L'Chaim

In the Heights creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda married his long time girlfriend Vanessa last Sunday. As a surprise to his new wife, he orchestrated this video (To Life from Fiddler on the Roof) having everyone special to her participating. From the words of Usnavi himself:

"My surprise for my wife Vanessa on our wedding day. All of Vanessa's close friends and family rehearsed for a month in secret, leading up to the reception. What we lack in polish, we hopefully make up for in joy and love. In any event, everyone in this video has one thing in common: We'd do anything to show Vanessa how much we love her.

A heartfelt thanks to all our friends and family who participated. Special thanks to Alex Lacamoire, who went above and beyond on the music tip, Sara Miller, for her incredible patience and choreography, Andy Blankenbuehler for letting us use his studio, and Films by Francesco, for filming and putting this together so quickly and beautifully. And thanks to Jerry Bock & Sheldon Harnick, for writing an unbelievably good song. L'Chaim!"

What a sweet gesture! Best wishes to the lovely couple!

(source: here)

Run This Tour

A brilliant video from the very creative Lin-Manuel Miranda introducing the new In The Heights Tour cast. Video also features Kyle Beltran (the Tour's Usnavi), Karen Olivo plus Robin De Jesus towards the end as Lil Mama. Tons of theatre and pop culture reference keeping you on your toes! For list of cities and to order tickets, click on the link above.

DVR Alert: In The Heights on PBS and Next To Normal on The View

In The Heights


Next To Normal

Tomorrow, Wednesday (5/27), get your dvr's ready because 2 good shows will be featured on tv. The cast of Next To Normal will be making a guest appearance in The View (11 ET/10 CT). Yay! They're getting national exposure! And on PBS at 8 pm ET, Great Performances will feature In The Heights - Chasing Broadway Dreams. It's a behind the scenes look at the journey of In The Heights to Broadway and Tony success. I've enjoyed the other PBS behind the scenes features of Finding Billy and Grey Gardens - From East Hampton To Broadway so I'm also excited for this one.

(Top photo from PBS.org and bottom photo from Playbill.com)

Broadway Celebrity Sightings

Billy Elliot's Trent Kowalik
The Stage door gods were smiling upon us this past weekend. We all went to see different shows but converged upon 46th street. We managed to hit 3 stage doors on Saturday, and then Shrek the Musical the next day. Here's proof of our productive weekend.
Greg Jbara
Trevor Braun as Flounder in The Little Mermaid
Eric LaJuan Summers as Jetsam
Jon Rua from In the Heights
Doreen Montalvo
A real treat: Andrea Burns and her son
Robin de Jesus
Shrek's Jennifer Cody
Lord Farquaad himself, Christopher Sieber
John Tartaglia, a real class act
Reviews of Hedda Gabler, The Little Mermaid and Shrek the Musical to follow...

I'm Home

Follow the story of Nicholas Dayton who's 10 years old and a fan of In The Heights. He started posting videos of himself singing songs from the musical on youtube. Eventually this would reach the Richard Rodgers Theatre and the show's creator Lin-Manuel Miranda himself. Upon seeing the posted videos, Mr. Miranda would comment on the site and give encouragement to Nicholas to keep following his dream. Well, here just listen to Mr. Miranda tell the story himself in this video:

When Lin-Manuel Met Nicholas

Here is a print interview of Nicholas and his mom on their trip to New York.

And finally here is Nicholas performing the finale with the whole In The Heights cast on the Richard Rodgers stage. Dreams do come true!

Reaching new Heights

In the Heights will be making its way to the silver screen. After seeing Mamma Mia become the highest-grossing movie musical in history, Universal Pictures will be producing the film adaptation of this year's Tony-winning Best Musical.
The musical's creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, is expected to reprise his leading role. Book writer Quiara Alegria Hudes will also write the screenplay.

Variety also reports that the studio and producer Marc Platt are in the very early stages of turning another Broadway box-office smash, Wicked, into a feature film.