This community. And you started writing that when you were in college. Yeah. Hinojosa so did you ever imagine, yeah, its going to end up on broadway, or was that just like an illusion . Oh, i imagined it laughing i mean, you wouldnt write it if you didnt feel like it was. It was worth something, but i imagined it in the way that you imagine being a jedi when you are three years old, you know . Its in the realm of possibility, and sure, maybe one day. But you know, i just. I knew that i wanted to write, i knew that i wasnt good at anything else, and i just. I knew there werent enough musicals to keep me employed as a latino actor if i wanted to go into theater. And i. And i just sort of started writing everything id always wanted to see in a musical, musically speaking. Just hip hop music and latin music and all the stuff id sort of grown up with. Hinojosa and you were able to translate that. What i love is that you had these images of broadway, and youre able to take hip hop and salsa, and say, yeah, yeah, yeah; it works on broadway. Yeah, well, that was, you know, that was the gradual process of writing the show. But you know, in that first incredibly messy draft, i remember being in the audience and watching the audience sit up during the rap scenes when story was taking place and the characters were rapping to each other, and the audience literally sat bolt upright. And i said, okay, well, this is new; this is something really interesting. Hinojosa so you werent even sure of it at first in terms of the rapping on broadway . Well, i didnt know if it would work in my show, much less on broadway in my little show at wesleyan. But when i first met with tommy kail, our director, one of the first things he said to me is, the hip hop is the most exciting part of this, and the way you mix the hip hop and the latin music. And i had had that experience firsthand watching that first production at wesleyan. So you know, that was the beginning of a conversation that lasted eight years, and figuring out how to use it as another form of storytelling on stage. Hinojosa finding a director that you could trust. You said, actually, that when you met your director, you realized that he knew this play, in a way, even better than you did. Yeah. Well, you know, its interesting. I had. I wrote it and put it up my sophomore year, and then it was in a drawer for two years. And someone gave a copy to tommy kail, some mutual friends, john mailer and neil stewart. Hinojosa john mailer being the son of norman mailer. Yes, and. And so he had two years with this cast album that id recorded, and hed listened to it over and over. And so, you know, he. He said to me, hi, weve just met but your third song needs to be first. laughing and luckily, you know, i think any young writer gets very precious about their material, but since it had. Id had two years distance on it i was like, well, those are good ideas; what else do you have . And that was the beginning of the process. Hinojosa the ability, though, to trust broadway to take this show well, offbroadway at first, right . Oh, well, before that a basement in a bookshop. I mean, thats where. Hinojosa that you would go to after. Thats where tommy kail and i met. I mean, there were. It was literally a storeroom that they converted into a black box theater. It was being painted when we met in that basement. So this was not, trust me to take it to broadway, this was, i have some good ideas on how to make show better, and thats the mindset we always tried to stay in mind. We didnt worry about the end goal. We just said, well, how can this be better and how can this be clearer . And if you keep your eye on the rock in front of you, then thats. Thats the way to get it done. Hinojosa now, the show actually continues to change, even. Like, in other words, you. There are lots of things that you talk about in the show. You bring up gentrification, you bring up immigration. Its not at all a political show per se, speaking in spanish well, a spoonful of sugar. Hinojosa you know . Here and there, theres just like, a little political thing here and a little political thing here, and youre. Is it constantly being adapted, because its still on broadway . Its still on broadway, and it changes with every performer who comes with it. The text doesnt change much, but we also made a lot of little changes when we rehearsed the touring production, as well. And whats fun is. Is what different people bring to it. I. We now have. There are now eight people in the world who have played usna. Hinojosa no yeah. Hinojosa eight people . Eight people if you include understudies and swings. Hinojosa im sorry, but you know what . You will always be usnavi. Well, thank you. Hinojosa i just. I mean, i know it has to happen, but it just breaks my heart to not see you in that central role. But for me, the joy is in watching new people adapt it and seeing what they bring, and you know, were all. Its all very friendly. Its such a hard role to play. I mean, you are rapping for two and a half hours and you never leave the stage. Hinojosa and moving for two and a half hours. And moving and dancing and all of that. That. You know, we give each other tips. Its like a little survivors club, and its, hey, i like the way corbin did that. Im going to steal that next time i get to do it. Hinojosa but corbin is doing usnavi . Corbin is playing usnavi. Hinojosa corbin is playing. Corbin bleu. Yeah. Hinojosa . From High School Musical