Start with Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Add in a little Rent… maybe some Hair… then top it off with a large portion of West Side Story. Stirred gently, you have the makings of a timeless, universal story, and that, is exactly what you get in Tony Award winner In the Heights!

Written by Quiara Alegria Hudes, the tale is one of a multi-ethnic community on the brink of change. There’s Nina, the neighborhood success story, just returned returned home after a bad first year at Stanford. She has done poorly academically and lost her scholarship. Will she return to college, or will she just settle back in with her boyfriend, the non-Hispanic Benny? Nina’s industrious parents are happy to employ him, but they are unhappy to think of him joining their family.

Then there’s Daniela, whose beauty shop is being pushed out by rising rents. She has plans to leave the Heights completely, but that design doesn’t include her employee and friend, Vanessa, who really wants to move to a trendier neighborhood farther south.

And at the center of it stands Usnavi, the young owner of a run-down store. Usnavi sells coffee and lotto tickets, at least whenever a power outage hasn’t shut his store down or the local graffiti artist marked it up. But he years to return to the Dominican Republic with his abuela, Claudia, who raised him, but he also dreams of getting the beautiful Vanessa to notice him.

Woven throughout is the story is a pulsing, multi-rhythmic, musical score will leave your heart pumping and your feet tapping. Combining rap-, salsa- merengue-, and soul, composer Lin-Manuel Miranda creates an energetic beat that borders on tribal… no wonder he won the Tony Award for Best Original Score!

In the Heights tells the familiar story of young lovers, the struggles of growing up, and the seemingly blind misunderstanding of an older generation. It’s a thoroughly contemporary neighborhood that will somehow remind you of Opie’s hometown of Mayberry.  Winner of four 2008 want to miss In the Heights!

Single tickets for In the Heights are available August 8th at The Capitol Theatre box office: 509-853-ARTS or 800-325-SEAT.