By Danielle Israde
Courier Staff Reporter
The 2008 Tony Award winning musical In The Heights was performed at James Logan High School Thursday April 21, Friday April 22, and Saturday April 23rd.
In the Heights is a musical centered on a Hispanic community based in New York City’s Washington Heights, and explores the lives of the people, their culture, and their dreams.
The first run of every show always has its flaws: but it’s the mistakes in which we learn from most that brings the next show one step closer to a perfect performance.
In the opening musical number called “In the Heights”, the actors were very hard to hear due to being overpowered by the band. This was a consistent problem throughout every musical number. A lot of the actors were stiff while dancing as well as the characters themselves since, some were meant to be portrayed more flamboyantly, but it did get better with time.
The biggest issue facing that night’s performance: even though most of the actors had microphones, 50% of the dialogue throughout the play went unheard. Two times microphones were heard offstage and a cussword was dropped mid performance.
Aside from this, the important ideas and transitions of the story were still received by the audience.
As for good critiques: I have many. The singing in the musical was spectacular, as many of the students are in choir, and it clearly showed in their voice. The actors were very engaging and although a majority were not of Hispanic background, especially those playing main characters, they did a good job in staying true to the ethnicity of the characters whether it was through physical movement, accents, and a well developed idea of who their characters are in order to make it believable.
The relationships between the characters felt very real, especially during their hardships when family ties were tested. There were many emotionally moving parts that had an impact on the audience.
Musicals are a lot harder than plays: adding singing and dancing also adds more room for error for the actors, and malfunctions for the tech crew. But as for the Logan students who performed in the musical this year, their five months of hardwork and discipline really paid off.
