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vampiresuns · 4 years ago

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✨ Navigating Jules’ Arcanaverse ✨

As you might have noticed, I have a bit of a lore heavy arcanaverse, and I understand it can be hard to follow sometimes. Here’s a way to navigate it!

Jules’ Vesuvia follows the various generations of the Radošević-Cassano family. The R-C is a family created around my original Arcana apprentice, Aelius Anatole Radošević De Silva (that’s his full name, but Anatole does the trick).

On one side, the Cassano are an old Vesuvian family, with no nobility titles, who despite this have held the Consul’s office within their ranks for give or take 500 years. On the other, the Radošević are a Balkovian (fantasy land inspired in former Yugoslavia) family of people of the arts and sciences.

They have a very specific vision of how things should be done. You can learn about them here.

Both families have had ties of friendship for generations until those resulted in two marriages: The marriage of Anatole’s biological grandmother (a Cassano) to his biological grandfather (a Radošević) and the marriage of the former’s cousin (a Cassano too) to Anatole’s great uncle (a Radošević). The first marriage resulted in two children: Vlad Radoševic, Anatole’s father, and Valeriy “Valerius” Radošević, also known as Consul Valerius, as I headcanon him to be Anatole’s uncle.

The two brothers, however, weren’t raised by their parents but by the second aforementioned marriage. This is because their parents died when Vlad was 14 and Valeriy 4, in a partying accident.

The current generation the Julesverse follows is that of Anatole, Milenko Radošević-Tesfaye, Amparo Cassano, and Artemisia Cassano [bio pending].

Here’s a quick rundown of some names which come up the most:

Anatole, and his parents Vlad Radošević and Louisa De Silva, a latina doctor who was exiled from her country out of political reasons.

Anatole’s great uncle and his husband, who act as his grandfathers: Mircea Radošević and Florentino Cassano.

Milenko, and his mothers: Violeta Radošević and Aurora Tesfaye, a botanist and garden designer and an former archaeologist now consultant. Along them you may find Atanasie Radošević and Blasio — the former is Violeta’s twin brother and Milenko’s uncle, while the latter is Milenko’s grandfather and father of Violeta and Atanasie.

Violeta, Atanasie and Blasio are muslim. Aurora is jewish. Milenko was rised as both.

Amparo, and her parents Cassiopeia Cassano, a member of the Council of Vesuvia, and Iris Ravella.

Artemisia, who is Amparo’s sister. Hers and Amparo’s grandparents: Anzano and Atlia are sometimes mentioned.

The former Consuls: The consulship title post game is held by Anatole, whom inherited it from Valerius, who got it from Iovanus Cassano, his grandfather, who got it from Vitale Cassano, his father.

Valerian Cassano or Valerian Valperga, these are the same person. He is the widow of Iovanus Cassano, a necromancer, and former actor. He is past his 100s and is often featured as a guide for many of these characters.

I also have a headcanon list about how I imagine the Vesuvian Court to function, which you can find here. I worldbuild around it a lot.

The only non Radošević-Cassano who currently has an active storyline, is my OC J. C. Sanlaurento, aka Julianus ‘Jules’ Cleopatra Sanlaurento who exists exclusively within the intersection between my arcanaverse and @/apprenticealec‘s arcanaverse, as they are shipper with Saoirse, one of her pirate OCS. You can read the Jules x Saoirse series: Secrets of an Ancient Moon here.

Are there Any Other Radošević-Cassano related OCs I should know of? ✨

Because in this life we all have friends, there are some OCs who exist as secondary characters in the Vesuvia of the Radošević-Cassano, these are:

Paris De Silva, Louisa’s younger sister, aunt of Anatole, and former owner of ‘The Shop’. Hers was called The Moonstone and Jasmine.

Leonore Kaur and Medea Pryce — they were former apprentices of mine who no longer connect to the main Arcana storyline, but who remain in the universe as two of Anatole’s best friends. They met while they were at University. Leonore is a therapist, while Medea works in the Vesuvian Court, as part of it’s staff [see: Court Staff in this post]

Octavia Rey Dos Santos, a playwright by night and Coffee wench by day, she runs The Sphinx Coffeehouse, simply known as ‘The Sphinx’, which is owned by her family and is a meeting place for various artists and intellectuals of Vesuvia, such as Amparo’s, Anatole’s and Milenko’s combined friend circles. Octavia has a sibling, Sabine Rey Dos Santos, who is sometimes mentioned.

The rest of the Kaur family: Devdas (father) and Rajni (mother), and Leonore’s siblings, from eldest to youngest: Navneet, Sashi, Althea his twin sister, and the triplets: Isha, Vaishnavi and Ashok.

The Lemione Family, featuring as antagonists in Anatole’s youth, you can find Decimo Lemione, Anatole’s first boyfriend in the fic The Rising Tide, and you can find a later story about Emmanuel Lemione, Decimo’s brother here.

