closing and I hadn’t seen it yet. I went by myself and I sat in that seat, and it was the first time I saw a show where it was like, ‘Oh, I don’t only relate to these characters, I know them.'”

“I saw Usnavi and he’s a guy that has big dreams, but it feels like he’s in this box,” he continued. “His dreams are so big that he’s so scared of them, and I related to that. There’s so many people that told me no, so many reasons I shouldn’t be up here. But we’re here. And I don’t only feel that way about Usnavi, I feel that way about all these characters. I’m so grateful that we got to bring life to these people.“

#lin manuel miranda #in the heights #people #variety #forbes #anthony ramos #jon m chu #Quiara Alegria Hudes #olga merediz #Dascha Polanco #photos

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intheseautumnhands · 4 years

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I don’t have an assumption but after all that musical talk I am VERY curious about your favorite musical? 🤔

I am so sorry, you have just, like, jammed the Ramble Button, musicals are my eternal fandom and one of my biggest reoccurring obsessions and have been for like... at least seventeen years? Longer if we’re also counting film ones?

Which is to say, I can’t pick a singular musical? I can’t, every time I try to narrow it down to one my brain just goes “but what about--” There are too many I love with my whole heart and cry over on a regular basis.

So, I guess... top five? With the caveat that depending on when you ask me, and by that I mean literally the day, that list can change. I am so bad at picking favorite anything and musicals have meant so much to me that it’s particularly bad.

I’m putting a jump in here because I’m only two shows in and the rambling is ridiculous. I’m so sorry.

I eschew numbers because that implies a ranking and there is none. Also there is so much rambling here. I’m so sorry, I can’t stop talking about musicals.

- In the Heights: So very very shortly before Hamilton’s cast recording came out and burst into popularity, my local theater company (who were, I digress to mention, fucking fantastic, I hated my city when we lived in Florida but holy shit we had the most talented local theater people) put on In The Heights for its yearly musicals in the park. (It used to be Shakespeare in the Park, but I guess they didn’t get enough sales, because it switched to musicals.) My mother and I pretty much always went, so we went despite having absolutely no idea what the show was about. And I fell in love. The music is so good, the characters, the story, and part of it is that it hit on some things I was going through at the time, but a lot of it is just... fuck, it’s so good? It’s so good. I get why the general preference seems to be for Hamilton -- I really enjoyed Hamilton! -- but In The Heights just speaks to me. I cry ever freaking time, usually at least three times (Breathe, Hundreds of Stories [it’s “inseparable, they even got sick together”, it breaks me], and the Finale [USNAVI IS A STREELIGHT AND I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS someday I’m gonna write that In the Heights SHC post and ramble about how the end of this show hits me so hard].)

- Wicked: So I was super into a lot of shows as a teenager, but Wicked was my second musical obsession. (The first was Rent.) It took until 2017 to manage to see it live (every time it came around I went for lottery tickets, but never succeeded before) but I can’t regret that because the cast I saw was. fucking. perfect. (Except for Nessarose but I have to admit to having an unreasonable attachment to Nessarose and her, like, five verses in total throughout the show, 90% of it because Wicked Witch of the East just feels so good to sing. Everyone else was perfect and I got to see it from the front row and it was such a good day.) This one is a very emotional attachment to be honest -- it’s tied in very, very deeply with old friends, only one of whom is really in my life anymore, and maybe that makes it hit a little harder for me than it might otherwise, but on the other hand, even when I first got into it I could not get through For Good without breaking down sobbing so who knows. But it’s also just such a great story of growth and friendship and growing up and it’s taken on new shades and dimensions to me as I grew up with it because of that. (When I saw it live, Glinda’s solo in Thank Goodness almost broke me. “There are bridges you cross you didn’t know you’ve crossed until you’ve crossed” hit a whole lot different at 27 than it did at 14, let me tell you.)

