Opening Up: “In the Heights”

There is no point in a stage musical more important than the opening number. Consider it as an introductory paragraph, establishing everything that the audience will need to know about the next two hours. What is the show about? Who is our protagonist? On paper, this is pretty easy to do, but over centuries of artists playing with music, the way to make the audience care becomes more difficult. You can’t just say that this is In the Heights, and we’re going to be spending some time watching a shop-keep named Usnavi deal with his everyday life. There has to be something more in store, literally.

What makes creator Lin-Manuel Miranda’s vision more vibrant is that he’s not simply creating an opening song. Along with the juggernaut Hamilton, one can write a dissertation on the opening song of In the Heights, whether it be about the creative fusion of sound, the lyrical wit, or the way that he introduces characters. The opener is an all-timer bragging rights contender in the opening song department. Over seven minutes he achieves everything that one would need to make this world come to life, and so much more.

By the end of those seven minutes, the audience comes away with an understanding not only of who Usnavi is but the extensive cast of characters. This is more ambitious than every significant musical with an extensive cast. Even major works like Les Miserables that rely on epic scopes start small, centralizing the themes in a few choice characters. Miss Saigon’s “The Heat is On in Saigon” may have a crowded stage of characters, but it’s about finding our three central leads’ place in this exploitation of Vietnamese culture. One of the few significant shows that arguably matches and surpasses In the Heights in its opening number is Ragtime, which charts the cross-section of American lives at the start of the 20th century. Even then, the big difference is that In the Heights is not designed like an epic at all.

In the Heights is a depiction of everyday life in Washington Heights, New York reflecting the lives of its diverse residents. The question ultimately becomes how you want to represent a community defined by so many different backgrounds coming together to live out their American Dream™. It’s not necessarily glamorous, but given that these myths often start with the idea that people worked their way up from the bottom, it makes sense to start here and having that gleam of hope in their eye. Even if it’s just paying rent, Miranda treats it like the driving force behind this story which will feature an entire number about winning the lottery (“$96,000”). It’s a story about bettering the community, so why not include them all in the opening number?

Walking towards the center of the stage, Usnavi opens the show accompanied with nothing but a clave, itself symbolic of the sparseness of the early morning air and the echoing nature of the grate that he pulls up on his store. Lyrically, he introduces the show with a fairly brilliant exchange:

Lights up on Washington Heights up at the break of day

I wake up and I got this little punk I gotta chase away

Pop the grate at the crack of dawn

Sing while I wipe down the awning

Hey y’all good morning

Before Usnavi has so much as introduced himself, there is a playful awareness of theater both in breaking the fourth wall and a rhyme progression that builds to a friendly hello. At the start is “Lights up,” itself a clever play on theater. There’s a suggestion that Usnavi is a dreamer, choosing to envision his life as this big elaborate musical. Within those six words, there are interior rhyme schemes: lights up/Heights up, on/Washington. It the sort of moment that asks the audience to look closer, noticing how many intricate details will happen. Before the musical fusion of salsa, hip-hop, and Broadway appears Miranda is already asking the listener to pick up on small details. He even later jokes that he’s going to test us later, as if playfully acknowledging how overwhelmingly packed these seven minutes are.

From there he introduces time and place, popping the grate at the crack of dawn. Then, in one of the more clever parts of the songs, he uses an evolving rhyme scheme that starts with day/away before shifting to the first syllable for away/dawn and moving to dawn/awning before ending with “Hey y’all, good morning.” The rhyme scheme is a lot like the show, which is unorthodox for big Broadway shows. There haven’t been too many shows that embrace non-white perspectives, let alone in stories that aren’t based in fantasy or history. This is, of course, before the song actually introduces any real Latin flavor or characters.

Due to the number of characters that appear throughout the song, their rundowns will be brief. Most of them will appear for only a few lines, interacting with Usnavi in ways that are not unlike a busy city street. The clave is eventually accompanied by other instruments that will include piano, horns, and even record scratches. Depending on who is singing, the instruments shift. Despite the chorus being a bombastic Broadway chorus full of ensemble singing, it’s infused with salsa and harmonies that create the great unifier. While everyone gets their own musical motif, they all return to Usnavi’s ever-changing minimalism. This isn’t the orchestral sound of traditional Broadway. It’s something more modern, and that’s exactly how In the Heights was designed. In 2008, there weren’t many shows like it, and Miranda was taking advantage of it.

Now that time and place have been established followed by a friendly introduction, the show doesn’t jump right into Usnavi’s story. It starts with the first passerby, the seemingly insignificant Piragua Guy. Much like Usnavi, they’re out there early trying to sell to the public. There’s a chumminess, an acknowledgment of how hard it is to deal with the daily grind. What makes it more impressive is that it’s the first use of Spanglish throughout the show. It’s not translated or altered for general audiences. This is their daily lives and thankfully those who don’t speak the language can presume intent based on action. It’s a show about trying to feel financially stable, and choosing to start with two characters often deemed lowly in the public eye helps to create an empathetic core to everyone else’s struggles.

Throughout the first passage of Usnavi’s verse, the store is opening up and in a sense, he’s opening up to the audience. His choice to acknowledge that his syntax is highly complicated is one of the first examples of hip-hop infusion. The melody has sped up as he fantasizes about returning to the Dominican Republic, rhyming it with “I’m jealous of it.” There’s an injection of Caribbean slang with “Fo!” as he talks about how the milk has gone bad and that it’s a hot summer. Given the sympathetic introduction, the audience wants to see him succeed and overcome these small obstacles, which slowly become more and more symbolic of a wise-talking over-achiever clerk.