Know my inbox is always open if you wish to ask any questions about my Arcana verse.

If you want to know more about my OCs, I have a masterlist here ✨

If you want to Read about my OCs, you can find everything I’ve ever written separated by character and categories here ✨

I’m currently working on Anatole’s Apprentice Rewrite, which you can find here ✨

Thank you for reading! I and the Radošević-Cassano thank you for your time and your attention! Please remember to like and reblog my fic if you engage with it; writers are fandom content creators too!

#the arcana #the arcana oc #the radosevic cassano #jules posting

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hms-chill · 5 years ago

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RWRB Study Guide: Chapter 1

Hi y’all! I’m going through Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue and defining/explaining references! Feel free to follow along, or block the tag #rwrbStudyGuide if you’re not interested!

Jack Ford (1): Son of president Gerald Ford, who was in college during most of his father’s presidency, but made headlines by bringing former Beatle George Harrison to the White House. The Ford children in general were known for causing problems for security and being in general more rebellious than other first children. (More)

Luci Johnson (1): Daughter of Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson, she changed the spelling of her name at age 18 as a form of rebellion against her parents. (More)

Gloria Steinem (2): A self-described radical feminist who began her work in the late 1960s. She is one of the most famous members of the second-wave feminist movement, and in 2015, she said that as she got older, she felt she was free of the “demands of gender”. (More)

Zora Neale Hurston (2)*: Anthropologist and writer from the Harlem Renaissance. She was a prolific writer who pioneered a style of writing in dialect and focused on Black women’s stories, especially in the American South. Their Eyes Were Watching God is her most popular novel. She was also queer, and lived with poet/playwright Georgia Douglas Johnson. (She’s so cool I love her)

Dolores Huerta (2): Labor union leader and civil rights activist who worked with Cesar Chaves to organize the Delano Grape Strike in 1965, which was a major step in earning rights for the (mostly hispanic) farm workers in southern California. She was the first Latina woman admitted to the National Women’s Hall of Fame and is a hero for much of the Latino community. (More)

Caroline Kennedy (2): Daughter of JFK

Nancy Reagan (3): Wife of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were detrimental for queer and poor folks especially.

Hall & Oates (3): An American pop rock duo from the 1970s. You can listen here and here.

WaPo (4): The Washington Post, a East-coast specific policial newspaper that has been traditionally left-leaning, but is now owned by Jeff Bezos. (More)

W Hotel (5): A luxury hotel marketed toward a younger demographic that focus on maintaining a fun and relaxing vibe.

Modern-day Kennedys (6): The Kennedys are a dynasty of American politicians

“Bug” (8): A pun on June’s name, referencing a June bug

Garden State (8): A 2004 movie about an actor/waiter who returns to his hometown of New Jersey after his mother dies. It is based on the director’s experiences and has gained a cult following. It was a favorite at the Sundance Film Festival. (More)

“London Luck, & Love” (8): A Hall & Oates song, a love song about spending time in London and being lucky enough to quickly fall in love with someone. The lyrics are available here

Hill country of Texas (8): An area in central/south Texas that is historically liberal. (More)

Lometa (9): A small town (856 in 2010) in central Texas. (More, Even More)

Fort Hood (9): A large US Military post built in 1942 as a place to test tanks. (More)

Death Comes for the Archbishop (9): A rambling 1927 novel that re-tells the lives of Jean-Baptiste Lamy and Joseph Projectus Machebeuf as Catholic clergy in New Mexico. (More, Even More)

“Trash turtles all the way down” (11): “Turtles all the way down” is a phrase that means that things keep getting consistently worse

GQ (11): Gentleman’s Quarterly, a magazine targeted to men and focused on fashion and culture. (More)

MIT (11): The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a very advanced school for STEM subjects.

Viscount (12): The 4th rank in the British peerage system, above baron and below earl (More)

Cucumber Sandwich (12)**: In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde makes a gay sex/dick joke involving cucumber sandwiches found down on the docks (a place where queer men could often find sex, either for free or for a fee).

Vampire sex-waifs (13): A reference to the three half-crazed, semi-human women living in Dracula’s castle

Waltz (14)***: A style of ballroom dance that is relatively easy to pick pick up, yet demands at least a bit of rigidity and distance. Henry mentions later that he doesn’t like it.

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*Hurston is so cool. Scholars have extended what we call the Harlem Renaissance just so she can be in it, and she’s such an incredible writer, and she was so gay and so cool and I love her a lot. She literally perfected the a style of writing in dialogue that works beautifully, and everything I’ve read from her (fiction and nonfiction) has been gorgeous. That’s it; that’s the note.

**I’d just like to shout out my old butch theater prof freshman year who stood in front of this room of dumbass college kids and explained this 200-year-old dick joke. She changed my life (for other, non-dick-joke-related reasons).

