Culture & Community | Education & Youth | Arts & Culture | Musical Theater | Arts & Anti-racism | New Haven Academy
Top: Jaison Haynes and Jaylah Jones. Bottom: Ale Cruz leads "Carnival del Barrio." Lucy Gellman Photos.
The lyrics swelled around Jaison Haynes, dancers encircling him at the center of the stage. Alza la bandera/La bandera Dominicana! Above his head, a silky streak of blue and white moved back and forth. Alza la bandera/La bandera Puertorriqueña! To the left, Ale Cruz went airborne, their smile bursting with light. Alza la bandera/La bandera Mexicana! In the audience, it was hard not to stand up and join in.
It's just one of the ways that Legacy Studios, the small but mighty drama program of New Haven Academy, has made In The Heights into a joyful, explosive, mellifluous celebration of diaspora and Latinidad in New Haven. Directed and choreographed by Ty Scurry, the musical marks the school's first large ensemble work just two years into its drama program. It is co-directed by Josie Ingall, with a live pit and music direction by Kevin James.
Performances run May 2 through 4 at Wilbur Cross High School. Tickets and more information are available here.
"We wanted this show to be something that was really based in the community," said director Ty Scurry, a Wilbur Cross grad who has been building the school's drama program since early 2023. "Our school is 75 percent Hispanic. The district is largely Hispanic. We [New Haven Academy] have this big social justice theme. I really wanted that to come through with the story of a community on the brink of change."
Top: Elliot Baez as Vanessa. Bottom, Clockwise: Sora (Mikaila) Matta as Carla, Elliot Baez as Vanessa, Tomitsela Engel-Halfkenny as Nina and Ale Cruz as Daniela.
As lights go down and curtains open, a person can feel that in real time. Claves begin to tap, and the audience is suddenly in an early-2000s Washington Heights, where gentrification has begun to gnash its sharp, pearlescent teeth. Onstage, Usnavi (a winning Jaison Haynes) opens his bodega, chasing away a young graffiti artist (Christian Ortiz) before the first customers of the day arrive. Beside him, his kid cousin Sonny (Christopher Samuels) rolls in late, shrugging it off as Usnavi frets over the busted fridge and rising, sticky summer heat.
Around them, Washington Heights stirs to life with all its strive and pluck. Vanessa (Elliot Baez) is determined to leave the barrio and move uptown, but can't get a lease. Daniela (a spellbinding Ale Cruz) welcomes customers into her salon, the chairs sizzling with gossip, and mourns its upcoming move to the Bronx. The Rosarios (Azaad Mamoon as Kevin and Solimar Quintanilla as Camila) eagerly await the arrival of their daughter Nina (Tomitsela Engel-Halfkenny) home from Stanford—even as their taxi business struggles to stay afloat.
All the characters hold the bitter with the sweet in this way. Benny (Jahlil Coleman) jumps on the Rosarios' dispatch, and faces some internalized racism as the only Black person to work for them. Abuela Claudia (Jaylah Jones) balances her own story of migration and diaspora with an urge to tend to the community. Even the jolly Piragüero (Hazel Rivera) has their woes, including competition from Mr. Softee. Add sexual tension between Vanessa and Usnavi and Nina and Benny, and the play starts to feel deeply relatable, as though these characters live among us.
Top: Graffiti Pete (Christian Ortiz) in the wee hours of the morning. Bottom: Tomitsela Engel-Halfkenny as Nina and Jahlil Coleman as Benny.
"I just knew that this was the show that I was going to do," said Scurry, who played Benny with Square Foot Theatre in 2019. "You look around here, and you can see how this show is New Haven. It takes place in Washington Heights, but we could just as well change Washington Heights to Fair Haven, and everyone would understand. Nothing would be lost. I think that's the beauty of this show."
And he's right: the play feels like it could take place on Grand or Kimberly Avenue, where a person can find a barber (or three) on one block, calabaza squash and dried hibiscus on the next, paletas bursting with fruit and sweetened with condensed milk on the next. There may not be Usnavi’s bodega, but there is La Super Marqueta on Grand and Tlaxcala Grocery on State Street, and at least two botanicas in between. On any given day, if a person looks hard enough, you can spot a Benny and Nina on a 212 or 268 bus, finishing each other’s sentences before they hop off for work.
