Uptown Conversations: Lin-Manuel Miranda & Quiara Alegría Hudes

In the Heights began as an idea while Lin-Manuel Miranda was a student at Wesleyan University. After its first campus production, Miranda partnered with director Thomas Kail to continue developing the musical in the basement theater of New York City’s legendary Drama Book Shop. Playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes joined the creative team in 2004, helping shape the book that would bring the neighborhood of Washington Heights vividly to life.

The musical premiered in 2005, transferred Off-Broadway in 2007, and opened on Broadway in 2008, where it won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Blending hip-hop, salsa, merengue, and traditional Broadway storytelling, In the Heights transformed the landscape of American theatre by placing the lives, dreams, and aspirations of a predominantly Latino immigrant community at its center. It launched Lin-Manuel Miranda onto the national stage, introduced millions of audiences to the vibrant culture of Washington Heights, and helped usher in a new era of Latino representation on Broadway.

It feels especially fitting that this conversation takes place at The People’s Theatre’s first permanent home. Our own journey began in 2008 with a production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit in the basement of the Drama Book Shop—the very same creative space where In the Heights had been developed just a few years earlier. From those modest beginnings, The People’s Theatre has spent the years since creating opportunities for immigrant artists, nurturing new generations of theatre-makers, and ensuring that the stories of Washington Heights continue to be created here, by and for the communities that call it home.

Nearly two decades later, those journeys come together as Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes visit The People’s Theatre’s new permanent home to reflect on the enduring legacy of In the Heights, the future of Latino theatre, and the stories that continue to emerge from Uptown.