- The Last Five Years: This is, like... 40% technical admiration, 40% emotional attachment, 10% that Jamie is in my top five musical roles to sing, and 10% that Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Renee Scott are among my favorite musical theater actors and knock that goddamn cast album right out of the park. But it’s so good! THE STRUCTURE OF IT IS SO GOOD. (I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it, so: L5Y is a two-person musical that tells the story of a couple meeting, dating, getting married, falling apart, and getting divorced over the course of five years. But Cathy is telling it backwards, from divorce to meeting, and Jamie is telling it forwards, from meeting to divorce, and they only ever meet up in the timeline when they get married. It’s BRILLIANT.) There are so many little moments that build on each other, and I could literally write thousands of words just going into raptures about the sheer perfection of the last song, of the time-displaced duet between them and the way it ends unsettled and I love every moment of this show with my entire heart.

- Into the Woods: I don’t have the same emotional attachment to this one - I do cry over it, admittedly, but it’s not the same as the last two particularly, which have been part of my life since I was a teenager and have multiple emotional ties to them. I just think Into the Woods is a phenomenal musical on a technical, story-telling, and particularly story retelling level. The music, the musical themes, the way act two flips act one and our knowledge of these fairy tales on its head, the fourth wall break (I love anything that breaks the fourth wall in an interesting way, it’s a problem). Also, I have to love a musical where I can actually watch the original cast perform. More of those please.

- Chess: I love this ridiculous mess of a musical and its many, many, many various forms and changes. (I particularly favor the Kennedy Center version and the Actors Fund one, but I just find all the changing variants terribly amusing, to be honest.) I love how everyone’s intense about chess and it makes perfect sense in context, I love seeing how things get shuffled, I genuinely and absolutely love the music itself. It’s a mess but it can be such a good mess.

(Runner-ups because I really do fail: Bare: A Pop Opera is not on here because I’m less a Bare fan and more a one very specific production of Bare from sixteen years ago fan. That said, I have more emotions about that one production than I ever know what to do with, one day I will write a dissection of John Hill’s Jason McConnell and then cry. Similarly, it feels like cheating to put Feeling Electric on here but if it didn’t than Feeling Electric would be on here. (It’s the workshop version of what became Next to Normal. I heavily prefer FE. I can ramble about why but that will also be a long, long ramble.) Company is not a mess like Chess, but it’s one where how little variants in the way people deliver lines can give such a different impact, especially of the main character, and I find that fascinating. Rent will always hold a special place in my heart. Though I actually prefer tick, tick... BOOM on a lot of levels. I am a tiny bit obsessed with how Pippin ends. Also with Patina Miller’s Leading Player. And I know it’s a not-undeserved joke in a lot of places, but I grew up on the Cats VHS stage production, Cats was the first live musical my mother took me to see, and I genuinely adore the stage version. It makes me happy. EDIT: Okay I’m not going to mention EVERY musical but I just realized I didn’t even mention Zanna, Don’t and that is a crime, because it already doesn’t get enough love.)

#i... i did not mean to let that grow as long as it did #I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT MUSICALS #I got kind of out of them for a bit which is why I don't know a lot of super-recent stuff #but the ones in my heart stay in there forever #and I've been getting back into it more and more #witchy--mama #asked and answered

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glenngaylord · 3 years

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Neighborhood, Watch! – Film Review: In The Heights ★★★★1/2

Sometimes a movie comes along and meets its moment, transcending its innate flaws to feel more important, more powerful that it may not have been perceived otherwise. In The Heights, the long-awaited film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s pre-Hamilton Tony Award winner, initially had a Summer 2020 release date, but now lands at a time where we’ve suffered tremendous losses and have felt cooped up for over a year. Now, more than ever, we all need a burst of energy, an expression of elation, a reason to frolic in fire hydrant fountains and burst out in song. This film more than delivers on that feeling.

Directed by John M. Chu, who brought a similar effervescence to Crazy Rich Asians, and adapted by Quiara Alegría Hudes, the pair expertly blends the intimate with the outlandish, providing us with a joy machine of a musical, and one in which characters break out into song. I love when a musical is unafraid to be a musical. Full disclosure, I have not seen the stage production, so I judge this film on its own merits. I knew, however, that we were in good hands when the opening number includes a shot of our main character, Usnavi, using his foot to turn a manhole cover into a DJ’s turntable. Ok, movie, I see you. Let’s go!

