By Cayman Compass contributor Christopher Tobutt
On a warm Cayman night, you settle into your seat at the Prospect Playhouse – a small theatre, yes, but one with decades of craft behind it.
The Cayman Drama Society may run on volunteer power, but nothing about their work feels amateur. And when the first notes of ‘In the Heights’ rise – Lin Manuel Miranda’s music and lyrics, Quiara Alegría Hudes’ book – the room tilts. The Prospect Playhouse dissolves and Washington Heights, New York appears, pavements shimmering, shutters clattering: a neighbourhood waking up.
It begins with Graffiti Pete – played on alternating nights by Michael Powery and Chad Powell Jr. – slipping through the early morning shadows with a spray can. Usnavi (Rodrigo Gordillo) chases him off, already frazzled, already fighting to keep his little bodega alive. It’s a perfect opening, depicting a neighbourhood in motion and a man trying to hold his corner of the world together.
Around him, the Heights hums with life. Deija Myles’ Vanessa moves through the salon with the restless energy of someone who wants more than her circumstances allow. Sonny fires off jokes with the sharpness of someone who sees change coming faster than anyone admits. And always, Kim Febres’ Abuela Claudia watches with the soft, steady warmth of a matriarch who has carried generations on her shoulders.
Then there is the beating heart of the story: Benny and Nina.
Mikhail Campbell’s Benny is all earnestness and ambition, a young man who loves both the neighbourhood and Nina with his whole chest. But to Kevin Rosario – played with quiet, stubborn dignity by Paulo Fierro – Benny is simply not good enough for his daughter. Kevin built his taxi business from scratch, not quite failing but never quite thriving, insisting his drivers wear ties even in the stifling heat. Benny respects him deeply, helps him with dispatches, tries to prove himself – but when it comes to Nina, the door remains closed.
And Nina – played on alternating nights by Victoria King and Caitlin Tyson — carries a secret heavier than her suitcase. She has left Stanford University. She was not only her family’s dream, but her entire community’s hope that a better life was possible. Now she must face the people who believed in her, and the father who staked everything on her success.
Under the co-direction of Judith Nicholls and Cynthia Powell, these tensions weave through music and movement that are anything but simple. Harmonies overlap, melodies braid around each other, and at times the ensemble rises into an almost angelic chorus that lifts the whole room.
Then comes the blackout.
It hits over the Independence Day weekend plunging the neighbourhood into darkness. The cast chants “We are powerless,” and the words land with a double – even a triple meaning: The lights are out, yes, but so too are the dreams that never quite materialised. Yet in that darkness, something shifts. What makes them feel powerless becomes the very thing that draws them together in unity, a new identity and strength.
Usnavi feels that pull most. Named after the U.S. Navy ship his father saw, he dreams of returning “home” to a place he barely remembers. But after Abuela Claudia’s death, when Graffiti Pete unveils a mural in her honour – a burst of colour, memory and love – something in him stops. In that painting he sees not just loss, but legacy; not just struggle but belonging.
By the time he reaches his crossroads, the question has widened: What makes a home? Who gets to claim it?
For two hours, the Cayman Drama Society answers with music, movement and heart. Home is people. Home is story. Home is the courage to stay.
‘In the Heights’ continues its run at the Prospect Playhouse with eight more shows through 14 June.
Christopher Tobutt is a freelance journalist who has written for various publications in the Cayman Islands since 2003.
Related Videos