Meanwhile, there is not a student who does not shine in this production. As Daniela, Cruz strikes the balance between funny, clipped and brazen that the character demands, with vocals that make the show not only danceable, but buoyant. Alongside them, Baez holds his own, finding the confidence and sass—and yes, vulnerability—to inhabit Vanessa. When she dons a cane and nightgown to become Abuela Claudia, Jones summons a wisdom far beyond her years, and a sweetness too, like she knows she is a high schooler trying to be an elder, and is going to learn from her future self.
As they make Washington Heights their own, several students also take risks, and it pays off. Mamoon finds the space for rage and frustration— at racism, at rising rents and big business, at the precarious pace of change—in his character, giving Kevin a sharp, layered edge in songs including “Useless” and “Blackout.” Engel-Halfkenny plays Nina as both sweet and self-conscious, with a balance of hope and world-weariness that feels well beyond their years.
Coleman makes dispatch directions rhapsodic, and his onstage romance with Engel-Halfkenny feels real, the two falling into that great, candid, soft-landing kind of love that only friends can have with each other. Rivera takes a few lines and turns their Piragüero into a whole person with a backstory, with vocals that sail over an infectious score.
But it is Haynes who is the heart of the show, with a performance that gives even Miranda, who originated the role, a run for his money. The lights come up, and he is effusively warm and funny, acting with his entire body in time with the music. Brass and keys soar, and his arms move in time with the lyrics, hands pumping as he weaves between fast-flowing English and Spanish. Often, he finds ways to poke fun at himself (he leans into Sonny's classification of him dancing like "a drunk Chita Rivera"), able to laugh despite the death of his parents and a struggling store.
But he also channels Usnavi’s gentleness, saving a bag of crumbs for Abuela Claudia to feed the birds in one scene, preparing Vanessa’s coffee with cinnamon and sweetened milk in another. When he narrates “Alabanza,” sung as a sort of prayer, and the ensemble joins in, it’s enough to bring a listener to their knees. Haynes, a senior at Hamden High and ECA, said he channels his late grandfather, Luis, when he steps onstage.
Because Scurry opens his shows to students from other high schools, this In The Heights has also become the closest thing New Haven has to community theater that actually reflects the community. Student actors come from Hamden High, New Haven Academy, James Hillhouse High School, and Wilbur Cross. During a break in rehearsal Monday night, several pf them stressed how meaningful it has been to have that sense of community, onstage and off.
"I've never done anything like this," said Baez, a junior at Hillhouse who has never acted before. "I had severe stage fright for like, weeks. But the more people come in, the more I'm getting comfortable with my role. Being onstage, it's a new environment for me, but it's like, the best thing ever.”
He and others also pointed to the importance of representation onstage. In In The Heights, most of the characters are Latino, and specifically reflect Washington Heights' large Dominican and Puerto Rican community (in the script, Usnavi is Dominican; Haynes plays him as Puerto Rican). In this production, some of the traditionally Latino characters are Black, which has opened up peer-to-peer conversations about identity, race, and diaspora.
"It feels pretty crazy. Super surreal," said Sora (Mikaila) Matta, who plays Carla. "I feel like it was really easy to kind of get into the Hispanic kind of mood, I guess you could say, because I've been surrounded by it for my entire life, obviously. "
They said that the musical feels personal: their father is Dominican, and inherited a bodega in New York. When he saw Usnavi in the show's film adaptation, he told Matta “that guy is me!"
"It's really crazy being put in those shoes," Matta said. "Being able to put this onstage and having people see, this is how the community is—and yes, there are lots of issues and problems that still need to be solved—but it's like, how we all come together. We're still a big family, no matter what Hispanic country you come from, we all are one. And I love it so much."
"People have definitely learned a lot about the culture," Baez added. "We have some people in the cast who are not Hispanic, who are playing Hispanic roles. They have to speak Spanish in the show. They have to dance salsa, bachata, and they're really open to learning new things, and I appreciate that so much."
"Everyone is really respectful about learning new things,” Haynes said. “It’s great to have this be my last one.”