Get ready to dance in your seats. The Royal Crown Players of Roslyn High School brings the energetic, Spanish-infused Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights to the Roslyn High School Auditorium on Thursday, March 26, Friday, March 27 and Saturday, March 28.
The musical, which closes the dramatic club’s 74th season in dramatic fashion tells the universal story of a Manhattan neighborhood, on the brink of change, full of hopes, dreams and pressures where sometimes the biggest struggles can be deciding which traditions you take with you and which you leave behind.
At the center of it stands Usnavi (Daniel Golden), the young owner of a run-down bodega, selling coffee and Lotto tickets, at least whenever a power outage hasn’t shut his store down or the local graffiti artist, Graffiti Pete (Ryan Gomez) hasn’t marked it up. He must also keep an eye on his younger, mischievous cousin Sonny (Trevor Cox). Usnavi dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic with his Abuela Claudia (Maya Gordon), who raised him, but he also dreams of getting the beautiful Vanessa to notice him.
Beauty shop owner Daniela (Star Alex) is being pushed out of her shop by rising rents and is relocating to the Bronx. Vanessa (Casey Landman), who works for her, lives with an alcoholic mother and dreams of getting out of the barrio and getting an apartment downtown, but cannot afford it. Meanwhile, Nina (Arielle Popick) is back from Stanford University with some bad news for her parents (played by Adam Heitner and Carly Chapman), who own a small taxi and limousine business.
She’s lost her scholarship, dropped out of school and, even more distressing for them, fallen for Benny (Daveen Rim), a good-natured and ambitious employee of theirs with distinct disadvantages—he’s not from the same cultural background and his prospects aren’t exactly Ivy League. Other members of the barrio community include the Piragua boy (Joshua Fried) and Carla, a confused salon worker (Carly Heitner).
Members of the ensemble include Rose Verde, Sydney Sirota, Isabella Soffer, Adam Grunther, Bryn Goldstein, Jonathan Lin, Arielle Waxman, Griffin Berkenfeld, Ethan Haber, Kelly Frank, Caroline Aruanno and Maya Behiri. The dance ensemble includes Justin Bash, Evan Chait, Taylor Freeman, Hannah Friedman, David Futoran, Brittney Katz, Julienne Halperin, Carly Horowitz, Jordan Hurwitz, Miranda Ma, Saree Mansbach, Alex Mines, Helena Pearlmutter and Sibo Wang. The Pit orchestra members are Alexa Schaffer, Nick Furci, Alyssa Rust, Brandon Tepper and Josh Levenstein.
“It’s about finding your journey”, said Brad Frey, the show’s director. “Much like past RCP productions such as Ragtime and Fiddler on the Roof, which spoke to their respective generations and culture collisions, this musical continues the portrayal of young people and the elders with their struggles of traditions, dreams and anxieties.”
Along with direction and music direction from Frey, the creative team includes Mardi Braun (production and costumes), Eric Chocianowski (set design and construction), Samantha Steinhart and Tara Berkowitz (choreography) and Josh Azoulay (lighting design).
The stage manager is Trevor Cox and Rebecca Golden is the assistant stage manager. The lighting chiefs are Ben Heyman and Daniel Pritzker. Other chiefs include Anna Ben-Levy (costumes), Jordan Curtis (shop foreman), Evan Mester and Arielle Waxman (properties), Maya Gordon (assistant music director), Maya Kahane (photography) and Max Novick (videography), Maura Intemann (sound and set construction), Victoria Schiffer (house manager and set construction) and Samia Mustafa and Grace Oh (set decoration). The business manager is Basia Kurlender assisted by Bianca Rabbie. The box office manager is Adam Heitner.
In The Heights will be performed on March 26 at 3:30 p.m., March 27 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 28 at 7:30 p.m. All performances will take place in the Roslyn High School Auditorium.
To reserve tickets, call the RCP Box Office at 516-801-5156 or order online by visiting www./.rcp.roslynschools.org/ or email rcp@roslynschools.org. Ticket prices are $12 for adults and $10 for students. Roslyn Gold Card members can see the Thursday matinee for free.
