March 2–5 & 9–12, 2017

Stuart Theatre

Music and Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Book by Quiara Algería Hudes ’04 MFA.

Conceived by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Directed by Sarah d’Angelo.

In The Heights tells the universal story of a vibrant Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican community in New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood—a place where the coffee from the bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open, and the streets explode with the songs and rhythms of three generations. It’s a community on the brink of change, full of hopes, dreams, and pressures, where the biggest struggles can be deciding which traditions you take with you, and which ones you leave behind. In The Heights is the winner of the 2008 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Score, Best Choreography, and Best Orchestrations.

The show was conceived, and the music and lyrics were written by, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Miranda is perhaps best known today as the creator of Hamilton, which won 11 Tony Awards in 2016 including Best Musical. The book for the show was written by Quiara Alegría Hudes, a Brown University alum who earned her MFA in Playwriting in 2004. Hudes won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Water by the Spoonful, which was also produced by Brown Theatre in 2013 directed by Department Chair and Associate Professor Patricia Ybarra.

This year’s performance season at Brown Theatre grew out of ongoing conversations on campus at Brown University about issues of diversity and inclusion. Sock & Buskin, the student-faculty board that selects the Brown University Theatre season, wanted to represent this conversation through their choice of plays, writers, directors, and casting. The season aims to reflect the strengths and the challenges that students face in making contemporary performances that embrace diversity and can effect social change. In this moment of political change and unrest, this story reminds us of the common strength we can find in community and gives us a renewed sense of the possibility of creating a new world of hope, compassion, and joy.

In The Heights ran March 2 to 12 in Stuart Theatre on the main campus at Brown University (75 Waterman Street, Providence, RI 02912). Performances took place Thursday through Saturday at 8pm, with matinees at 2pm on Sundays. Appropriate for middle school students and above. The production at Brown Theatre featured a full band of twelve musicians, all students at Brown University.

Produced by Sock & Buskin and Brown University Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies.