Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre Company Stages ‘In the Heights’

Award-Winning Broadway Musical From Lin-Manuel Miranda Comes to the Central Coast This Fall

The cast of Rubicon Theatre Company’s upcoming production of 'In the Heights' visit the Tortilla Flats mural project created by M.B. Hanrahan and Moses Mora, a public art installation that celebrates the multi-cultural neighborhood of working-class Mexican, Chumash, African-American, and Anglo-Americans who lived in Ventura’s historical westside neighborhood. | Credit: Loren Haar Photography

The Rubicon Theatre Company brings a taste of upper Manhattan and a collection of upbeat musical numbers to the Central Coast with their presentation of the Tony Award–winning musical In the Heights this fall.

With productions staged Wednesday through Sunday from October 29 to November 13 at Ventura’s Karyn Jackson Theatre (formerly known as the Rubicon, until a major naming donation was secured in early 2022), In the Heights is the Rubicon Theatre Company’s centerpiece show in their “Welcome Home” season this year. Inexpensive previews are October 26-28.

Luis Pablo Garcia as Sonny (Pre-Broadway Premiere of *The Karate Kid*) and Ryan Reyes (*Americano: The Musical* Off-Broadway) as Usnavi in Rubicon Theatre Company’s production of *In the Heights*. | Credit: Loren Haar Photography

Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who took the world by storm in February 2015 with his hit musical Hamilton, In the Heights marked Miranda’s first work to premiere on Broadway in 1999 and the start of his multi-dimensional career as “a Pulitzer Prize, Grammy, Emmy, Tony Award-winning composer, lyricist, and actor.” The play was later adapted into a film in 2021, highlighting the ever-growing importance of Miranda’s works.

Mariana Herrera-Juri, an award-winning 18-year-old actor from Colombia, plays Graffiti Pete, and featured dancer Malachi Durant (Cirque du Soleil/*Showstoppers*), are two members of the large 21-member cast of *In the Heights* at Rubicon Theatre Company. | Credit: Loren Haar Photography

The play follows, in the span of three days, several generations of families within the barrio of Washington Heights in Manhattan, who navigate their changing neighborhood and the modern challenges faced by Latin-American immigrants.

Brimming with witty humor, deep-rooted familial drama, and Miranda’s characteristically upbeat musical numbers, In the Heights rightfully earns what New York Times writer Charles Isherwood called, “An exuberant, animated shrine to the importance of family ties and being faithful to where you come from.”

Directed by Luis Salgado, a cast member and the Latin Assistant Choreographer in the original Broadway production of the show, the Rubicon Theatre Company’s production of In the Heights will be in exceptional hands.

Producing Artistic Director of the show, Karyl Lynn Burns, notes that, “Luis is one of the most brilliant and visionary directors I have ever encountered, and we are honored to have him lead this special production. Luis and the cast bring great emotional depth and connection to this simple, universal story to which everyone will relate.”

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit rubicon theatre.org.or call (805)667-2900, and discover Washington Heights, “a place where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open, and the breeze carries the rhythms of three generations of music.”