A background in Shakespeare and a love of hip hop has helped prepare Vancouver actor Luc Roderique for the biggest musical theatre production of his career.
In the Heights, a Tony Award-winning musical set in the largely Dominican neighbourhood of Washington Heights, New York, blends rap, reggaeton, merengue, and salsa into a level of multiculturalism only now starting to be seen in contemporary musicals. For the Arts Club’s production, on now until June 7 at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage, it allows Roderique and young local talents like Elena Juatco and Kate Blackburn to bring a borough of New York, and the next generation of musical experience, to Granville Street.
“I have been a fan of hip hop since I was about 11 or 12, and I’ve been in theatre since I was about 10,” says Roderique, who dashed off stage during rehearsals to speak with the Westender last week. “And it’s not very often that those worlds intersect. Now I can finally combine two of my biggest loves.”
The Ottawa-born thespian has been rapping since high school, and his recent theatre credits swing from Bard on the Beach’s As You Like It and The Merchant of Venice to Ash Rizin (a Canadian hip hop musical about a wayward graffiti artist). In Heights, Roderique plays bodega owner Usnavi, a central character who frequently expresses himself through verse. If that wasn’t enough of a stretch for a classical-leaning actor, there’s also a fair bit of choreography required in the role.
“One of the biggest challenges,” says Roderique, “is just maintaining breath while rapping huge, long verses and maintaining all of your business on stage and dancing and doing it all in front of 500 people. A lot of it was prepping the music like crazy, and then prepping my body to withstand [it].”
According to director Bill Millerd, the rigours of the production actually created a casting challenge.
“Casting this show with Vancouver-based musical theatre artists was a challenge,” he says in the press release, “not only for the setting for the piece, but also the demands on the type of music and lyrics that Lin-Manuel Miranda has written.”
For Roderique, a Studio 58 alumnus, it was a role he had hoped to land since discovering the work of 35-year-old creator/composer Miranda.
“I had been interested in this role and this play ever since I first heard the music,” says Roderique. “I was exposed to the score around two or three years ago, and it just really resonated with me.
“I don’t bear extreme similarities to Usnavi,” he explains, “but I understand him and the way he speaks through music.”
Taking place over three days, In the Heights explores the universal themes of family, community, gentrification, and the struggle to find where you belong, while commiserating with the iconic hiss and hum of New York. The musical opened a three-year run on Broadway in 2008 and garnered 13 Tony Award-nominations and four wins: for Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Choreography, and Best Orchestrations. It also landed a Grammy Award and was nominated for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Meanwhile, Miranda, who starred as Usnavi in the original run, is currently garnering additional accolades for his new work, Hamilton – billed as a “hip-hop musical about one of America’s founding fathers.”
Roderique believes a lot of the buzz comes from the fact that Miranda, using contemporary influences like hip hop to examine the struggles of his generation, represents a new direction in musical theatre (particularly in an industry not known for its deft approach to multiculturalism).
“[Musicals like this] have been rare, simply because of the history of musical theatre,” says Roderique, “and I think there haven’t been a lot of young musical theatre composers who have been willing push boundaries like this. However, with plays like In the Heights and Hamilton, Lin Miranda is seriously changing the theatre landscape for the next generation.
“I think, with trendsetters like him and with plays like this, we will see a shift; we will see young artists coming out who are writing about themselves in the musical stylings and vernacular that they speak and that they understand,” he continues.
“Productions like this are going to light a fire under artists and audiences alike.”
• In the Heights runs now until June 7 at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage (2750 Granville). Tickets from $29 at ArtsClub.com or call 604-687-1644.