Anthony Ramos plays Usnavi, a bodega owner in Washington Heights, showing the winning energy, and then some, he displayed in Hamilton and A Star Is Born. The origins of his name are worth a sweet, funny, and moving chuckle. Born in the Dominican Republic, Usnavi dreams of returning there one day for a simpler, more beautiful life. He sees the writing on the wall as his upper Manhattan neighborhood faces gentrification, the DACA children fearing deportation, and his culture getting reduced to stereotypes by a bigoted society.

Borrowing somewhat from West Side Story, the film takes a radically different approach to the immigrant experience. Instead of street gangs forming the backdrop for a story of star-crossed lovers, we get the workers, the strivers, and the talented surrounding a tale of two couples. Usnavi loves Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), who dreams of a career as a fashion designer while marking time in a neighborhood salon. Usnavi’s best friend Benny (Corey Hawkins) works as a dispatcher at Mr. Rosario’s (Jimmy Smits) small storefront car service and has fallen for Rosario’s daughter Nina (Leslie Grace) who has returned from Stanford University, traumatized by the discrimination she faced there. Although bookended by a framing device in which Usnavi tells the story to a group of children on a Dominican beach, the main plot traces the few days leading up to a citywide electrical blackout.

Such as it is, it’s a fairly threadbare plot. The focus here is on family, friendships, and the need for community. Although the opening title number serves to introduce us to the main cast, which also includes the charming Gregory Diaz IV as Usnavi’s cousin Sonny, a DACA kid, Daniela (Rent’s Daphne Rubin-Vega) the salon owner who craves more success by relocating her shop uptown to the Bronx, and the legendary Olga Merediz as Usnavi’s Abuela Claudia. Merediz originated the role on Broadway and stuns with her 11 o’clock number, “Paciencia Y Fe” (Patience And Faith). Miranda, who played Usnavi on the stage, appears here as the Piragua Guy, rolling his cart of shaved ice through the neighborhood and perhaps bumping into another Hamilton alum along the way. Stay for the post-credits sequence for more on that! Look also for a delightful cameo by Valentina of Ru Paul's Drag Race Fame in the big salon sequence. My biggest quibble is that with two competing love stories, the emphasis wobbled back and forth too much, taking away a little from Usnavi’s A storyline. Ramos has enough charisma and sparkle in his eye to carry the film, but a certain lopsidedness prevailed. Even the boldest number goes to our B storyline characters, but with no bum notes in the cast and in the numbers, it’s hard to complain too much.

While the dramatic scenes feel intimate and small, the film explodes with every musical production. Starting on the street, the show stopping “96,000” turns into a splashing, propulsive, Busby Berkeley-esque extravaganza with literally hundred of dancers and singers dreaming of what they’d do with that amount of money. Chu not only knows exactly where to put the camera in his numbers, he has thought through his shots, accentuating the percussive elements with each of Editor Myron Kerstein’s perfectly executed cuts. This film pulsates with energy from beginning to end. Cinematographer Alice Brooks and Production Designer Nelson Coates also add so much to the film by starting with realism via the actual streets of Manhattan and adding the magical during the musical moments. One shot in the film, as Vanessa runs through the streets as huge bolts of fabric unravel from the buildings above, brought me to tears. It serves as a profoundly gorgeous expression of creative desire. It’s easy to see how the seeds of hip hop and rap here led Miranda to his next sensation, but In The Heights has its own magic within the Hispanic music culture it celebrates.

Performances across the board ooze talent. Grace has such star quality and a pure, Disney-fied but lovely singing voice. Same goes for Barerra, while Ramos and Hawkins have enough power and dynamism to generate enough electricity to resolve the storyline’s big blackout. No doubt, Merediz will get Oscar attention, and deservedly so, but expect many more for this exceptional film.

Nothing, however, prepared me for “When The Sun Goes Down” in which Hawkins and Grace take part in a jaw-dropping homage to Fred Astaire’s Royal Wedding dance number, but amped up to 11. It’s gorgeous, impossible, and as pure and expression of movie magic as you can get. I found myself thrilled for the actors when they were able to finally watch the film, marveling at how this studio shot, green screen, gimbal-driven song would look once all of the effects work got filled in. It’s a stunner and served as one of several times I found myself crying for the sheer beauty of it.