***I didn’t want to build this into the packet itself, since it’s more analysis than definition, but the fact that Henry waltzes with June in public when the waltz is a rigid/controlled dance, then later reveals before a private dance with Alex that he doesn’t care for waltzing? And that we don’t even get to know what kind of dance they do, because it’s both too private for even us to know and it’s not one with a name or an easy description; it’s a dance unique to them in that moment? Poetry.

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If there’s anything I missed or that you’d like more on, please let me know! And if you’d like to/are able, please consider buying me a ko-fi? I know not everyone can, and that’s fine, but these things take a lot of time/work and I’d really appreciate it!

Chapter 2

#I did it! It's started!#rwrb study guide #rwrb #red white and royal blue #henry fox mountchristen windsor #henry fox mountchristen windsor x alex claremont diaz #alex claremont diaz #june claremont diaz #nora holleran #pez okonjo #bea fox mountchristen windsor #the white house trio #super six #casey mcquiston #firstprince

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webbergirl · 5 years ago

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A First Look at Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story

The director talks about reimagining the musical that riveted him as a child.

Steven Spielberg has been making West Side Story in his head for a very long time. As a boy in Phoenix in the late 1950s, he had only the soundtrack, and he tried to picture the action and dancing that might accompany it. “My mom was a classical pianist,” says the filmmaker. “Our entire home was festooned with classical musical albums, and I grew up surrounded by classical music. West Side Story was actually the first piece of popular music our family ever allowed into the home. I absconded with it—this was the cast album from the 1957 Broadway musical—and just fell completely in love with it as a kid. West Side Story has been that one haunting temptation that I have finally given in to.”

The film, out December 18, is both a romance and a crime story. It’s about dreams crashing into reality, young people singing about the promise of their lives ahead—then cutting each other down in bursts of violence. It’s about hope and desperation, pride and actual prejudice, and a star-crossed couple who find love amid it all on the streets of New York.

West Side Story became a global sensation when it hit Broadway in 1957, with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim that made generations swoon, snap, and gasp. The show was both dazzling and gritty, layering a Romeo and Juliet romance between Tony and Maria over a contemporary story of street gangs, racism, and violence in the shadows of rising skyscrapers. When director Robert Wise and choreographer Jerome Robbins adapted it into a film in 1961, West Side Story broke the box office record for musicals and dominated the Oscars, winning 10 awards, including best picture. Six decades later, the stage show has toured the world and been revived repeatedly. (A new production, directed by Ivo van Hove, opened on Broadway in February.) Of course, it’s also so commonly performed at high schools and community theaters that if you haven’t seen it, it’s probably because you were in it.

Threaded throughout the story is the question of who has the right to call a place home and why people who are struggling look for reasons to turn on each other. “This story is not only a product of its time, but that time has returned, and it’s returned with a kind of social fury,” Spielberg says. “I really wanted to tell that Puerto Rican, Nuyorican experience of basically the migration to this country and the struggle to make a living, and to have children, and to battle against the obstacles of xenophobia and racial prejudice.”

Like Fiddler on the Roof or The Sound of Music, West Side Story locates the joys that endure in hard times. For the new film’s dance sequences, Spielberg recruited Justin Peck, resident choreographer for the New York City Ballet. For the new script, he turned to Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner, who previously worked with him on Munich and Lincoln, to craft an updated story that retains the familiar songs but embeds them in a more realistic cityscape. That realism also applied to casting. Many of the “Puerto Ricans” in the original movie were white actors in brown makeup. Spielberg only wanted performers with Hispanic backgrounds to play Hispanic characters, and he estimates that 20 of the 33 Puerto Rican characters are specifically Puerto Rican or of Puerto Rican descent. “They brought an authenticity,” he says. “They brought themselves, and everything they believe and everything about them—they brought that to the work. And there was so much interaction between the cast wanting to be able to commit to the Puerto Rican experience. They all represent, I think, a diversity, both within the Puerto Rican, Nuyorican community as well as the broader Latinx community. And they took that seriously.”

“The cast brought an authenticity,” says the director. “They brought themselves—and everything they believe—to the work.”

The film stars newcomer Rachel Zegler in the role originated onscreen by Natalie Wood—purehearted Maria, part of the wave of Puerto Rican migrants who traded one island for another when they came to New York seeking a new life in the post–World War II economic boom. Her streetwise Casanova is Tony (Baby Driver actor Ansel Elgort, taking over the part played by Richard Beymer), who once led a gang of local toughs known as the Jets, but has since outgrown them. Tony’s old friends are engaged in an escalating battle for control of the neighborhood against Puerto Rican rivals who call themselves the Sharks, led by Maria’s brother Bernardo (David Alvarez, one of the original leads of Billy Elliot the Musical, playing the role that earned George Chakiris a best supporting actor Oscar).

When a neighborhood dance devolves into hostility, Maria’s best friend, Anita, tries to be a voice of reason. Now played by Ariana DeBose, Anita has one of West Side Story’s most vivacious numbers, extolling the wonders of living Stateside in the song “America.”

