On Wednesday, January 21st, the cast of Williston’s 2016 spring production, In the Heights, took a trip to New York City to learn more about the history, culture, and lives of the people the musical depicts.

The cast visited the Dominican Studies Institute at the City University of New York where students learned about the history, culture, and people of Washington Heights, a neighborhood in Manhattan predominantly populated by Spanish speaking immigrants. The cast members also walked around the Washington Heights neighborhood where they observed the people and buildings which inspired Lin–Manuel Miranda to write the musical.

The cast of In the Heights consists of 26 students in all four grades. They were joined on the trip by Ms. Emily Ditkovski, the play’s Director, Musical Director Mr. Joshua Harper, and Choreographer Ms. Debra D. Vega.

About the trip, Ms. Ditkovski says, “We needed to see what life is really like in Washington Heights. You need to see the Bodegas, hear the Spanish spoken on the street.”

She adds, “He [Lin-Manuel Miranda] wants students who don’t know much about the immigrant experience, about Washington Heights, about the Caribbean, to learn about these things. We owe it to the story and to its creators to educate ourselves.”

For lunch, the cast went to a Manhattan Pizzeria and met both Eliseo Roman and Robin de Jesús, two of the actors who were members of the original In the Heights Broadway cast. This meeting was set up by Ms. Vega who met Roman when they did dinner theatre together in the early 2000s.

Ms. Ditkovski says, “Listening to Roman and de Jesús discuss what it meant for them, as Latino actors, to be part of a production that had characters and plot lines relevant to their lives reminds us of our responsibility to tell this story faithfully.”

The trip also included attending a matinee performance of Fun Home, winner of the Tony Award for best new musical in 2015.

Calvin Ticknor-Swanson ’16 plays one of the principal roles in the musical. About the trip, he says, “As a cast, this trip helped us understand the reality in the stories of In The Heights. There is so much context to Washington Heights and the Hispanic immigrant experience that simply reading a script or singing a song doesn’t provide enough of the background that we need to fully realize our characters and the stories that they are living.”

The trip was funded, in part, by a donation made by Austin Sarat and Stephanie Sandler, the parents of Ben Sarat ’14 who had lead roles in a number Williston Theatre productions.

Mr. Sarat says, “The Williston theater program is a treasure, and Emily Ditkovski is the kind of once in a lifetime teacher who changes lives and offers her students a chance to do professional quality theatre in a wonderfully supportive and inspiring environment. We saw this up close when our son Ben was at Williston.”

Ms. Ditkovski continues, “It’s a complete and total honor to get that kind of support. I am always so floored by that kind of generosity.”