STAGE VOICE/INTERVIEW: SHAUN TAYLOR-CORBETT ON "IN THE HEIGHTS"; DEBUTS AT FAB FOX, NOV. 10

BY: COLIN MURPHY – SENIOR WRITER

In the Heights, the winner of four 2008 Tony Awards and the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album is preparing to heat up the stage at the Fabulous Fox with its Gateway City debut, November 10-22.

The unlikely Broadway smash is billed as the touching tale of a vibrant community in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood; a place where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music. It’s a community on the brink of change, full of hopes, dreams and pressures, where the biggest struggles can be deciding which traditions you take with you, and which ones you leave behind.

With book by Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award nominee Quiara Alegría Hudes and conceived by Lin- Manuel Miranda, In the Heights is directed by Joseph A. Callaway Award-winner and Tony Award nominee Thomas Kail.

The Vital VOICE recently caught up with the dreamy ShaunTaylor-Corbett who plays the impassioned, Sonny in Heights. As one of four actors plucked from the Broadway ensemble for the National tour, Taylor-Corbett talks about the show, its music and his pride in being a part of one of America’s hottest musicals.

Colin Murphy: How’s the tour going?

Shaun Taylor-Corbett: The tour has started off great. We just started in Gainesville last night. We had our first public performance and it went so well. It was such a nice first show; we were so well received with a standing ovation and everyone was really into the show. It was a confirmation that it works outside of the city. It was so nice to see that.

CM: Was there some concern about that; will it play in Peoria, so to speak?

STC: There was confidence it was going to work. It was more, do we have enough time and also could we reach the level and even go beyond what we did on Broadway. And we did. I think that’s always the challenge; why do something if it’s going to be easy?  But I think that’s what we wanted to accomplish. We know the show’s good but you don’t just want to just do it to say, "it’s good"; you want to make it even better than before. And we’ve done that.

CM: In the Heights will be making its St. Louis debut, Nov. 10. Would you mind describing the show in your own words for our readers who might not be familiar with the musical?

STC: It’s going to strike the heart of every person around the country wherever we are. Because athough it’s a musical that takes place in Washington Heights and is at its core, very Latino, at the same time it will resonate with every culture out there. It doesn’t matter what your background is, you can relate to it because it’s about home. It’s about all those familiar things that maybe you take for granted for years but then something happens in your life and all of a sudden you see those things in a new light and realize this is why I am who I am. This is why I love the place where I live. I don’t need to be in a tropical place; I don’t need to have all the money in the world; I don’t need to drive a fancy car because that rusty fire escape I’ve seen for 20-years; look at all the memories that have happened there. Or the small living room where we had our Thanksgiving dinners; that’s what makes our lives what they are. So that’s what the musical does. It’s about family and community and lifting each other up and growing in so many different ways (spiritually, economically) from where you were before. The musical takes you on a journey and makes you appreciate your home.

CM: Having performed in Heights on Broadway; were any changes made to the National tour?

STC: Yeah there were. Andy Blankenbuehler, our choreographer made some choreographic changes to tell the story. The creative team, they work as a unit; they have a vision and everything that they do whether its choreography or music direction, it’s very specific to the story. You’ll see when you watch the show, it’s very specific and some alterations were made to the choreography just to tell the story a little bit better. And they also adjust a few things to fit our bodies, our voices, our different talents so that it fits on us. They are not trying to take a show that works well on Broadway and place it on other people. They let us discover new things and help altar the show based on what we do best. So those are the changes that have been made. Quiara [Alegria Hudes], our book writer; she made some line changes. But if you’ve seen the show on Broadway and you see this show they’re not huge differences, but we can tell the difference. Subconsciously it will help tell the story a little bit better.

CM: The soundtrack won the Grammy. Could you talk about the show’s musical style? It was a new sound for Broadway…

STC: Oh yeah, it really was and the cool thing is that Lin-Manuel [Miranda]; he’s the writer of our music and he’s a great, amazing, brilliant writer. He had so many backgrounds in his head in terms of it has elements of Merengue, a style of Latin music called Batchata, which is one of my favorites; it has Salsa. And so you put those sounds on stage, and maybe some of those sounds have been on stage but the way he mixes it with hip-hop it has completely never been done in musical theater.

So you’ll have these tougher guys who generally don’t like musical theater and they goes to this show and they’re like, Oh my God, this is my music. I identify with this. But at the same time he has that undercurrent of the traditional musical theater structure and style and songs. There are songs that have a Latin feel but they could be in any traditional musical theater piece. And so he puts those all together and that’s why it’s been appealing to young people. It’s been appealing to fans of any kind of brilliant dance theater from Fiddler on the Roof to Company. Lin-Manuel, he comes from that background; he knows everything about musical theater. So that’s why it’s been a success. It takes all of those elements and it puts them together.

CM: I would imagine that In the Heights has been a particular source of pride for the Latino audience as well as cast members…

 STC: Oh my God, yes it has. Lin was talking about it the other day. There’s only a few musicals for Latino actors and dancers. There’s West Side Story or you could play Paul in A Chorus Line; there’s a few others but this is a new story for Latino actors and it’s one that will last for a very long time. It is a prideful thing. Although there’s been many achievements in the Latino community and the population is growing and there’s a lot of pride and economic advancement, there’s still a ways to go and this musical helps push that envelope a little bit further. But I think it makes everybody feel pride about their culture. We’ve had everybody in the audience: black, white, Asian, gay, straight. It’s just a human story. Even if you don’t know anything about Latin culture, come to the show.because you can get a great glimpse of it. I guarantee that people who come to the show are going to love salsa music and want to go out dancing after they see it.

CM: Tell us about your character in the show. You play Sonny?

STC: I play Sonny and it’s such an honor and joy to play this character. I understudied the character on Broadway and I got to go on about 23-times. But when you help re-create a role you get the opportunity to rehearse a role and make it your own, which I’ve been able to do. It’s such a different and deeper connection that you can have with it then when you understudied it.

Sonny is a character. He’s the younger cousin of Usnavi, who’s the lead. Sonny wants to create social change in the neighborhood. If there’s anybody who’s the most prideful of Latin culture, who is the most prideful of what we can do as a people and get it done now, it is Sonny. But because he is youthful he wants to get everything done now, this second, and it takes time. If there are a lot of voices going on in the neighborhood about what they want to happen, Sonny’s is the loudest.

He always feels like he’s trying to get things done at speed-10 and everyone is going at speed-five. So it’s frustrating for him. He has a crush on Nina and Benny kind of comes in and ruins that for him. He wants to break away from the bodega but Usnavi makes him work long hours and so he feels like everybody is trying to hold him back. Finally what I think everyone comes to realize is Sonny doesn’t want to leave the bodega at all, he doesn't want to leave Usnavi at all and when all these things happen and Usnavi might leave and Nina’s not going to be with him his world kind of falls apart a little bit. But you could say that he’s also a very comedic character but he believes in everything that he’s doing. He's a truth teller and he's not trying to be funny but everyone perceives him that way, including the audience.

"In the Heights" will play the Fabulous Fox Theatre November 10-22. Performances are Tuesday-Friday evenings at 8pm; Saturdays at 2pm & 8pm; Sunday, November 15 at 2pm & 7:30pm; and Sunday, November 22 at 2pm. There is also a weekday matinee on Thursday, November 19 at 1pm.  Please visit www.fabulousfox.com for current pricing information. Tickets are available at the Fox Theatre box office, all MetroTix outlets, online at www.metrotix.com or by phone at 314-534-1111.

You can email Colin Murphy at colin_murphy@sbcglobal.net