Yes, the film contains some sad cries as well, but more than anything, I shed tears because I got to sit in a large theater with only a handful of people, and allowed a giant movie movie to dredge up all of those lonely, despairing feelings which have resided in my heart for over a year, and gave me somewhere to put those emotions. It also celebrates diversity and cultures we rarely get to see given such grand treatment. I can’t wait to watch this film again and again, reminding myself that joy will always win out over heartache.

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poisonedapples · 6 years

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hi hello you are very cool!!! opinions on thomas sanders and all of the sides if you wouldn't mind me asking?

Hello! I don’t mind you asking, and the feeling is mutual my friend ❤️ (Also I probably answered this so late I haven’t checked my inbox in ages oops)Opinion on Thomas Sanders: He is the ultimate, purest gay, and his choice in friends is PHENOMENAL. I love all his friends. They’re such good people. Their smiles are contagious, why are they all so pure? And I know that Thomas of course makes his mistakes (He’s human after all) but he’s like...the best role-model. He’s honestly taught me so much. I adore him and if I met him I would most definitely make a fool of myself 😆Opinion on Virgil: He is my angsty baby. The sweetest little boy that is all bark and no bite, and we all love him. But actually, he was originally my least favorite before Deceit came along. Which is weird because he’s the most popular, but since I’m as intimidating as a marshmallow and am basically a walking cloud with enthusiasm (And CAPSLOCK YELLING), I just can’t see myself in his more dark persona. I still love him though. He is a pure child that needs hugs. I would hug Virgil.Opinion on Deceit: He’s my least favorite now, but he’s not too awful, at least in the original. It’s just that he’s a lying manipulator (I’ve had this too much in my life get outta here yo) and we’ve only seen so much of him, so it’s hard to adore him honestly. But just like every other part of Thomas, he is a dork. Specifically a theater dork. (But don’t take that from my baby Roman he is the ultimate theater dork)Opinion on Patton: HE IS SO SWEET! I’m a sucker for puns, so I always laugh unintentionally at them when I don’t take them ridiculously literally (Like another certain...trait we know) and he has the most adorable screenshots. Him with the puppies is why I live. Although...he needs a break, man. My poor Patton shouldn’t be suffering like this. Let my son get out his feelings, darn it!Opinion on Logan: He is my second favorite because I relate to him the most. His literal sense of humor, the random facts he pulls out of thin air, a severe lack in understanding emotions, it all sounds a bit too familiar to me. He’s also just such...a giant dork, my God I love him. His rants are so cute yet so educational. I wish he was my real teacher. Forever. Teach me how to not suck at life Logan, please.Opinion on Roman: Are we doing this? We’re gonna do this? Okay...if you wanna do this...ROMAN IS MY BIGGEST FUCKING S O N! HE IS UNDERRATED AND I LOVE HIM AND HE IS SO SECRETLY INSECURE AND THE DAY THAT WE DO HIS ARC WILL BE ONE OF THE GREATEST DAYS OF MY LIFE AND HE NEEDS MORE LOVE! LOVE ROMAN! STOP BULLYING ROMAN! LET MY SON BE A DORK! LET HIM MAKE ADORABLE NICKNAMES AND LEARN FROM HIS PAST MISTAKES AND QUOTE IN THE HEIGHTS WHILE DRESSED AS JOAN THATS DRESSED AS USNAVI IN P E A C E!!!...I love Roman a lot.(I think I went way too into detail with this 😆 Oops)

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aceyanaheim · 6 years

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2017 FANFIC YEAR IN REVIEW

I got this from @astriiformes and I wanted to do it despite it being kinda...late. ( I did one for drawing, after all, it seems only right) Total number of completed stories: Two >>

Total word count: Tales of the Clans is 5,532 and On Clarity And Promises is 1,061 I also wrote 50,031 for Nanowrimo that year which brings me to..56624? I think. I suck at math.

