Before “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda first broke through on Broadway with “In the Heights.”
This week, CenterStage Academy for the Arts presents “In the Heights” at the Bowie Center for the Performing Arts in Bowie, Maryland, on Thursday, Aug. 15 and Friday, Aug. 16.
“This is the largest cast we’ve ever had for our summer performance series, and we’re so grateful,” Artistic Director Shawn Cosby told WTOP. “This cast will bring you to your feet. They are that amazing as triple threats.”
The plot follows Usnavi de la Vega, a bodega owner in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights, who dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic to open a tiki bar but considers staying put when he falls for a local hairstylist named Vanessa. There’s also a love story between Nina, who drops out of college to seek justice for immigrant children, and her father’s employee, Benny, who maintains the vital work of the local taxi dispatch.
“The premise is that home is where you are loved,” Cosby said. “Your family doesn’t always have to be part of your DNA tree, but God places people in your life and surrounds you with people to take care of you and fill the voids of things you don’t have. … We all search for something different in our lives, and often times when we’re searching for these things, we don’t recognize what’s right in front of us that enriches us, that nurtures us, that heals us.”
The musical numbers include the dazzling opening title number, which Cosby choreographs.
“The opening number, you meet everybody from the neighborhood … not just Latinos, but Africans in Washington Heights, Asians in Washington Heights, all of that culture melted into this one pot,” Cosby said. “‘96,000,’ we hip-hop cultured that to the gods. I really wanted that to be based and rooted in hip-hop, that’s a great, great, great number. But there’s also ‘Carnival del Barrio,’ a great number — festive, bright, beautiful, energetic.”
It’s the latest production by CenterStage Academy for the Arts, which was founded by Cosby’s mother, Sherion, as CenterStage Management in 1991 before opening a brick-and-mortar location in Clinton, Maryland, in 2018.
“My mom is a producer-writer-director, went to school, got a film degree, so music, theatre and arts have always been in my home,” Cosby said. “I started performing and dancing when I was 7, I started professionally when I was 12, and I started my own dance company when I was 15. I’m from PG (Prince George’s) County, Allentown Road, that area. I went to Suitland School for the Performing Arts as a dance major. … This is a lifetime of this journey.”
If you’d like to join the journey, there are really no age limits.
“CenterStage Academy for the Arts is a training ground for ages 7 to — our oldest student is 85,” Cosby said.