Anita: “Life can be bright in America.”

Bernardo and the Sharks: “If you can fight in America.”

Anita and the girls: “Life is all right in America.”

Bernardo and the Sharks: “If you’re all white in America.”

Rita Moreno won a best supporting actress Oscar for playing Anita in the original film, and, at 88, has returned to play a different role in Spielberg’s project. Remember Doc, the old-timer who ran the corner store that served as neutral ground for the gangs? Moreno plays a new character, Valentina, Doc’s widow, who’s also a peacemaker—although perhaps a little tougher. The actor says Spielberg and Kushner “really wanted to right some…should I say wrongs? I don’t know if that’s…yes, that’s fair, because the [1961] film had a lot of things that were wrong with it, aside from the fact that it had a lot of things that were very right.” One of the wrongs, she says, was that she was one of the few Puerto Ricans in the cast. “That’s what they were trying to fix and ameliorate, and I think they have done an incredible job.”

Spielberg made Moreno an executive producer on the film and urged her to share her perspectives on that time and place with the younger actors. For one scene, in which the cops arrive to break up a rumble, Moreno thought that the dancers playing the Sharks didn’t quite appreciate how much worse the situation would be for the Puerto Rican boys. “I was using bad language and all that, and I said, ‘You are fucked! You are fucked if they catch you! You don’t have a chance,’” she says. “And they’re all looking at me with big beautiful brown eyes. I said, ‘Talk to each other before you do the scene again! Scare each other!

One person she tried to put at ease was DeBose. Moreno gushed about the actor who inherited her signature role of Anita. “She is a ferocious dancer—way, way better than I was,” she says.

DeBose was nominated for a Tony Award for Summer: The Donna Summer Musical and was one of the original cast members of Hamilton, renowned for dancing as “The Bullet” that kills the founding father. Like Spielberg, she’s been obsessed with West Side Story since childhood: “I just absolutely loved the music. Every time a number started, I couldn’t help but get up and dance with them. I would say that the music of West Side Story has always lived inside of me.”

“West Side Story was actually the first piece of popular music our family ever allowed into the home,” says Spielberg.

In the new film, DeBose swishes through “America” in a golden handmade dress with scarlet ruffles beneath, but the actor says she was haunted—and daunted—by the violet swirls of the woman who originated the part on screen. “I grew up watching the film and I just fell in love with the woman in the purple dress,” she says. “Even before I really understood what the story was about, I knew that I loved what she was doing. As I grew up, I discovered who she was and her name was Rita Moreno, and she looked like me. She was one of the first women onscreen that actually had skin color that was close to mine—especially in a film made at that time, where there weren’t many women of color on the screen. That was very influential on me during my childhood.”

DeBose says that, as with Moreno, Spielberg often asked for her views on the way her character was depicted. The actor recalls one pivotal conversation during auditions. “I’m Afro-Latina and I said to him, ‘As a woman of color, if you’re going to consider me for this role, I would potentially be the darkest woman to play her onscreen,’” says DeBose. “There’s also the reality that it’s a period piece and there’s racial tension.” Having a biracial Anita intensifies that for the new film. “In one way, you’re not really sure if Anita’s African American or if she’s Latina,” she says. “I was like, ‘I think there’s really something to lean into, if that’s of value,’ and he was intrigued by that observation. It was fun from the jump to feel like I was contributing to his new vision in a way.”

DeBose’s presence adds a new dimension to her character’s unshakable faith in a country that has so often failed people like her. “The way that I see Anita, she is the consummate optimist,” she says. “She believes in the American dream. And she believes in her right as a woman to pursue it. There’s something really amazing about not only Anita, but women in general who constantly find a way to see the world—not with rose-colored glasses—but with hope.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/03/a-first-look-at-steven-spielbergs-west-side-story

#West Side Story #Steven Spielberg #Rita Moreno #Rachel Zegler #Ansel Egort #ariana debose #David Alverez

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smileystudies · 5 years ago

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22.05.2020 // Week 9 of the 2020 Quarantine Challenge

Phew, what a week! I took a little hiatus to square away my finals and pitch in extra around the house. Technically, I still have one paper left, but it’s optional, I have a good grade in the class (and I’d have to bust my butt to improve it substantially), and this semester’s grades won’t factor into my GPA, so I made the call to not go the extra mile for once. It’s been hard to cut myself some slack this semester, even though everything going on means I have a good reason to slump. But I’m taking baby steps and today made time to paint cards for my friends <3

Answers to this week’s questions below the cut! ;)

Mon - Are you related or distantly related to anyone famous?

Yes! We’re distantly related to a famous poet/playwright of the Spanish Golden Age and a certain young rising pop artist is the daughter of a family friend! My dad also has a fairly well-cited academic paper if that counts haha

Tue - What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever done?