Fandoms written in: Tales is from Harry Potter ( more specifically The Dangerverse which is set in an AU world based on this set of fics. With permission of course.) and Clarity and Promises is from The Originals. I did some drabbles for Dream Daddy and MCU’s Avengers but I’m not sure if they count >>

Yes hi I don’t know the meaning of staying in one fandom.

Looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?

I...had no clue I was gonna write this much. But also one of the people I looked up to killed like 30k in day ten and I was kinda hoping to catch up. ( which I knew I wasn’t going to but it was still fun to try)

What’s your own favorite story of the year?

Probably Tales Of The Clans even though it’s really hard to continue right now.

Did you take any writing risks this year?

Umm..I shared some of the stuff I worked on with like...a few people. I spent most of my life hiding my writing so that’s kinda a risk in itself for me.

Writing-wise I guess you can say I stayed in my comfort zone.

Do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year?

I’m hoping to do some things for Stanuary I’m dealing with writer’s block right now but I’m hoping to at least get one done. Also edit the Nanowrimo chapters. I’m not looking forward to that.

Best story of the year? Uuuuh...don’t know? Tales was the most fun to write and therefore the one I was most productive for -tied with the DD ITH xover- but they’re also the least popular so like...I don’t...I don’t have one? Yeah I’ll go with that.

Most popular story of the year? Uuuuh...don’t know? Don’t have one. According to my Ao3 Of Clarity And Promises got the most hits and a bookmark so I guess that one?

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: ….I just got myself to appreciate my own writing so I dunno honestly. I’m surprised people actually read my stuff. I guess the crossover I did of Dream Daddy and In The Heights that didn’t get a single like kinda flopped. ( but like I’m not really mad about it? >> )

Most fun story to write: This drabble I did ( but didn’t publish) about Peter Parker calling Tony Stark “dad” just cause Tony’s really fun for me to write. Tales of The Clans was also pretty fun to write at some points when I wasn’t beating my head on my desk.

Story with the single sexiest moment: uuuuh yeah no. ( I mostly if not exclusively, do friendship/family centered writing.)

Most sweet story: I like to think Clarity and Promises just cause it’s...it’s just fluff about a new dad realizing how much he loves his daughter and how much better he wants to be for her.

”Holy crap, thats wrong, even for you!” story: ….I don’t think I have one?

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters & most unintentionally telling story: That’s...huh. I dunno. I guess the crossover I mentioned where Hugo Vega from Dream Daddy grows up in Washington Heights and is related to Usnavi De La Vega ( from In The Heights) A lot of the stuff I wrote ( or plan to write) is loosely based on what immigrating here with my parents and being a bilingual/ESL student was like. I don’t think I’ve had one that shifts my perceptions of a character yet.

Hardest story to write: Tales of The Clans

Biggest disappointment: ummm maybe also Tales? Just cause Nano did manage to get me to write a lot but the end result was so rushed it needs like a load of editing and right now barely has cohesion.

Biggest surprise: I wrote 50,031 words in one month. ( I haven’t written that much since...when was Hurricane Wilma again? It was A While Ago.)

I’m supposed to tag people so I guess @ariasune @iced-blood and @howtotrainyournana @sinnamon-bum and @queen-of-carven-stone

If anyone writes fanfiction and wanna give it a go, feel free to take it as a tag too.

#Talking about the me #Tumblr Stuff #this actuallly really helped me cement the fact that Woah 2017 really WAS a full year #my brain keeps trying to convince me that it was like...four months #but no a bunch of stuff happened #I say Uuuuh a lot #is for accuracy >>

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otc-dramaturgy · 7 years

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Miranda Monday

This might be the best blog post I make this year, because it highlights the work of one of the hardest working people at Olney Theatre Center, Kate Brittingham, our Props Master, as well as the incredible work of Props Apprentice Grisele Gonzales (G-money, as she is known around these parts) and scenic artist Fred Via. Today, on our second design feature, we’re talking all about props.

