"In The Heights" Pt. 2 at BroadwayCon '18 with Lin Manuel Miranda #bwaycon2018

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] anyone else remember in your the soul well Lincoln had earlier amazing version of fire escape to but I got to hear me out we couldn't figure it out and song ended up getting cut so there was stuck there but then I went outside and my water broke and had a baby that sing in [Applause] Finnish let me speak my mind cause life's too short to hang up and leave things upset stander goes to talk about so hear me yeah that song exists because Chris was like where's my to solo where's my actors like three years one of them one of the few well the few times that I don't know if I'm sure they're way more but one of the few times that I know I genuinely made Linda really kind of bad at me is that I kept badgering there Michael said that actors I would I would button every phone conversation that we have we weren't even and then you decided to put my picture on Twitter like that now yes we do it's the bass what else what else Jimbo got the longest memory because you have like the old man like snippets up amid my greens that's fine yeah not no that's right Andre is not here she's very sorry not to be here [Music] [Music] bowling [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] I actually lived through all this change and I kept going to rehearsals Carol and Amanda the plot changed significantly scenes in the heights we saw at Wesleyan to the in the heights we saw on Broadway what was the discussions between the two of you and Tommy and others to begin to change the plot as much as it did the essence stayed the same so a lot of the songs that that were in that script that Lynn gave me remaining I want a finale a song 96,000 was in there the opening was was in there so a lot of it remained the salon ladies had their song I think we changed some of what the gossip was but you know when I got it the script was what I what I felt it was about on first reading here's what I loved it is that it was it wasn't about one person it was really about community and except for that the plot kept kind of a little bit distracting away from that essence you know there was some rent elements in it there was there was a love triangle and so we I was just like when we met at that diner I was like to me this is a story about not one character what happened was the love triangle or something like that this is a story about what happens to a community as a group as they rise to fall together and I think I wasn't telling him anything he didn't know it was just like so are we are we game for that and that is how ultimately the character of Lincoln fell away the character of these three businesses like pitching it as three businesses actually felt like a new focus you know they were in there but it's like you know one of them is about to fold one of them is moving location you know so so that's story that melts me like to be emerged from what was already there I'll never forget the first time you met at the market cafe and I've never told you this story but I think Tommy Knight met two other potential book writers and then when he met you he was like yeah you really gotta meet her and joel fuhrman was like yeah you really got a mirror and i remember he's so excited that you've got the show like you just got it she's like what what needed to happen so well that I think goodbye dear I hugged you went down into the train station at 42nd Street and then came up another stairway so I could call Tommy I couldn't wait to get you off 273 which is like where I live you know but but the I was fake goodbye ed and so honored but really it's like what I have learned what I learned with this musical and with my writing since then is you know you can kind of outline and plan but the magic really happens in the organic discoveries when you're making the thing because in an outline something a work but what happens when you're writing it and something really magical starts tapping on your shoulder over here and so like the my favorite discoveries I remember in our writing process one of my favorites was is the finale because I don't even remember how it started but I just remember being like I would write like okay but snobby is on the stupid and it write it out in dialogue and he he's not gonna leave he's not gonna leave oh my god writing it out dialogue and then we're all Alex laughs next day to the next Nina song whatever that was at the time but I was like guys if I had this I here for the finale and then like giving that to Lynne and then the next time we met for some other reason it was like I wrote it I wrote it I wrote the finale and just these organic discoveries coming out of just handing it was doing that particular workshop Veronica with Veronica Veronica was doing Daniela at that point but that's your progress that's your process though because in the show I've been around you you always write so well under pressure like I got to change this and I it's so good oh my god he's just like his mother yeah like from from being in it I remember when hear me I was I was like upset I was like why you have to give me a reason it's like I felt like people were breaking up and and and I was like this is so good and I just I'd one thing I remembered from the transition was like that you guys have so many good scenes there's like it doesn't make sense why are we doing this and then it like kind of comes to fruition looks like man I wish two guys really could like heard and seen the scenes that they wrote because they were just as amazing and but you always are writing under pressure and I think that's really that's I think that's how you write best sometimes you know that was also some of the most fun like this the last time to go in the show was the peanut rubber trees pretty soon the whole show on Broadway and we're like man I to me it's like one break like I will have died selling businesses me like you were me or how like sir Tommy I don't know who said like what happened on a break in tech it was like okay meanwhile the Vanessa snobby song off Broadway was beautiful but it was just really suck it was as sad as as everything else it was a really heartfelt goodbye we needed a break we need like a little levity and so I thought okay he's got the champagne but like he can't get it off cause he can't get the cap off the whole scene and and so we're in rehearsals everyone flirting the opening number and I have walking around with a bottle of champagne I mean have you talked about the authenticity in the heights that sort of captured his role olga spoke about how difficult it was to sing away like Claudia calor every single night and sort of the amount of emotional energy involving that can you talk about other moments in souls that you interpreted where it really took an emotional toll in doing this then you could start everything ever for me breathe personal song because I well the whole character I knew so well being the first in my family to to leave kind of out of my hometown and want to take that with me and to do better to do more and never not always really making it and having to tell them and that disappointment that I felt singing that every night and and still it's interesting I'm seeing it because I've grown up and changed but I still have those those same emotions of wanting to do better for my parents in my community and putting that weight on myself so to sing that every night it was kind of like therapy for me a little bit I think so yeah I was thinking of my