At the beginning of this competition, we had 32 diverse and memorable musicals fight for the right to be named the winner of Musical Madness: Decades Edition. It was a very competitive game, but after two weeks of instagram polls and voting, our audience has picked a winner.
The Winner is….
In the Heights
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In the Heights has stolen the hearts of many theatre goers since its original Broadway run in 2008. In that year, it was nominated for 13 Tony awards, taking home 4 of them: Best Musical, Original Score, Choreography, and Orchestrations. In that same year, it won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. Who knows, maybe it could take home an Academy Award for its upcoming film which premieres in June of this year?
In the Heights was written by the ingenious Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegria Hudes (who also wrote the book for Miss You Like Hell). Miranda went on to star as the main character, Usnavi, in the original Broadway production.
This musical is very special to OTC for a few reasons. In our 2017 co-production with Round House Theatre, Usnavi was played by Robin de Jesus, the original Sonny in the Broadway production. That next year, it took home the Helen Hayes Award for Best Production of a Musical. Our audiences were enthralled by the production in 2017, and it is a testament to the musical as a whole that people still carry that same love for it in 2020.
Thank you to everyone who participated in Musical Madness, it was so much fun to produce, and we can’t wait for our next competition.
