If you’ve ever seen the musical “In the Heights,” you know it’s an all-out, big-cast, high-energy salsa and rap dance musical. So how is San Diego Musical Theatre able to pull off the show on a small stage and pre-recorded score? The answer is quite well.
In most productions of “In the Heights,” it’s the spectacular dancing that steals the show. Carlos Mendoza, who directed the SDMT show, won a San Diego Theatre Critics Circle award in 2017 for his high-flying choreography in Moonlight Stage Productions’ “In the Heights” in Vista.
Arianna Vila, as Vanessa, has a large and well-pitched singing voice and excellent dance skills. Other vocal standouts are Analía Romero as Abuela Claudia, the elderly Cuban immigrant who raised Usnavi after his parents died; and all three members of the hard-striving Rosario family from Puerto Rico — Vanessa Orozco as daughter Nina, and Daisy Martínez and Berto Fernández as her parents Camila and Kevin.