fame. Yeah, and you know, he originally came in to play benny, because hes not. Hinojosa right, right, right. Hes not latino and he came in to play benny, and he was so charming and so effortlessly charming that we said, you know, i think this guy might be usnavi. Hinojosa oh all right, people are probably saying, whats that name usnavi, whats that . So we have to tell. There might be some people who get it immediately. Its spelled usnavi. Yeah. Hinojosa . But if you just spell it usnavy. Correct. Hinojosa . It says. Its says us navy, and his parents named him after the boat they saw when they first got to the United States. Hinojosa urban legend, or. Urban legend, but also becoming a very popular name in florida with dominican and cuban communities. I heard the story from a friend who works in immigration, and i said, well, thats too good. Hinojosa really . Because i heard that story from someone who had nothing to do with. So its true . No, its becoming a thing. Theres a great book called the dirty Girls Social Club by alisa valdesrodriguez, and theres a female character named usnavys in that, and its us navy with a y and an s at the end. Its the feminized version. So its really becoming a thing. Hinojosa and. And seeing someone like corbin bleu doing that role, for you. I mean, i know that what you say is youve got your nights back. Yes hinojosa you get to go home at night. I sure do. Hinojosa because you were working for a full year. Well, yeah. Eight shows a week, your life becomes about being at your peak at 8 00 p. M. , and 2 00 and 8 00 on the weekends, and i was finding i didnt have time to write anymore, because youre. Youre just thinking about 8 00 p. M. All day. Hinojosa and so now youre writing . Im writing like crazy. Hinojosa really . Yeah. Hinojosa because youre kind of busy. laughing im incredibly busy hinojosa youre incredibly busy. Yeah, which is great. Hinojosa you are. Well, lets see. Right after you were in the middle of finishing your role as usnavi, you started translating songs of west side story. Yeah, i actually did that while i was doing usnavi, at the same time. Hinojosa and what i love is that even though your primary. Your first language was english, and your parents always sent you back to puerto rico so you kept the spanish alive, and then now youre actually translating into spanish. Yes, and it was such an amazing process, and really, it was. For me, the fun was it was a bonding experience with my dad, because, you know, my dad moved here when he was 18 for school, and so he was the same age as these characters in west side story, although he came here for. Under very different circumstances. But we learned a lot. I learned a lot of vocabulary from him; he learned how hard my job is in terms of writing lyrics. You know, he would. He would sit there with these thesauri and he would say, well, what if we did, speaking gibberish . And i go, thats great, dad, but thats 15 syllables and we have five, so we need to make it fit here. Hinojosa oh and we were rhyming english with spanish, and so, you know, we had to find a rhyme for the word size. En espanol, theres no. Yeah. There about three words that do, so we have to find a word that rhymes with size, we have eight syllables, and the sharks are singing it to the jets in the quintet. And so, you know, my dad. I remember my mom telling me, you know, your dad has a whole new appreciation for how difficult your job is because hes staying up at night trying to think of rhymes for size in spanish. Hinojosa you. Part of, i think, why this. This show has become so successful is because you kind of confront what a lot of young people are dealing with this kind of bifurcated existence. Which is on the one hand, you are completely latino in your home in your barrio, in your neighborhood and then you leave and you went to a very highperforming public school. Yeah. Hinojosa . In manhattan, but it was like two different worlds. Absolutely. I mean, i commuted to. To a lowmiddle class barrio, to the richest zip code in the country every day for school since kindergarten. You know, i would go from 200th street to 94th and park, and so i. I absorbed that schism so early that it wasnt until college and i stepped back from it that i really gave myself permission to write about it. Id written musicals before heights little oneact musicals in high school but id never written latin music before that. I didnt know that that was fair game to write about. In my sophomore year when i wrote the show, i lived in a Latino Program house at wesleyan with a bunch of other kids who were just like me who grew up with marc anthony and the thunder cats. And you know, it was the same american, but then our own special, you know, culture on the side and language on the side. And writing about that schism and getting to joke about that with friends it was the first time i had latino friends my age. Because in puerto rico, i was the gringo who spoke a really badlyaccented spanish. Hinojosa and you werent quite accepted in puerto rico. No, i. No, not at all. Hinojosa you were a gringo. I was a gringo, i hung out with my grandparents friends. I am. You know, when i go to puerto rico, i visit speaking spanish hinojosa no those were my friends, those were the people i hung out with, those were the stars of my first movies. And so. So yeah, so my sophomore year of college was the first time i really had latino friends my age and we could make jokes about, you