Although I’m pretty shy and cautious, I’m shook that I can say I’ve done a lot of daring things! I think traveling to a foreign country alone originally for five months is the most daring thing I’ve done, but close runner-ups are climbing up the tallest mountain in the state with a fear of heights and calling out a friend when their behavior was hurting me and our student org.

Wed - Are you a clean or messy person?

Not perfectly pristine, but I’m clean! I hate when my space is messy and dirty, which was rough when I had a roommate haha. However, I admit that things get a little out of hand during finals season...

Thu - Who would you want to play you in a movie of your life?

I’m really not sure at all! I’d be honored if Rita Moreno played my grandmother but I have no clue who I’d like to play me. I could pick amazing Latina actresses like Gina Rodriguez or Eréndira Ibarra, but I’d actually prefer if they’d cast a lesser-known Latina who shares part of my heritage. Hollywood still really needs to step up their representation and I want young Latinas to be able to see themselves in me!

Fri - How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

Not including the amount of time I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, it takes me about thirty minutes to do my morning routine and have breakfast. At uni, I like to get up an hour before class so I have a few minutes of buffer time to pack my bag and hike across campus. However, I have definitely gotten up at 8:45 for a 9:00 class before...do not recommend!

#2020 quarantine challenge #studyblr #new studyblr #lingblr #langblr #painting #watercolor #postcard #art #inspo

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lasantera · 4 years ago

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NOW BOOKING FALL 2020 Keynote’s, panels, readings, talks and workshops Decolonizing Latinidad, Embracing Ancestral African Religious Traditions, Spiritual Liberation, Healing Anti-Blackness, Identity, Sexuality and Intergenerational Trauma. Also screening Afrolatinos! Alicia Anabel Santos is a Writer, Producer, Playwright, Speaker, Activist, Teaching Artist, Afrolatina Lesbian Storyteller and Priestess. In 2019, she launched LA SANTERA offering clients support as they deepen their spiritual practice, facilitating workshops such as Healing Anti-Blackness and The Dark Room. She was born in Brooklyn and is a proud Dominican Writer. Founder of the New York City Latina Writers Group and is the 2018 recipient of the BRIO Award (Bronx Recognizes its Own) for fiction. She is a Cave Canem and VONA Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation alum. In 2011, she published her memoir, Finding Your Force: A Journey to Love and her one-woman show I WAS BORN was part of the ONE Festival in New York in 2010. In 2008 Anabel joined Creador Pictures, as the Writer & Producer for the documentary series Afrolatinos The Untaught Story. She is currently working on a historical fiction memoir where she merges prose, poetry and witchcraft, and is simultaneously working on “I.D.G.A.F: One Hundred Years of Rage”, a memoir. These days she can be found practicing brujería, reading tarot and facilitating writing workshops for senior citizens in the Bronx and Manhattan. She attended New York University and lives with her partner in the Bronx, New York. https://www.instagram.com/p/CFtXmSgDpp9/?igshid=6502qp40lj6z

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writemarcus · 4 years ago

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HITTING NEW HEIGHTS

BY MARCUS SCOTT

ORIGINAL RENT STAR DAPHNE RUBIN-VEGA TAKES YOU INSIDE THE IN THE HEIGHTS FILM

Qué quiere decir sueñito?” The disembodied voice of a girlchild ponders. “It means ‘little dream,’” responds an unseen authoritative figure, his feathery tenor with a soft rasp and tender lilt implying there’s more to the story.

Teal waves crash against the white sand coastal lines of the Dominican Republic and a quartet of children plead with the voice to illuminate and tell a story. Usnavi de la Vega (played by Anthony Ramos), sporting his signature newsboy flat cap and full goatee, begins to narrate and weave a tall-tale from the comforts of his beachside food cart: “This is the story of a block that was disappearing. Once upon a time in a faraway land called Nueva York, en barrio called Washington Heights. Say it, so it doesn’t disappear,” he decrees.

And we’re off, this distant magic kingdom ensnared within the winding urban sprawl of farthest-uptown Manhattan, the music of the neighborhood chiming with infinite possibilities: a door-latch fastening on tempo, a ring of keys sprinkling a sweet embellishment, the splish-splash of a garden hose licking the city streets like a drumstick to a snare fill, a manhole cover rotating like vinyl on a get-down turntable, the hiss of paint cans spraying graffiti like venoms from cobras and roll-up steel doors rumbling, not unlike the ultra-fast subway cars zigzagging underground. So begins the opening moments of In the Heights, the Warner Bros. stage-to-screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical by composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) and librettist Quiara Alegría Hudes (Water by the Spoonful) that is set to premiere in movie theatres and on HBO Max on June 11, 2021.

