Buffalo Theater: Ode to NYC brings home the neighborhood

By Dale Anderson

“Hell’s Kitchen” and “In the Heights,” both love letters to New York City, right? So are they somehow more alike? That question got answered at the Friday night opening of “In the Heights” in the Warren Enters Theater in Upton Hall at Buffalo State University.

Alicia Keys, she adores the people in the sketchy midtown Manhattan neighborhood where she grew up, but “Hell’s Kitchen,” which came to Shea’s Buffalo last month in a touring Broadway production, is really all about her.

On the other hand, about 100 blocks uptown in Washington Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda gives us an entire world to care about. Just like he was Alexander Hamilton in the “Hamilton” musical, Miranda was the original “Heights” narrator and bodega owner, Usnavi de la Vega, on Broadway. But it’s not like that character is the actual Lin-Manuel.

Meanwhile, the co-producers, Starring Broadway, AnsariSaxon Productions and the Buff State Theater Department, have imported a real Broadway guy to play the lead in this rendition of “Heights.” He’s Jacob Guzman, an Equity actor with an impressive line of credits, including the Broadway cast of “Hamilton.” He’s all that you want as Usnavi.

The cast’s other Equity actor, the lovely Mikaela Secada, in the role of Usnavi’s girlfriend Vanessa, has less of a presence, but is supremely confident as an actor, singer and dancer. (Also, she’s singer Jon Secada’s daughter.)

Standouts among the local players are three-time Artie Award winner Melinda Capeles as Camila Rosario, wife of the limousine service owner, who shines in her bravura moment in the show’s second half, and Willa DeWhisp, a drag performer who’s taller than tall in heels and absolutely dominates every scene she’s in as the brassy beauty salon owner Daniela.

Not to be overlooked are Brianna Garcia, a new Niagara University theater program grad, as the striving Rosario daughter Nina; Alejandro Gomez, who appeared in the MusicalFare production of “In the Heights” in 2015 and does double duty as Nina’s father and the cart-pushing Peragua Guy; and Smirna Mercedes, also a cast member of that 2015 “Heights” and a founding member of Buffalo’s Raices Theater Company, who’s Abuela Claudia, the neighborhood matriarch.

Having seen that 2015 show, I think this one sacrifices some of the “Heights” sense of hominess by not having a set, though a bit of the flavor comes through with the Peragua guy pushing a cart and the flag scene, “Alabanza,” echoed in the Friday night audience, which responded with Puerto Rican flags.

Kudos to choreographer Naila Ansari, especially for the way the actors move about with their music stands, readers-theater style. Also to Karen E. Saxon, who not only directs a small invisible band from her piano behind the row of actors, but also coordinates the choruses — one from Buff State, another from Niagara Falls High School on Friday night.

Two other choruses in the playbill, from Cheektowaga High School and Iroquois Central High School, will appear in other performances. There’s not that many, just a pair of 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday, Nov. 14, and Sunday, Nov. 15, and one more evening show at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets could be scarce. The Warren Enters Theater has 385 seats and on Friday night it seemed like all of them were taken.