know, jerry rivera and transformers, you know . Its. And both those cultures. Hinojosa you know, it was interesting, because the reviews. Wonderful reviews, but there were some people who said, this is so not realistic. This is not what in the heights. Washington heights is a neighborhood that went through some rough times. Absolutely. Hinojosa . Some serious rough times major drug dealing, turf battles, you know. I was there in the 1980s, i know all about it. Hinojosa it was rough. But people looked at your play and they were like, well, this isnt true. And its like, well, no, actually, when you were growing up, there was that, too. Where it was a community, it was warm place, it was a welcoming place, it was a safe place. Yeah, i mean, though, i think if you looked at mainstream coverage of new york city, you would think it ended at 96th street. Hinojosa right. You know, theres the apollo in harlem, and then it ends. So the only time wed be on the news is if there was a crime. Theres just no coverage. And Washington Heights is home to more Small Businesses than any other part of new york city. Theres 3,000 Small Businesses there. Hinojosa this is a statistic i did not know. So the fact that we cant tell a story about, you know, stores struggling to get by and stay up on their rents . Thats another economic reality that unfortunately, thanks to our recession, i think, is more relevant to our audience than i think even when we first came out. But you know, the story of crime and drugs, thats all over new york, so you know, why cant. Why arent we allowed to tell those stories and why is it unrealistic to tell the stories of the other 23 and a half hours of the day when there isnt a crime taking place . Hinojosa so the media, again, becomes this way in which we somehow envision these places, and the media again, it focuses on all this negativity. You are now something of a major player in the media. laughing hinojosa well, in the sense that youve created something that has impacted Popular Culture and now its going to be made into a universal movie. Yeah. Hinojosa . So what does that feel like to know that youre having an imprint on. On the media, on how communities are perceived . Well, its. Its gratifying. Its strange. I mean, you cant think of yourself like that. You cant. Hinojosa you dont walk around like. You cant get out of bed and be like, im impacting the media hinojosa today im going to have an impact. Im going to have breakfast and impact the media. But. But it is. You know, i always tell people, our greatest blessing and our greatest curse as latinos in theater is west side story. And really, it swings both ways in terms of i dont know a latino who hasnt been in that production. Its our foot in the door; its also a. It happens to be a masterpiece of storytelling. However, it did its job so well that the iconic. You know, if you had never heard of puerto rico or puerto ricans, youd probably heard of west side story and your image is of a guy with a makeup of a color not found in nature with a knife in his hand. And its so. Its become so iconic that thats what they think of when they think of us. And so what has been gratifying about the success of heights is that its allowed for an alternative image to flourish, particularly in theater, of who we are. Hinojosa so i was telling you the story about my husband who is a dominican immigrant, and when i told him that we were going to go see in the heights off broadway, and he was like, you know what . Ive done the musicals on broadway, i dont need to see another one; theyre all the same. And i was like, youve got to come. And he started crying from the first moment that you hit the stage and probably didnt end crying until the very last scene. And i have heard this story from many, many people that they are sitting in their seats crying as theyre watching in the heights. laughing hinojosa what does that. I mean, that must just. Its unreal. I. Its really unreal, and. You know, i. Im a theater kid. We didnt get to go to much theater as a kid, but i remember seeing rent at 17, and crying like your husband did at our show, because id always loved musicals i love music and i didnt know you were allowed to write musicals about now. It just. It had never occurred to me. You know, id seen musicals in opera houses, i was in pirate of penzance like your son, and. And it always took place in some other place, in some faraway land, and these were kids struggling to make a life for themselves through their art and living and dying, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. And thats when i started writing, because it just. It tacitly gave me permission. And for me, the most fun from my time performing in the show was when we would have school groups, and wed have kids from the south bronx, the dominican republic. And i would say, dominican republic, and you couldnt hear the next five bars. Hinojosa oh, theyd be. Because kids would scream so loud. I think if i had seen in the heights when i was a kid, id be president of the United States right now. Its just sort of. Its just. You know, it was. Its. I watch it impacting these kids and seeing themselves, and thats so enormously validating. Its. Its really the best part of the thing. Hinojosa how did you know that you could trust your voice . How did you know. I mean, i know that your dad was the president of the Debbie Reynolds club. laughing yes, thats true. Hinojosa . Okay, so i know you grew up