This stunning patchwork of visuals and reverberations combine to create a defiant and instantly memorable collage of inner-city living not seen since Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic The Warriors or West Side Story, the iconic romantic musical tragedy directed on film by Robert Wise and original Broadway director Jerome Robbins. With Jon M. Chu at the helm, the musical feature has all the trademarks of the director’s opulent signature style: Striking spectacles full of stark colors, va-va-voom visuals, ooh-la-la hyperkinetic showstopping sequences and out-of-this-world destination locations.

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A Kind of Priestess

Joining the fray of proscenium stage vets in the film is Broadway star Daphne Rubin-Vega, who originated the role of Mimi in the Off-Broadway and Broadway original productions of Rent. She returns to major motion pictures after a decade since her last outing in Nancy Savoca’s Union Square, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011. When we caught up with Rubin-Vega, she was hard at work, in-between rehearsals with her In the Heights co-star Jimmy Smits on Two Sisters and a Piano, the 1999 play by Miami-based playwright Nilo Cruz, a frequent collaborator. Rubin-Vega netted a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as the enraptured Conchita in Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics; that same year Cruz was awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, making him the first Latino playwright to receive the honor. Despite significant global, social and economic disruption, especially within the arts community, Rubin-Vega has been working throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People around me have [contracted] COVID… My father-in-law just had it. I’m very fortunate,” Rubin-Vega said. “This collective experience, it’s funny because it’s a year now and things seem better. Last year it was, like, ‘Damn, how inconvenient!’ The one comfort was that, you know, it’s happening to every one of us. That clarity that this is a collective experience is much more humbling and tolerable to me.”

The last time Rubin-Vega graced Washington Heights on screen or stage, she acted in the interest of survival and hunger as a probationer released after a 13-year stint in prison and given a new lease on life as an unlicensed amateur masseuse in the basement of an empanada shop in Empanada Loca, The Spalding Gray-style Grand Guignol horror play by Aaron Mark at the LAByrinth Theater Company in 2015. In In the Heights she plays Daniela, an outrageously vivacious belting beautician with a flair for the dramatics, forced to battle a price-gouging real estate bubble in the wake of gentrification.

“She’s like the deputy or the priestess,” Rubin-Vega said. “Owning a salon means that you have a lot of information; you’re in a hub of community, of information, of sharing… it’s also where you go for physical grooming. It’s a place where women were empowered to create their own work and it is a place of closeness, spiritual advice, not-so-spiritual advice. Physical attention.”

She said, “Daniela also being an elder; I think she’s not so much a person that imposes order on other people. She’s there to bring out the best—she leads with love. She tells it like it is. I don’t think she sugar-coats things. What you see is what you get with Daniela. It’s refreshing; she has a candor and sure-footedness that I admire.”

With the film adaptation, Chu and Hudes promised to expand the universe of the Upper Manhattan-based musical, crafting new dimensions and nuances to two characters in particular: Daniela and hairdresser Carla, originally portrayed as business associates and gossip buddies in the stage musical. On the big screen they are reimagined as romantic life partners. Stephanie Beatriz, known to audiences for her hilarious turn as the mysterious and aloof Detective Rosa Diaz in the police procedural sitcom romp “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” co-stars as the fast-talking firecracker, Carla.

It’s been a year waiting, you know. It’s like the lid’s been on it and so we’re just so ready to explode.

Where Is Home?

“Well, Quiara and Jon really expanded on what Lin and Quiara originally created and now they’re partners—and not just work partners, right? But they’re life partners,” Beatriz said at a March press event celebrating the release of the film’s two promo trailers. “What was so gratifying to me as a person who is queer is to see this relationship in the film be part of the fabric of the community, and to be normal, and be happy and functioning, and part of the quilt they’ve all created.”

She continued, “So much of this film is about where home is and who home is to you. And for Carla, Daniela is home. Wherever Daniela is, that’s where Carla feels at home. I thought that they did such a beautiful job of guiding us to this, really, you know, it’s just a happy functioning relationship that happens to be gay and in the movie. And I love that they did that, because it is such a part of our world.”

Rubin-Vega said she had no interest in playing any trope of what one might think a lesbian Latina might look or act like, noting that the queer experience isn’t monolithic, while expressing that the role offered her a newfound freedom, especially with regard to being present in the role and in her everyday life.

“Spoiler alert! I felt like not wearing a bra was going to free me. Did I get it right? Am I saying that gay women don’t wear bras? No, it was just a way for me to be in my body and feel my breasts. To feel my femaleness and celebrate it in a more unapologetic way,” she said, laughing. “To be honest, I was really looking forward to playing a lesbian Latina. It’s something that I hadn’t really explored before. Latinos [can be] very homophobic as a culture, and I wanted to play someone who didn’t care about homophobia; I was gonna live my best life. That’s a bigger thing. It’s also like, maybe I’m bisexual. Who knows? Who cares? If you see that in the film, that’s cool too, you know?”

