In The Heights Reviews

Washington Post- Highly Recommended

"...Audiences are seated all around an intersection, as though we've been invited to pull up a chair at the curb (set designer Andrew R. Cohen makes maximum and imaginative use of the space). The close-up view is ideal for this portrait of tight-knit residents in Washington Heights. The street-level action - family squabbles, featherlight romances, restless dreams of escape - feels palpable and immediate."

DC Theater Arts- Highly Recommended

"...In fact, director James Vásquez has molded this cast into a family, and the connection among the cast is palpable. Vasquez takes the elements that Miranda and book writer Quiara Alegría Hudes have entrusted him with and splashes them all over the Signature Theatre stage. The result is a production that pulses with lavish and unrestrained joy."

MetroWeekly- Highly Recommended

"...The music, an energetic amalgam of salsa, merengue, and hip-hop, is enough in itself to keep us coming back to this corner of the Heights. Music director Angie Benson arranges smooth transitions in, and soft landings out of Miranda’s ebullient score, performed admirably by a nine-piece band, which sounded a bit muffled in the mix."

Talkin Broadway- Highly Recommended

"...The first striking thing about the Signature Theatre production of In the Heights in Arlington, Virginia, is apparent from the audience's arrival in the MAX Theater. Scenic designer Andrew R. Cohen has configured the stage area with seating on all four sides and placed two-dimensional set elements behind the seats, immersing the audience in the action. Viewers who look away from the fabulous cast may even see that the traffic lights hanging above the stage do change color (lighting design by Rui Rita)."

Washington City Paper- Recommended

"...Directed by James Vasquez, In the Heights is another joyous musical outing from Signature Theatre, but even Signature's production value cannot obscure its origin as a 1999 student project by Lin-Manuel Miranda, of later Hamilton fame."

Stage and Cinema- Highly Recommended

"...Before Hamilton changed the face of Broadway, there was In the Heights—Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first revolution. Bursting onto the scene in 2008, it infused hip-hop, salsa, merengue, Broadway, and street-smart storytelling into a genre that never saw it coming. And while Hamilton became a global juggernaut, In the Heights —with a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes—was the one that cracked open the door, proving that the stories of Washington Heights—and the rhythms that fueled them—belonged on center stage."

MD Theatre Guide- Highly Recommended

"...Signature Theatre’s “In The Heights” is beyond thrilling, beyond heartwarming, and beyond being just about the most fun you can have in a theatre. It is bold enough to make you sit with the feeling of loss that comes when something so bright and meaningful changes and begins to fade. In giving such power to the Washington Heights that was, it stands as a stark act of resistance to the forces and pressures that would rather see it gone completely."

Theatre Bloom- Highly Recommended

"...Lights up on Signature Theatre because they’re doing it right— standing proud, walking tall— ¡no pare sigue, sigue! In The Heights is a dazzling production that is as much story as it is musical theatrical genius incarnate, celebrating everything that can and should be beautiful in a community, and what should be beautiful in the world."