also watching musicals, but how did you know that you could do this . Where did you learn how to trust that, yeah, im going to put pen in hand and im going to start writing a musical . I. I was lucky enough to be encouraged by people who were not family. I had an eighth grade english teacher named Rembert Herbert he still teaches at hunter and we had a class assignment for school, and we were teaching chaim potoks the chosen. And we had to present three chapters, and i took charge of our group and i wrote a song based on each chapter. And i was such a control freak that i made the other kids in the group lip sync to my voice on tape. And dr. Herbert you know, id been lounging, doodling in the back of the class and he said, youve been hibernating in my class and this is amazing, and youre a writer, and thats what youve been doing in the back of my class instead of paying attention. Hinojosa oh, my gosh. And it was the first time someone who wasnt related to me said, youre good at this thing. And that was enormously empowering, and i started writing that year. Hinojosa so do. Did you worry, though, about the fact that, you know, there have been other latinoproduced or latinocentric productions on broadway that didnt go so well . My heart broke with each one of them. And i think thats part of the impetus. That as part of the impetus to begin writing. I saw, you know, the capeman came out my senior year in high school, and it was written by one of my favorite songwriters of all time. Hinojosa paul simon. And starred two of my other favorite songwriters of all time. Hinojosa marc anthony. And ruben blades. And i went into that thinking, this is going to be my dream musical. And it got killed by the critics. The score was gorgeous; it got killed by the critics and it closed after 68 performances. I saw it three times in previews. And the cold, hard thud of reality set in no ones going to write your dream show for you, papa, you know . No ones going to write that dream. It doesnt exist unless you make it. And i spent two years editing capeman in my head. I remember thinking, well, if you start it in the 1950s and you just tell that part of the story, or, if you start in prison and maybe you do a flashback, you know, i tried to fix that show before i started writing my own. Hinojosa on the subway, you were doing this . laughing on the subway, yes. Hinojosa all right, so big, big changes for you. Hollywood wow. Yeah. Hinojosa and i told you, i asked you, are you moving to hollywood . You said, no, no, i have an apartment north of the heights. Yeah, i do, i do. I live uptown, and you know, for me its just logistical. I do most of my writing on the subway. I find its the perfect mix of being able to interact with the world and be closed off, so any time im in l. A. Like when i had to shoot my episode of house any time driving feels like lost time. Thats. Thats my writing time is commuting time. So you know, i. I participate in that world as much as is necessary, and then i go home. Hinojosa youre a producer of a hollywood film. laughing well. Hinojosa im sorry, i just have to say that. Im a coproducer. Hinojosa okay, youre a coproducer. All right, well, lets just say you are producing a major hollywood film in a team. When you say it like that its terrifying laughing hinojosa well, i want to know if its terrifying. I mean, how do you. I mean, suddenly youre like, negotiating hollywood executives. And not one, but a room full. How do you like, kind of say, no, its going to stay this way, when youve got other people saying, no, and you must, and youve got to change, and weve tested this, and weve screened this. Well, i have the luxury of great collaborators. You know, our producer meryl poster saw us very early off broadway and really champions the show very early on. And kenny ortega is a fantastic collaborator, and. Hinojosa and just so we dont. In case people dont know, kenny ortega of. Lets see, High School Musical fame, of. Newsies, my favorite; Michael Jacksons this is it. Hinojosa Michael Jackson this is it, an amazing. Yeah, choreographed dirty dancing and footloose; i mean, has just unbelievable history. Hinojosa one of your heroes, right . Yeah, absolutely. Hinojosa and now youre working with him. Yeah. Its. Its. I mean, its quite literally a dream come true. So i mean, to answer your question, i have people who are very protective of the work working with me, and i also, i feel like my. My reason for being in the room is, you know, i helped to write this thing and i have been with it for going on 11 years. So you know, im sure there are people who know more about the movie making business than me, but theres no one who knows more about this story and these characters than me. And so thats. Thats my way in. Hinojosa and you will be playing usnavi. Yeah. Hinojosa oh, my god i have to go to the gym. Hinojosa you have to get back to the gym. Ive been sitting on the couch, writing. Hinojosa what are writing about . I am writing a lot of things. Im going to probably write couple of new songs for the movie, and im working on. Hinojosa you know, im still. Im kind of like, wow, you have been doing this for 11 years and you still have the capacity to write a new song. Well, it. Hinojosa . About this story thats. Well, you know, its. It sounds like weve been working on the same story for eight years, but really, that was the process of me going from having a good idea and not really having the craft to pull it off