Now, I don’t know if you all know this, but there are a lot of props in In the Heights, which Kate and Grisele were working on simultaneously to all three National Players shows. I don’t think either of these women slept for the first few weeks I was here. I had the opportunity to walk the set with Kate and Grisele and hear them talk about the hard work that went into things, as well as some Easter Eggs you might miss. (I’ve broken down the next bit into sections with hopefully clever titles for ease of reading)

"When You’re Home:” A Look at the Apartments

Our set, as featured on last week’s Miranda Monday post, has a second story, in which several apartments and fire escapes are fully functional. At the first rehearsal onstage, Kate and the other designers realized that, from our mezzanine, you can see inside the windows of said apartments, even with curtains. So Kate decided to fully furnish both of these two living rooms.

The stage right apartment is described as being for a “mid-century young artist.” This person is traveled, as seen by the Chinese dragon on their wall, as well as the books inside their table (see below). Their artistic style is Cubism, as seen by the reproduction of a Picasso painting on their easel.

The stage left apartment belongs to “an old Brazilian man.” He has a Brazilian flag hanging on the wall, next to a picture of Jesus, because he likes to “keep God and country close.” There are cigarettes in his ash tray and the photo on the table is of his family on the beach. My personal favorite touch is the monkey with cymbals who lives underneath the ash tray. (I’m led to believe, by this description, that the Cosmo on the coffee table belongs to the actress who uses this fire escape, rather than the fictional character Kate created, but maybe he has a penchant for sex quizzes, I don’t know, I don’t judge him)

More seen by the audience is the apartment of the Rosario family, featured in the party scene. This apartment, which coincidentally is right above Rosario’s Car Service (they have the same curtains), shows off the pride Kevin and Camila have for Nina: her Stanford acceptance letter and high school diploma hang on the wall, prominently displayed. Also on the wall are pictures of their extended family (these pictures are in fact of Grisele’s own family) and a lighthouse from the city they lived in before they moved to the United States (I didn’t get a picture of this, but you can see the frame on the edge of the first picture).

Another small nugget that is hard to see from the audience are the mailboxes in Abuela Claudia’s building. Of course, Abuela lives there, but so do the five members of the creative team, Robin de Jesús, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kate Brittingham, her sister, and Josiane Jones, our Associate Production Manager/ Company Manager. Unfortunately, these people are all living without air conditioning; a box fan is placed in a window. Perhaps this is why Abuela starts her song by saying, “Calor! Calor! Calor!” (translation: “Hot! Hot! Hot!”).

Several of the apartments onstage are also for rent, as shown by the “Se renta” signs in the window; these buildings are owned by Latinx landlords, rather than Uptown Investments, who is buying up the block, as seen by the influx of their flyers across the block.

Stage Business: Working in the Barrio

There are three businesses onstage: Usnavi’s bodega, Daniela’s salon, and Kevin’s car service. Each of these is filled with Easter eggs of their own.

The bodega, for instance, is fully stocked with products, both empty and full, that were provided by the cast, crew, apprentices, etc. The cigarettes on the shelves, for instance, are empty cartons from three different employees, who were having a competition to see who could provide more. One of those same packs of cigarettes is actually full, but sealed shut, because it was accidentally left onstage. Ironically enough, there is an advertisement for Newports on the wall, but there are no Newports available in the store. The baked goods on the top shelf were provided by our finance office, who always have snacks available. Kate, upon watching the invited dress rehearsal, realized that Usnavi talks about Abuela Claudia loving glass Coke bottles, so she bought some to make sure the bodega was stocked with them.

The fridge in the corner of the bodega is the old concessions fridge from our Lab Theatre. The cash register, which is fully functional, was borrowed from Signature Theatre. The Slushie Machine and the Pepsi Machine, due to space limitations, couldn’t be fully realized; instead, there are simply wall decals.

The salon has a sign that says “Cash only,” with a sign directly underneath that says “American Express.” The mirrors inside had to be frosted because of the lights (and because the actresses in the salon kept looking at themselves during scenes). Daniela’s is closed on Wednesdays because the 4th of July, when the salon officially closes, would have been a Wednesday in 2005 (when we had initially discussed setting this show, though we’ve since updated it to 2008).

Rosario’s Car Service has similar hidden gems. The mail, for instance, is printed and addressed to the Rosarios. The mic, which was bought for $9 on eBay, is actually fully functional, much to Kate’s surprise; this is highlighted in “Benny’s Dispatch.” There are papers on the board detailing shift schedules, as well as notes, etc.

