Great Performances: In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams will have its world premiere at a special screening and post-screening discussion at The Paley Center for Media. The Discussion Panel will include In The Heights Tony Award-winning composer/lyricist/star Lin-Manuel Miranda, In The Heights stars Mandy Gonzalez and Christopher Jackson, PBS Great Performances producer Bill O'Donnell, @radical.media producer Andrew Fried, @radical.media director Paul Bozymowski, and will be moderated by Newsweek senior writer Jeremy McCarter. The world premiere screening of Great Performances: In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams will be Monday, May 4, at 6pm at the Paley Center for Media (25 West 52 Street). Tickets for non-members are $20, and free to Paley Center for Media members.
Great Performances: In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams chronicles the personal stories of composer/lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda and The Cast of In the Heights in the months leading up to opening night. The program's broadcast premiere is Wednesday, May 27 at 8 p.m. (ET) on THIRTEEN's Great Performances on PBS HD (check local listings). Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG - one of America's most prolific and respected public media providers.
Making it in New York City is tough. Few get the chance to live out their dreams, and the cast and crew of In the Heights know this all too well. This young, diverse group of relatively unknown artists and performers have dreamed of making it on Broadway, but are well aware that a new original musical set outside a bodega in the Latino neighborhood of Washington Heights is a highly risky proposition. It took eight years in all, but they succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, winning four Tony Awards along the way, including Best Musical and Best Score for a Musical. In addition to thrilling extended performance sequences of the original cast of In the Heights onstage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway, this Great Performances program offers an intimate look at the production backstage and off-stage. Producers from @radical.media first identified the show's potential at one of the early readings, and began filming the process shortly thereafter. This provides unprecedented access to the cast as they went through workshops, to off-Broadway and finally to Broadway. In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams is a @radical.media production for THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG. For Great Performances, Bill O'Donnell is Series Producer, Michael Kantor (Broadway: The American Musical, Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America) is consulting producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.
Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, and PBS. Major funding is also provided by the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust. Visit Great Performances Online at pbs.org/gperf for additional information about this and other programs.
For more information on In The Heights on Broadway or National Tour in a city near you go to www.intheheightsthemusical.com
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