From Lincoln Heights to In the Heights

The universal message of In The Heights of achieving the American dream has proven to resonate with audiences across the nation, and across ethnic and cultural lines. Currently playing at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles, local audiences are no exception. Much has to do with the exceptional performances in the 2008 Best Musical Tony award-winning musical. One of those exceptional performers is native Angeleno, Danny Bolero.

Creator, composer and performer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is reprising his role of Usnavi for the L.A. production, conceived the characters of In The Heights based on people he knew while growing up in the neighborhood of Washington Heights. The characters of Nina, Kevin and Camila Rosario are perhaps, the strongest of the concurrent storylines told, and the one without the simplest ending.

Bolero is Kevin Rosario, Nina's (Arielle Jacobs) overprotective father, who only wants to insure his family has everything they want. Committed to have Nina be the first to attend college in the family Kevin, with the help of his wife Camila (Natalie Toro) proudly help send Nina off to Stanford University. Nina returns to Washington Heights with the shame and disappointment of having dropped out.

Commitment to family is something Bolero knows full well – through his own father’s commitment to his family. “He worked three jobs to put us through private school,” said Bolero. “My parents would go without so much, to provide for us.”

Bolero lost his parents to Alzheimer’s disease over ten years ago. Before they died, he took four years off from his career to take care of them full-time. “For me,” said Bolero, “it’s in honor of them that this character takes place.” He dedicates his performances to his parents, and – spiritually -- he brings them on stage every time he performs. “They were at every show. They supported me all of their lives even though they thought I would grow out of it [the acting bug].”

Impressed with how Latino audiences in Los Angeles have embraced In The Heights Bolero says, “The Latino population is hungry to hear their voice on stage. They get the jokes. They get the cariño.” Adding that in New York, he saw more of the universal messages of family and tradition reaching non-Latinos. “This type of show is needed and this is history in the making.”

This isn’t Bolero’s first performance in a Broadway production. Before In The Heights, he performed on Broadway in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He also has a rich history of local performances including playing Che Guevara in numerous productions of Evita and Cesar Chavez in Ed Begley’s Cesar and Ruben. His performance of Cesar Chavez was so real that UFW leader Dolores Huerta recommended him for the part of Cesar in the 2008 documentary Viva La Causa.

Aside from his parents, Bolero credits his success to his first acting teacher, Margo Albert. He said he was lucky at the age of 15 to be accepted to her acting class and receive the guidance of a legend who took the time to show kids in the barrio of Lincoln Heights, her craft. Margo Albert was a film actress and dancer who gave acting classes to young talent in East Los Angeles and helped found Plaza de la Raza – an educational, arts and cultural center in Lincoln Park – forty years ago. After she passed away, the original acting group fell apart, but Bolero said he realized “he had to just trust the rules she gave me and jump out of the nest.” And he has -- from Lincoln Heights to Washington Heights and from Broadway to Hollywood.

Margo Albert and Bolero’s parents would be proud.

Playing at the P:antages Theater in Los Angeles through July 25, 2010

Running Time: 2 Hours 15 Minutes

Purchase Tickets: HERE http://ticketsus.at/BLARef?CTY=37&DURL=http://www.ticketmaster.com/venueartist/90160/1089137?brand=pantagesca

Or Call 866-755-3075 M-F 10-5 PST for availability and ordering.

Kites: A Bollywood Rollercoaster Ride

If you have never gone to a Bollywood romantic movie, let me warn you, it’s not anything like Slumdog Millionaire. Except for the dancing and singing at the end, it’s all over the top in more ways than one. Remember those Beach Blanket Bingo movies your grandparents, parents or older brothers and sisters used to watch? Well if you’re too young to remember Annette and Frankie in their prime, let me break it down for you. There’s no explicit sex. There is some kissing and of course, plenty of singing and dancing. So when my Bengali friend told me she was going to see Kites, I said I would go with her and I knew a little of what to expect beforehand. I knew it was Bollywood but I had heard about a Mexican twist to it and I was eager to see how this cultural mix would fly. And it flies all over the place! In fact half the movie is one long chase that almost stops midway and just recharges and takes you on a longer chase. So in the middle of the movie I was laughing and screaming like I was on a rollercoaster ride. The direction of this movie was fantastic. It was wild!