Paciencia y Fur: A Story in Animals

There are three birds on the set of In the Heights, one of which migrates during intermission. The first of these birds lives on top of the lamp post near upstage center. The second of these birds lives in a “New York” bird’s nest (a bird’s nest made of trash and all sorts of things that don’t belong in a bird’s nest) on a stage left fire escape. The final of these birds, nicknamed Sketch, was backstage when I visited him; he lives on the trashcan near upstage center, but flies away during the riots at the end of the first act. Scenic artist Fred Via really brought these birds to life by adding bird poop on the fire escapes.

(Yep, that’s me and Sketch hanging out in front of an Uptown Investments flyer)

There is a cat in the bodega, named Fe (as in Paciencia y Fe), who similarly flees during the riot. Fe is electronic and therefore moves at several points during the show. There was a Paciencia, but Marcos Santana, our director, decided that she was “too clean,” saying that she was “an upper East Side Cat.” (Ironically enough, Kate didn’t buy Fe. She was looking at electronic cats on eBay, but didn’t purchase it. Then, several days later, Fe showed up at her door.)

There are also four rats in the sewer. The sewer is in no visible from the audience; there is a grate onstage where subway lights and steam emerge from, but there is no direct line into it. However, if you come to the edge of the stage, you can look in and see one rat sitting atop the hazer, with three rats near him. Kate says, “They are having a meeting to conspire against us all.”

Also featured on the set are two dogs. No, not real dogs, that’s happening in Annie, don’t get ahead of yourselves now. There are lost dog posters hanging throughout the set: one of these features Kate’s dog, Penny Lane, and the other features the recently-deceased dog of Marcos Santana and Nova Bergeron, our assistant director.

“She sang the praises of things we ignore:” Other Odds and Ends

There are plenty of other things to note about Kate’s amazing prop work:

- In New York, it is illegal to put plants on fire escapes. Marcos asked Kate for “illegal” plants and she said, “Like marijuana?” Four of these plants can be seen in the show.

- The payphone, which is owned by Olney Theatre Center and has been borrowed by many of the local theatres, is the only push button payphone prop that Kate knows of in the D.C. theatre scene. There is a quarter in this payphone during the show, but it gets stolen by an ensemble member.

- There are posters onstage for a Dia De Los Muertos event; in the club scene, the eyes on these posters glow.

- The garbage cans onstage normally live outside, in the Bank of America Plaza at Olney Theatre Center

- We set this in 2008, which allows us to use smartphones; the first iPhone came out in 2007.

- The fire hydrant, which is from Traverse City, Michigan, was originally yellow, but Kate painted it black, per Milagros Ponce de Leon’s research; the rusting effect was added by Fred.

- There are a huge number of flags used in the show: three from the Dominican Republic, one from Puerto Rico, one from Mexico, one from Brazilian, and one from Cuba. Kate provided stage management a “How to fold this flag” guide, to ensure that we are being respectful. The Puerto Rican flag was the hardest to find, because the flag commonly sold in the United States is the wrong shade of blue. These “wrong” flags use the same shade of blue as the American flag, but it’s actually much lighter. The Puerto Rican flag painted on the Piragua cart is the correct shade of blue as well.

- Speaking of the Piragua cart, there’s a rumor that Marcos said it’s better than the one used in the Broadway production.

- Two Baby Ruth bars have disappeared from the shelves in the bodega...

- Fred Via deserves another shout out; his attention to detail is massive. For instance, he painted all the graffiti seen onstage, as well as the “Yo <3 Mi Barrio” on the back wall. His work on dirtying the set, adding dirt to ledges and such and the aforementioned bird poop, shows just how much focus went into this set.

Alright, I know that was a long post, but I’m so happy I get to highlight these amazing artists. Come see In the Heights to see everything they and the other designers have done!

#miranda monday #props #kate brittingham #grisele gonzalez #fred via #milagros ponce de leon #in the heights #lin manuel miranda #robin de jesus #scenic design #scenic artist #easter eggs #marcos santana #nova bergeron #Olney Theatre Center #dramaturgy

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