yet to getting to be a good writer and that practice. So i have a trunk full of music already, and also, you know, just. Its. I know these characters backwards and forwards at this point, so its very easy to slip into their skin. But the fun of writing for musicals is its acting. You put on someone elses clothes, you sit in someone elses pantolone, and you talk to yourself until it feels true. And if it feels true and it sounds. Sings well, you write it down. Its not much more complicated than that. Hinojosa laughing and so, you know, right now im working on an animated film for dreamworks, im writing a score for an animated movie, and so i get to be a cuban monkey every once in a while. laughing and that is a blast hinojosa how do you switch it off . Like. You. You kind of dont, and you know, my fiancee vanessa. Hinojosa congratulations, by the way. Thank you, thank you. And shell. Shell see me get an idea and i look like im having some sort of episode, because i just. I go. Ill stop and ill. Talking to myself. I get my rain man on, and then. And she knows to just kind of like, oh, hes. Hes in a thing, and she goes and does Something Else until ive written it down. Hinojosa and youre writing by hand sometimes . It depends. I catch it any way i can catch it. A lot of the time when im composing, ill write. Ill use logic, which is a great program, and so i play each part into the computer and its freed me up enormously since that technology came out. I used to write by hand i wrote the entire first draft by hand and i wrote out all the parts by hand, but im very slow at it. I can read and write music, but im just very slow. So technology has helped the speed at which i can write and the specific. The specificity with which i can write enormously. But yeah, i. I often will write until i have a chord progression or a melody im really crazy about, and then ill put it on my ipod and ill get on the train and ill talk to myself. And ill play the thing on a. Hinojosa on the train . On a loop yeah. Im. That crazy guy next to you on the train . Thats me hinojosa okay, good to know. And then ill have it on a loop and ill just kind of let it sort of sink in and then figure out how this thing wants to talk. Hinojosa so your dream has kind of come true two or three times over. Yeah. Hinojosa what are you dreaming about these days . Or do. Do you, i mean. Or it is about vanessa . laughing well, its always. But well, you know, vanessa and i went to high school together, so ive been. Ive been dreaming about her for a minute now. Hinojosa yay but the. Its a lot of things. I think whats really exciting about writing is its just. Its limitless, you know . Im working on a lot of Different Things and theyre using different parts of my brain. You know, im working on this hamilton mix tape this Alexander Hamilton concept album that i got to sing. I got to perform at the white house. Hinojosa right. A friend of michelle and the prez. Yeah, which was. And that was the first time id performed that song in public outside of the shower. So it was really terrifying and thrilling and amazing. But you know, that is. Requires all this Historical Research and this part of my brain that has long laid dormant in terms of, you know, being accurate historically while getting to really play with contemporary music. And then you know, slipping back into my old heights bathrobe and writing those songs. So the fun for me is in trying to get as much done as i can. Hinojosa but more can you dream about . I mean, if you already have a play on broadway thats been a success and its going to be made into a hollywood movie, kind of what. You know, whats like, the next thing . Well, you know, you just continue to. I think the goal of any writer is to continue to find stories that move you, angenerated or you hook into something, you know . Like, when i read hamiltons biography, i. You know, im not a found. You know. Its a different type of identification than in the heights, which is, you know, im latino, i grew up in upper manhattan. Like, im not a founding father, but i read hamiltons story and i said, i know that guy, i just know that guy and i know how he thinks and why he was so brilliant and ambitious but also self destructive, and the childhood that fed that, and it just. Just spoke to me. And so thats how you do it. You just hook in. Hinojosa im interested, so well be looking forward to it. Linmanuel, congratulations. Thank you very much. Continue the conversation at wgbh. Org oneonone. Captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org [announcer] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation and hillco partners, a texas Government Affairs consultancy, and by klrus producers circle, ensuring local programming that reflects the character and interests of the greater austin, texas community. Im evan smith. Shes an actress whose credits include the hit tv series, orange is the new black and jane the virgin. Her memoir, in the country we love my family divided has just been published. Shes diane guerrero. This is overheard. Lets be honest, is this about the ability to learn or is this about the experience of not having been taught right . How have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa . At 17, he made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. We saw a problem and, over time, took it on. Lets start with the sizzle before we get to the steak
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