LV Academy debuts Tony-winning musical ‘In the Heights’

A Tony-winning musical finally makes its Las Vegas debut Thursday — but not at The Smith Center.

If you want to catch “In the Heights” (which captured four Tony Awards, including best musical and best original score, after its 2008 Broadway bow), you’ll have to visit a different downtown performing arts venue: the Las Vegas Academy’s Lowden Theatre.

It’s a long way from Las Vegas to “In the Heights’” home turf: New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood, where its predominantly Latino characters experience a variety of highs and lows during a pivotal three-day period.

Someone wins the lottery. Someone dies. More than one someone falls in love.

If that days-in-the-life mix sounds like some other musicals you’ve seen, it is — and it isn’t.

Although “it’s very classically structured — the format is exactly what you would expect” of a Broadway musical, notes director (and academy faculty member) Megan Ahern, “but the music’s all hip-hop.”

That hip-hop sound makes “In the Heights” a “great high school show,” adds John Morris, the academy theater’s artistic director, who’s producing the musical. Composer Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning score has “that drive the kids love.” That is, when it’s not contrasting hip-hop beats with more than one “heartfelt, wonderful musical theater ballad.”

The combination means “we’re teaching (students) musical theater aesthetics,” Morris says, “without them even knowing it.”

Indeed, the rhythmic score of “In the Heights’” makes the show relevant to the kids, in Ahern’s view.

“It’s the kind of music they listen to.” (Students working on the show’s technical crew even have the cast album blasting while they’re working in the shop, she notes.)

It’s also the kind of music the kids dance to, as the show’s opening title number makes clear.

As the day begins and the street fills with neighborhood inhabitants, Usnavi (played by Jekyi Post) — proprietor of a corner bodega and the show’s narrator — welcomes the audience to a place where “everybody’s stressed, yes, but they press through the mess.” (And if you’re wondering about Usnavi’s unique moniker, he’s named for one of the first things his parents saw when they arrived in America from the Dominican Republic: a U.S. Navy ship.)

Among the other characters populating “In the Heights”: Nina (Aurora Watts-Esquibel), the star student who’s just returned after a year at Stanford University; Vanessa (Briana Lowe), who dreams of escaping the barrio (and her alcoholic mother); and the beloved neighborhood matriarch, Abuela Claudia (Tatum Rajsky).

Overall, about 175 academy students are participating in the production, Ahern says — 55 performing, 45 working backstage, plus instrumentalists and singers in the orchestra pit.

“Thankfully, our kids are superprofessional,” she says. “But it is a logistical nightmare.”

At a recent run-through, for example, microphone checks meant some voices were barely audible above the pit orchestra’s driving percussion, while others contended with sudden, screechy midsong feedback.

None of which seemed to keep cast members from shaking it to Miranda’s percolating score as they performed Thomas DiSabato’s energetic choreography with unmistakable enthusiasm.

With the academy’s various arts departments collaborating on the show, “In the Heights” represents “a cohesive force for our school,” Morris says. “It’s the one time all the departments come together and work on a project,” resulting in “a real point of pride.”

The chance to present a Tony-winning musical that hasn’t played The Smith Center — or a Strip casino — represents another point of pride, he adds.

Although the opening of The Smith Center — and its frequent booking of touring Broadway musicals — “has kind of hurt our bottom line,” according to Morris, it’s also “kind of legitimized the arts in Las Vegas.”

As a result, he says he’s noticed a real shift to be more open to the arts.

Including, he hopes, a musical that has ceded the spotlight to other shows since its initial Broadway splash.

“It’s one of my favorite musicals,” Ahern notes.

After “In the Heights” completes its 10-performance run (continuing through March 8), she may have a lot more company.

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.