BWW Blog: Surviving and Thriving Onstage in GALA Hispanic Theatre's US Spanish Premiere of IN THE HEIGHTS

Playing Carla in the smash-hit, groundbreaking musical "In The Heights" is a thrilling opportunity. Creating a new role with fresh, never-heard-before language is an exciting responsibility. But how many actors have experienced both phenomenons, simultaneously?

At GALA Hispanic Theatre, the cast of the US Spanish Premiere of "In the Heights" is presented with one of the most creatively fulfilling and daunting challenges of our careers to date. Our fearless director, choreographer, and visionary - Luis Salgado, a member of the original Broadway company - handpicked each of us to tell this story, as it is heard in another language for the first time in this country.

I'm not going to lie: it feels like an enormous responsibility and duty. We owe truth to the original writers, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes, and honest, proud representation to the Latino community in both Washington, D.C. and the nation. We are simultaneously telling the Tony-Award winning story that so many of us know and love, and breathing life into words that have never before been uttered by another company of actors.

How do we navigate these yet uncharted waters? We must let go of the safety of "knowing". The curse of the actor, Luis tells us, is in the not knowing. The more you know in life, the more you realize you don't know. The more you know about the Broadway production, the more you must let go of those preconceived notions. The more you want to know your lines, know your blocking and vocal technique, all the more you must trust your homework, and give into the spontaneity of your character "not knowing" her next line.

As a cast, we had to embrace a sense of play, a lack of answers, and simply seek the truth of each and every moment. Without this core of humanity at the center of every beat of the show, how would we know if the translation was working? Lines were adjusted, cut, and added up until opening night. While that is normal procedure for blocking and choreography in a show's preview period, this was my first time experiencing such detail-oriented changes to the text itself... in a show that was already written. Yet, for as new and scary as it can feel to us at times, it feels good. It feels honest. The Spanglish and diverse blend of sounds and languages is exactly what the American Latino experience is today.

In the dressing room, I often start one sentence in English and end it in Spanish. We make up words that are a part of neither language natively, and yet combine what we know of both tongues to make sense and to make ourselves heard. There is no perfect, pure English or Spanish spoken... and that feels right. It is an incredibly accurate representation of how many of us grew up in America, Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Spain, Colombia, and Switzerland.

We are all hybrids, blends, and combinations of everything we came from and everything we've ever experienced. My father is Mexican. My mother came from Jewish Russia. I am a "Jexican", an American, a Latina, a Mexican-American, a Spanish speaker, an English speaker, and a Spanglish speaker. To me, the most incredible part of this experience has been the full acceptance of each and every once of us - in our hybrid, mixed, imperfect totalities. We are enough. This world tells me some days that I'm not "Latina enough" because I was born in this country, and yet other days, I'm not "American enough" because I have Mexican and Jewish blood running through my veins.

But GALA Theatre and Luis told us every day that "we are enough". We are equipped to tell Lin-Manuel's story in our own, authentic voices. We are allowed to be heard. We deserve to be justly and honestly represented onstage by actors from our own community. We earned the right to tell this story in today's political climate in our nation's capitol. We refuse to stand for "making America great again", but every night onstage, we're making sure the entire country knows that we are what an American looks like.

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