Stand-out performances abound, especially with regard to the supporting cast; newcomers Melissa Barrera (in a role originated by Tony Award winner Karen Olivo) and Gregory Diaz IV (replacing three-time Tony Award nominee Robin de Jesús) are noteworthy as the aspiring fashion designer Vanessa and budding activist Sonny. Olga Merediz, who earned a Tony Award nomination for originating her role as Abuela Claudia, returns to the silver screen in a captivating performance that will be a contender come award season. However, Rubin-Vega may just be the one to watch. Her performance is incandescent and full of moxie, designed to raise endorphin levels. She leads an ensemble in the rousing “Carnaval del Barrio,” a highlight in the film.

Musical Bootcamp

“We shot in June [2019]. In April, we started musical bootcamp. In May, we started to do the choreography. My big joke was that I would have to get a knee replacement in December; that was in direct relation to all that choreography. I mean, there were hundreds of A-1 dancers in the posse,” Rubin-Vega said. “The family consisted of hundreds of superlative dancers led by Chris[topher] Scott, with an amazing team of dancers like Ebony Williams, Emilio Dosal, Dana Wilson, Eddie Torres Jr. and Princess Serrano. We rehearsed a fair bit. Monday through Friday for maybe five weeks. The first day of rehearsal I met Melissa [Barrera] and Corey [Hawkins], I pretty much hadn’t known everyone yet. I hadn’t met Leslie [Grace] yet. Chris Scott, the choreographer, just went straight into ‘let’s see what you can do.’ It was the first [dance] routine of ‘In The Heights,’ the opening number. He was like, ‘OK, let’s go. Five, six, seven, eight!’”

Rubin-Vega said that she tried to bring her best game, though it had “been a minute” since she had to execute such intricate choreography, noting that they shot the opening number within a day while praising Chu’s work ethic and leadership.

“There was a balance between focus and fun and that’s rare. Everyone was there because they wanted to be there,” she said. “I think back to the day we shot ‘96,000.’ That day it wouldn’t stop raining; [it was] grey and then the sky would clear and we’d get into places and then it would be grey again and so we’d have to wait and just have to endure. But even the bad parts were kind of good, too. Even the hottest days. There were gunshots, there was a fire while we were shooting and we had to shut down, there was traffic and noise and yet every time I looked around me or went into video village and saw the faces in there, I mean…it felt like the only place to be. You want to feel like that in every place you are: The recognition. I could recognize people who look like me. For now on, you cannot say I’ve never seen a Panamanian on film before or a Columbian or a Mexican, you know?”

Another Notion of Beauty

Rubin-Vega’s professional relationship with the playwright Hudes extends to 2015, when she was tapped to [participate in the] workshop [production of] Daphne’s Dive. Under the direction of Thomas Kail (Hamilton) and starring alongside Samira Wiley (“The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Orange Is the New Black”), the play premiered Off-Broadway at the Pershing Square Signature Center the following year. Rubin-Vega also starred in Miss You Like Hell, the cross-country road musical by Hudes and Erin McKeown, which premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 2016 before it transferred to The Public Theater in 2018. With her participation in the production of In the Heights, she is among the few to have collaborated with all of the living Latinx playwrights to have won the Pulitzer Prize; Hudes won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Water by the Spoonful, while Miranda took home the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Hamilton. Speaking on her multiple collaborations over the years, Rubin-Vega also acknowledged having known Miranda years before they would join voices.

“Lin to me is like a little bro or legacy; he’s a direct descent to me from [Rent author] Jonathan Larson, which is a bigger sort of all-encompassing arch,” she said, though she stressed that she auditioned like everyone else, landing the role after two or three callbacks. “Quiara and I have a wonderful working and personal relationship, I think. Which isn’t to say I had dibs by any means because…it’s a business that wants the best for itself, I suppose. […] So, when I walked in, I was determined to really give it my best.”

Life During and After Rent

Rubin-Vega has built an impressive resume over the course of her career, singing along with the likes of rock stars like David Bowie and starring in a multitude of divergent roles on Broadway and off. From a harrowing Fantine in Les Misérables and a co-dependent Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire to a sinister Magenta in The Rocky Horror Show, her evolution into the atypical character actor and leading lady can be traced back 25 years to January 25, 1996, when Larson’s groundbreaking musical Rent, a retelling of Giacomo Puccini’s 19th-century opera La Bohème, premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop. On the morning of the first preview, Larson suffered an aortic dissection, likely from undiagnosed Marfan’s syndrome and died at the age of 35, just ten days shy of what would have been his 36th birthday.

On April 29, 1996, due to overwhelming popularity, Rent transferred to Nederlander Theatre on Broadway, tackling contemporary topics the Great White Way had rarely seen, such as poverty and class warfare during the AIDS epidemic in New York City’s gritty East Village at the turn of the millennium. Rubin-Vega would go on to be nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for her role as sex kitten Mimi Márquez, an HIV-positive heroin addict and erotic dancer.