Abuela Claudia shows up and gives him advice on how to fix the milk problem. It’s also the first moment of many that references lottery tickets as she kisses it for good luck. He proceeds to provide some background about Abuela being like a mentor figure in his life, showing the bond of community. Following the chorus, Kevin Rosario enters with a harmonious “Good morning, Usnavi” as Usnavi responds “Pan caliente, café con leche.” The shift between English and Spanish continues throughout the show, sometimes featuring singers trading lines in a way akin to posse raps. Camila enters and reflects the ways that the community supports each other by inviting him to dinner. 

Following an exchange between Daniela and Carla about working at the next-door beauty salon, Sonny enters sayings “Chillax! You know you love me.” In a brief exchange, there is enough to show Usnavi’s relation to Sonny while reflecting their individual identities, as it’s doubtful that Usnavi would ever say chillax. It’s during this time that Usnavi also has one of his most exciting moments, shifting from rap to something more samba based where he runs down a series of items he sells including “I got it, you want a box of condoms? What kind?/That’s two quarters, two quarter waters/The New York Times.” It reflects that the day is starting to wake up, growing faster and faster. There’s more energy than there was even a minute ago.

Benny stops by with one of the best lines in the show “You ain’t got no skills.” While Usnavi and Benny are friends, it’s clear that Benny has had more personal success. Still, they know each other very well as Benny’s lines are interrupted by Usnavi as he is given things like Milky Way and Daily News. So far there’s been a handful of customers, each presented with their own identities often with nothing more than personal music pieces. The light piano motif recalls early hip-hop, suggesting a friendship going back many years. This is before Vanessa shows up and Benny tells Usnavi to ask her out, reflecting how nervous Usnavi is when it comes to love.

Of course, Vanessa’s own arc has its own flavor. Her first line includes 27 uses of the word “No,” presented in a poppier fashion, creating a catchy hook as she shifts to choppy lines as if trying to lay everything out clearly for the person she is talking on the phone to. She is desperately pleading to “Mr. Johnson” to wait for his money, which is “locked in a box in the bottom of my closet.” Despite these stories not yet overlapping, they coexist in the song as Benny is still egging Usnavi on, reflecting how interior every characters’ life is. There is an understanding of the dynamic that will continue to grow throughout the show.

From here the song goes into its close. Usnavi talks about being frozen to his seat as he observes everyone moving around him. In this moment of silence, he thinks about how he can get a better life, which by this point is very clear. He’s stuck working at a corner store where everything is busted down. Who would want to keep this lousy job? Everyone is striving for money, entering the lottery trying to get that little further ahead. What’s cleverly depicted in the subtext is that the community is so exciting and supportive. Who would want to leave that behind?

Throughout the various iterations of the chorus, lines reflect the various ways that the people in Washington Heights try to survive. This isn’t just Usnavi living his dream from behind a counter. These are people we barely know or, in a few cases, don’t get full backstories for. This is the ensemble’s chance to reflect how everyone has their own aspirations and came to this country and this location seeking a better opportunity. At times Usnavi’s singing feels at odds with the ensemble both to emphasize his personal struggles but also to show how he’s fighting to rise above the crowd and be something more than another immigrant who didn’t make it. It’s the hope of In the Heights, it’s the hope that Miranda brings to this piece of theater that has given thousands a chance to play more three dimensional characters than what theater has offered them.

By the close of these seven minutes, as the ensemble sings “In Washington Heights!” the question returns: What is this show about? There’s a dizzying amount of content to parse through here. It is likely that those entering the song for the first time may not fully understand everything that just happened. It’s hard to know that every one of these characters will play a significant role in the story. In general, a musical focuses on a handful of characters (maybe five or six), but here the audience gets a whole neighborhood’s worth, all intersecting at Usnavi’s corner store, where even Piragua Guy adds something important to the story.

What’s brilliant is that Miranda at least knows how to emphasize diversity. Musically it’s most obvious as he’s mixing instrumentation and making small moments hold deeper weight. Before he gives the verse about Abuela, there is an understanding of how much she cares about Usnavi. Before Sonny gets more than a line out, audiences know how playfully antagonistic he is. Even Benny feels like he has years with Usnavi simply by being interrupted. Every character has something unique that they bring to the structure of the song, and Miranda makes it work. Also, doing that within the confines of a big Broadway chorus is even more amazing, reflecting just how seismic of a shift the show to follow would seem, managing to be both small and intimate but a big celebration of an identity rarely seen this authentically onstage.

In the realm of opening numbers, this was an introduction to the career of Miranda that promised big things. It wasn’t enough to give Usnavi a solo where he whistles on the way to work. This needed to be a shameless jam, creating a world that feels as populated as any street corner, where everyone is pushing around each other trying to get to work. The way that it builds to the triumphant final chorus is an astounding achievement that makes the show feel like it’s slowly coming alive. It starts with a small clave (actually, there’s a brief passage involving a tagger and boombox music but it’s not included in the song) and comes to encapsulate so much that proves how exciting America as a country can be when these voices are allowed to thrive.

So what is In the Heights? It’s what theater should’ve been all along. While there has been an appreciable amount of acceptance in the stories told, this is evidence that there’s room to grow. Everyday life can be this musical, this fantasy that opens with the silly “Lights up!” trope and reflect how everyone in this country is a dreamer. They all want to be heard. Even then, there’s a friendliness and community. Even if the audience doesn’t come away remembering too many names, they’ll at least know what this show is about. In that regard, it’s one of the most successful opening numbers ever conceived. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s very, very catchy and the start of a very fun show with even more enjoyable tracks to follow.