It’s the story of Jai, a male dancer in Las Vegas, who teaches Gina, the daughter of a casino owner to dance. She predictably falls in love with him. Just when he thinks he has hit the jackpot with Gina and her family’s money, he meets her brother’s fiancée, Natassha, Barbara Mori. He falls in love with her and thus the chase begins with all the trappings of the mafia and the rest of what you usually get watching a Vegas movie but this time with a Mexicana driving the getaway car, conducting the bank robbery and slapping her lover into reality. The best part is when they tell each other how to say, “I love you” in their native language! Hilarious!

Seriously, what makes Kites work are the two main actors, Mexican telenovela star Barbara Mori who you may have noticed in Maxim and the like and Indian Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan. If you haven’t seen them yet, they are hot, very hot. They steam up the big screen without even speaking the same language. In fact, the whole movie they struggle to communicate to each other with symbols and broken English, Spanish and Hindi which takes the chase and the story on even a crazier ride. But like a rollercoaster, don’t expect the ride to be wild from the start. It starts slow and easy so you may ask yourself what am I doing watching this movie the first 30 minutes but if you have the patience you will be flying with Kites before you know it. Just watch it with no logic or strings attached. Great date movie!

"La Mission" A Reflection or True Life

It was with much trepidation that I sat down to watch La Mission – the Bratt brothers (Benjamin – actor/producer of the film and Peter – writer, director and producer) new film. This was a movie very close to home, portraying my beloved Mission barrio and what is left of it after decades of pervasive gentrification. I was also concerned about how La Mission would deal with an issue Latinos are still struggling with today – homosexuality. Knowing Bratt’s work from Piñero and Bound by Honor, I was hoping for a movie that reflected that caliber of performance and story. At the same time, the movie’s budget was only 2.4 million so I knew the film was an “act of love” on the part of the Bratt brothers. Most films require millions more just to be made--let alone the additional millions of dollars required for promotion and advertisement. I had heard some mixed reviews so I knew I had to see it for myself. I was also motivated by the fact that Benjamin Bratt would be available for Q & A after the screening. I’m glad I overcame my initial trepidation and went to the screening.

It is the story of Che (Benjamin Bratt); - a single father who is a reformed inmate and recovering alcoholic-- who discovers his only son, Jesse (Jeremy Ray Valdez) is gay. When Che finds out, he loses control and in his rage kicks his son out of the house. Later, Che is convinced by his neighbor, Lena (Erika Alexander), to make amends with his son in spite of his seeming inability to accept his son’s homosexuality.

Like so many in this movie’s Latino audience, I immediately was struck by the people of my youth coming to life on the big screen. Che’s character brought back vivid memories of an old boyfriend who would labor over the details of his Cholo outfit of classy Pendleton and perfectly ironed pantalones. The character Jesse reminded me of my former boyfriend’s little brother who was extremely talented and proud of his homosexuality. Lena was a beautiful example of a close African American friend of mine, who like the character, is a uniquely organic individual and part of the diverse population San Francisco has to offer. The cultural images, like the Aztec dancers, and ethnic exchanges, like the camaraderie exhibited by the bus drivers were very prominent features in the film. These instances of ethnic solidarity and cultural pride are examples of everyday life that, in my experience, - native San Franciscans rarely see of themselves on the big screen but intuitively know exists. Overall, the performances of the main characters were so close to real life that I felt unsettled given their powerful authenticity. Immediately after the movie, I called my old friends to tell them to see La Mission because they were in it!

After the screening, Bratt talked about how the main character was based on a lowrider named Che. He added that when the real Che was told that his movie son was coming out to his father, Che rejected the idea of having a gay son. The real Che’s reaction was, “Why couldn’t he have been a drug dealer or something like that? Why gay?” Bratt explained then that the reason his brother wrote this movie was to make a statement against the extreme violence in our communities and how conditioned we are to accept it as a part of normal life. In the film, Jessie, the gay son, is not only beaten by his father but he is also mercilessly taunted by his classmates and kids in the neighborhood. The movie makes you realize how violence permeates all aspects of barrio life and how often we uncritically and unconsciously accept it as a part of our communities. As Bratt says, “We are conditioned to not even question it.”

The Bratt brothers have broken ground in producing a movie that critically unveils the accepted and taken-for-granted violence in our communities and forces the viewer to see it and reject it. They also need to be applauded for taking on homosexuality in the Latino community and the often violent homophobia that surrounds it. These two issues, long overdue for discussion—are powerfully captured in this well-told narrative. Let’s hope the Bratt brothers will continue to make similarly powerful and critical films that will crossover and be appreciated by mainstream audiences who too often stereotype Latinos. This one definitely hits home for those from La Mission.