song I feel like Vanessa was just who I was on during that time like they just would see me come into rehearsal and they'd be like that's what we're good si would do except for she'd be in heels in a short skirt and so whatever and I come from like a bad homespun life and I come from like being really poor and so I always wanted something more and something bigger than what people told me I could have and so Vanessa was like I don't know what I need but I know it's not it's not this so each night it was a little bit of that like am I good enough to like get out of here and if I if I can get it together enough to be better than what you think I can be will I actually get in the end like do I have the courage yeah everything about bidding every single thing about Billy's life I was living every single thing I'll do something I don't know I come from with black Danny white mom and I come to New York to fall in love with a poor Rican girl [Applause] and nobody told me what to expect I just got a whole bunch of from Lin like Hospital and that learning process was hard I won't speak the language even now I'm ashamed but I don't and everything that Vinny was going through and just the you know being raised by a serial a succession of mentors and father figures that I found in cabin and the and and reliving the disappointment every single night knowing that you didn't quite have the answer to what that what measuring up meant to that character in the frustration that Benny felt that he was doing everything that he could to try to write you know reached that bar and and maybe he found out how to do that maybe he didn't but along the way he raised himself he and his friends raised each other you know which is kind of what Benny and it was not being graffiti PD Sonny and all of the other characters to be going though yeah that was a that was all happening in real time this is maybe a little way from and energetically but I was I was really good from such I was moved and proud and it was it was always the greatest height of experience whether it was you know Mike ensemble character or snobby but gotten about in act two and I'll just tell this one story of how always fought every night there's at the very towards the end of the number when I was in my ensemble track the condom guy but he there's we worse we recorded have to come down stage stage left and he'll if I can remember who I was dance who was opposite me but but Doreen was in the center on a flag and and we were we were circling around her and it was the end of the number and it's building its building and two rows in two women are sitting there holding a flag and shaky and they were so proud and that's that's still what makes me that still moves me is that is that it was there's such dignity in that show there's such pride and these characters as people [Applause] [Music] the wall is that song is deceptive I love that song so much because it starts as the party it starts as the celebration starts as a way to escape the heat the blackout you know which reverberates painfully today right considering everything that's happening on the island but then you get about two weeks away and this is where like Alex Lac Moore's work so brilliant you know where Lynne's storytelling work through music it's so brilliant because it got deep at that point it wasn't just the party like the party stayed but it started getting like subterranean like this is us we are standing on this ground we are saying who we are we are looking brings back all those memories like when he got brilliant and they're both feet thrown all that but really two-thirds way and when it's like oh cool your seat belt because this is about claiming a space with joy and with pride intensity and purpose I'll never forget that's my most vivid memory of our last night on Broadway because God was a hard everyone in the audience had flags and it was the Alumni Society was like almost everyone who had been in to play was in the audience and I was a party I think we all the the Midway snuck up on us and I remember I remember Stella Corbett was playing was playing sunny at that point and he had to be the one to break up the party and she's just like he could barely get through it like he just I was like he plays accordion Sean's crying and so that like section of lifting us back up like I never came in with you - I'm dead every time that was I think I'm still looking to match that experience on stage can I tell you isn't a confession the flashes that warehouse right I bought a pond that was ice house right those legs that was all the alumni yeah Bruce oh that you were gonna I really enjoyed kicking ass Tariq and Mama and said get your act together you don't stop the plane husband I mean it was just you know carrying the my mother's flag every time I play I've pledged everybody's mother everybody's not very proud of it but the truth is that every time I've everybody's mother I blame my mother and my little secret homage to her who never got to see me in any work that I've done but I say she's up in heaven pulling the strings that allowed me to do it [Applause] my mother was tough and and so every time I do that that song I got great joy as Priscilla kicking some ass and that great joy is Priscilla my mother's daughter so that's kind of what I found through so I I wanna end letting you know that I was also in the show you guys know this but nine years ago lead man went through Broadway care I made a very generous donation to primary cares it was my birthday and my birthday present was to be an extra [Applause] I know they forget it because it was the first time the otaku L became a fine back to play the job was to consider finally Taiwan and keep walking and we tried to buy a B Taiwan but I need my money and he convinced don't get it twisted can I can I say something Tim I want to thank your dad supporting you all these years [Applause] [Music] back just there in presents and how I admire that and how I just I learn every Mama Rose turning into Knights on stage as we speak but for me as a performer you know the show exists because I just wanted to be in this room I wanted a life in this business and and I'm really really much closer to Nina that and snobby internally like I was I was the kid who got out I was I was a little out of place in my neighborhood and and writing this show created created a community beyond my wildest dreams created the community they never really felt as a kid and and you know when you see these regional productions and you see these kids you got them all tweet to you these kids you've been in these regional production of the show and someone's first kisses been II mean or someone's lifelong best friend is daniella and and Karla and the show is that you do when you're in school you feel them on a cellular level of the fact that this has created community for so many I'll never forget people you said it to me opening night you said you are throwing a rock in a pond and you have no idea the ripples that are gonna come back to you remember yes I remember that but you freaked me out because when I went to see Hamilton and I'm like destroyed and I was that picture in the New York Times my back and I'm holding you and you said to me I just wanted to make you proud I just wanted to put another create another ripple and I said [Applause]

Channel: HERONEWS.ORG

Views: 59,534

Rating: 4.9707055 out of 5

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Id: OqWRSndIwcI

Length: 24min 27sec (1467 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2018