Riverside City College Theater Arts Fall-Winter 2025 season has begun. To start off the season, RCC is in development of their Fall musical “In the Heights” composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. This Tony Award winning production tells a story of the Latin American community, taking place in the early 2000s of Washington Heights, a vibrant neighborhood in New York City.
Auditions for this show began on Aug. 26, in the Landis Auditorium. Nearly 100 students auditioned for this show and a fair number of these students were familiar with it. In fact a few students had done this show before, so for a lot of these students it was an opportunity to do it again.
Auditions required singing of 16-32 measures of music and followed up with a dance audition, choreographed by Brenda Castillo. The audition cut was to the song “96,000”. The choreo was a hip-hop style audition dance, with lots of sharp yet fluid movements requiring the whole body.
Out of all of those students, only a third of those students were cast in this production, 12 primaries and 23 dance ensemble. Rehearsal dates are from Sept. 3 to Oct. 29 while tech rehearsals are from Oct. 25 to Oct. 28.
“Usually a day or two before auditions, Brenda will send out the audition cut for the choreography. When I saw it, there were all these really sharp movements, it was crazy.” Emilio Rasilla, the student cast as Usnavi De La Vega, said.
Rasilla mentioned he spent hours learning the dance combo with his cast mate Bella Ramirez and was with her when they both got the call, telling them they made the show. Emilio’s mindset when walking into an audition is to look at it like one big party, to keep a positive mindset the entire time.
However, Ramirez has performed for “In the Heights” before, so her expectations were different.
“It was very high stakes and I came in really wanting to be in this show and I really wanted Nina. So, it felt like there was a lot of pressure on that part, but it also felt like a big part of the process. The audition is just the first step, no matter where it goes,” she said.
Within a day or two following auditions, the calls and emails went out to people letting them know whether they made it or not.
“It was very emotional for me when they contacted me, because it’s my dream role and Vanessa’s someone that I’ve wanted to play for years and to be able to share my culture and share my background with everyone while I’m onstage and to share that with a community, I cried. I felt so blessed to be given this opportunity,” said Bianca Cuellar, playing Vanessa Garcia.
Vanessa’s main goal in this show is that she wants to leave the barrio (an area of town that is mainly a spanish neighborhood) and go live a better life to get out of her current situation and she talks about it in her song “It Won’t Be Long Now”.
Cuellar has a big connection with this character in a different way, she explained she feels this connection through theater. In coming from one theater company where she felt like she was never being seen and longed to get out of that company and go out to see what the world was going to bring her, which she found here at RCC.
However, for other performers like Nathan Lopez, playing Graffiti Pete due to the surprise their reactions were far more delayed. “There was not a single thought in my head that I thought I would get Graffiti Pete. When they called me and said ‘We’d like to offer you Graffiti Pete,’ I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ And then they repeated it and I was like, oh yeah, of course.,” he said.
Lopez explained he has been having a lot of fun playing Graffiti Pete and taking on this character.
“Even when I don’t have lines, sometimes I’m just there being silly. So yeah, it’s been very fun playing this character,” he said.
In the Heights is an emotional show, that has so much representation for Latin communities. It is a story that is told proudly and confidently. The pride is a message to the audience to have no embarrassment of who you are, culturally and in your community, to love who you are and to embrace your culture and never forget your background.
This theater builds bonds. It creates such fluidity between the cast. They are there for one another, whether it be on or off the stage. It’ll be exciting to see what RCC Theater Arts Department will bring to the stage as the show dates near, so don’t miss out and buy your tickets now before they sell out.
Show dates are Oct. 30 through Nov. 2, two shows at 2 p.m and two at 7 p.m, you can buy tickets on their website rccboxoffice.com. There will be another feature on the review of the show and more behind the scene quotes from the performers to follow.
