A theater finds a home in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s backyard
By MALIA MENDEZ
When Lin-Manuel Miranda was growing up, his family could not afford Broadway tickets. But on occasion, they would trek downtown from his home in Inwood to see Miranda’s great-uncle Ernesto Concepción Sr. when he visited from Puerto Rico to perform in New York.
On one such trip to the Repertorio Español theater, Miranda decided to don his cowboy outfit. He was 6 or 7 and stuck two squirt guns in the holsters.
When his great-uncle spotted them from the stage, he improvised a marching order: “Pull out your guns! Squirt it at that bad man!”
Miranda, who has three Tony Awards for “Hamilton” and “In the Heights,” looks back at that ad-libbed scene as his first experience with interactive theater — and the kind of moment a child from upper Manhattan will no longer have to take an hourlong train to catch.
Miranda is among the backers of the People’s Theater: Centro Cultural Inmigrante, a new permanent home at 206th Street for an 18-year community theater operation based out of Inwood and Washington Heights. It features two performance spaces, four rehearsal studios, a soundproof practice room, gallery space and lobbies designed for gatherings, exhibitions and events. Every room has a splash, if not a douse, of color.
The performance space was designed by WORKac, an immigrant-founded and woman-led architecture practice. It will further the People’s Theater’s mission to champion immigrant-centered works, and bring the neighborhood together.
“I can use this space and then walk home?” Miranda said, foretelling the response of artists to come.
The theater officially opened its doors Saturday, and performances of its debut production, “Guac,” are set to begin this week. Manuel Oliver wrote “Guac” about his son, Joaquin, who was killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Days before the grand opening, Miranda’s father, Luis A. Miranda Jr., and his cousin Ernesto Concepción Jr. joined him on a tour of the venue. Mino Lora, executive artistic director of the People’s Theater and its co-founder (with her husband, Bob Braswell), led the way.
Upon arriving at the 19,000-square-foot center, Miranda and his family members flitted about, embracing staff and other project partners as if at a family reunion. They hardly stood still until they saw the entrance to the studio theater that bears the name of Miranda’s great-uncle.
Concepción Sr., a prolific performer and founder of the Actors Guild in Puerto Rico, was the “contagion” responsible for the family’s creative bug, his son said. It was especially fitting, he added, that the intimate studio theater be linked to his father, who took a special interest in supporting budding talent.
Miranda snapped a photo of the name on the wall and then thought better of it, pushing his cousin into the shot. They both smiled wide.
“In my wildest dreams, I never would have thought that on the site of this old Pathmark, would we be here,” Miranda said, referring to a supermarket chain.
In 2008, Miranda took “In the Heights,” a love letter to the Latino enclave in Inwood and Washington Heights, to Broadway. At the same time, Lora was writing her master’s thesis about creating a theater dedicated to the immigrant community in upper Manhattan.
The thesis became the People’s Theater, which has for years staged productions and hosted classes in pop-up locations, community centers and local partner facilities.
It only made sense, Lora said, that her work and Miranda’s eventually coincided. The first time they joined forces was to revamp his childhood playground into a summer theater camp venue.
When Lora called Miranda Jr. up years later with what he called the mad idea — “con esta locura” — to build a permanent home for the People’s Theater, he recalled thinking, “How do you raise $40 million for something that should not exist in a working-class state, in an immigrant state?”
At the same time, Miranda Jr. believed that Lora’s center was something the neighborhood deserved. And when it comes to raising money, he said, “If you believe you’re worthy, you’ll ask for it.”
The Miranda family contributed $1 million of the $6.25 million in private donations that have been raised, according to the People’s Theater, in addition to the $32.1 million in public funds allocated for the theater.
Serendipitously, Lora said, being nomadic for so long meant the People’s Theater had a legion of backers. She said that when the venue was still under construction — it lives at the Miramar, a mixed-income, mixed-use rental building that is part of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s affordable housing plan — people would knock on the windows to ask, “When can we rent this space?”
Miranda felt the potential energy the moment he walked in the door, he said. He immediately started envisioning what productions he could bring to the space.
“That’s the sign of a well-built home,” he said.
The theater was an audacious proposal, Lora said, but she always knew that it would come together.
“Immigrants,” she said, nudging Miranda playfully as she drew from his magnum opus, “we get it done.”
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