The show became a cultural phenomenon, receiving several awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and four Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Rubin-Vega and members of the original Broadway cast were suddenly overnight sensations, recording “Seasons of Love” alongside music icon Stevie Wonder, receiving a photo shoot with Vanity Fair and landing the May 13, 1996 cover of Newsweek. Throughout its 12-year Broadway run, many of the show’s original cast members and subsequent replacements would go on to be stars, including Renée Elise Goldsberry, who followed in Rubin-Vega’s footsteps to play the popular character before originating the role of Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

When the screen adaptation of Rent hit cinemas in 2005 under the direction of Chris Columbus, Rubin-Vega’s conspicuous absence came as a blow to longtime fans. The confluence of pregnancy with the casting and filming process of Rent hindered her from participating at the time. The role was subsequently given to movie star Rosario Dawson.

“First of all, if you’re meant to be in a film, you’re meant to be in it,” Rubin-Vega said. “That’s just the way it goes. It took a quarter of a century but this [In the Heights] is a film that I wanted to make, that I felt the elements sat right. I always felt that Rent was a little bit darker than all that. Rent to me is Rated R. In The Heights is not. It’s also a testament. Unless it’s sucking your soul and killing you softly or hardly, just stick with it. This is a business and I keep forgetting it’s a business because actors just want to show art. So, it’s really wonderful when you get a chance to say what you mean and mean what you say with your work. It’s a really wonderful gift.”

Rarely-Explored Themes

Like Larson’s award-winning show and the film adapted from it, In The Heights is jam-packed with hard-hitting subject matter, addressing themes of urban blight, immigration, gentrification, cultural identity, assimilation and U.S. political history. When Rubin-Vega’s character Daniela and her partner were priced out of the rent for her salon, most of her clientele moved to the Grand Concourse Historic District in the Bronx. Her salon, a bastion of the community, is met with a polar response when she announces she’s joining the mass exodus with the other victims of gentrification who were pushed out by rising rents. The news is met with negative response from long-time patrons who refuse to take the short commute to the new location. Daniela counters, “Our people survived slave ships, we survived Taino [indigenous Caribbean people] genocide, we survived conquistadores and dictators…you’re telling me we can’t survive the D train to Grand Concourse?”

The question is humorous, but also insinuates a more nuanced understanding of the AfroLatinidad experience in the Western world. The film also looks at the American Dream with a naturalistic approach. Leslie Grace, who plays Nina Rosario, a first-generation college student returning from her freshman year at Stanford University and grappling with finances and the expectations of her community, noted that while her character “finds [herself] at some point at a fork in the road,” she may not have the luxury to be indecisive because of the pressures put on by family, community and country.

“The struggle of the first-generation Americans in the Latino community is not talked about a lot because it’s almost like a privilege,” Grace asserted. “You feel like it’s a privilege to talk about it. But there is a lot of identity crisis that comes with it and I think we explore that.” Speaking on the character, she elaborated: “Home for her is where her heart is, but also where her purpose is. So, she finds her purpose in doing something outside of herself, greater than herself and going back to Stanford for the people she loves in her community. I really relate to where she’s at, trying to find herself. And I think a lot of other people will, too.”

Worth Singing About

For Miranda, a first-generation Puerto Rican New Yorker that grew up in Inwood at the northernmost tip of Manhattan before attending Wesleyan University where he would develop the musical, this speaks to a larger issue of what defines a home.

“What does ‘home’ even mean? Every character is sort of answering it in a different way,” he said. “For some people, home is somewhere else. For some people, home is like ‘the block’ they’re on. So, that’s worth singing about. It’s worth celebrating in a movie of this size.”

Given the current zeitgeist, it’s no wonder why Chu, Hudes and Miranda decided to pivot with adapting the stage musical for the big screen, leaning in to tackle the plights and predicaments of DREAMers [children of undocumented immigrants seeking citizenship] stateside. In one scene, glimpses of posters at a protest rally read “Immigrant Rights are Human Rights” and “Refugees Are People Too.” Growing up in a multicultural household as a Latina with a Black Latina mother, a white father and a Jewish American stepfather, Rubin-Vega said she was used to being in spaces that were truly multiracial. Nevertheless, there were times when she often felt alien, especially as a du jour rock musical ingenue who looked as she did in the mid-1990s through the 2000s.

“Undocumented people come in different shapes and colors,” she noted. “To be born in a land that doesn’t recognize you, it’s a thing that holds so much horror… so much disgrace happens on the planet because human beings aren’t recognized as such sometimes.”

The film “definitely sheds light on that, but it also talks about having your dream taken away and its human violation—it’s a physical, spiritual, social, cultural violation,” Rubin-Vega said. “There’s a difference between pursuing dreams and being aware of reality. They’re not mutually exclusive. What this film does, it presents a story that is fairly grounded in reality. It’s a musical, it’s over the top… but it reflects a bigger reality, which is like an emotional reality…that people that are challenged on the daily, have incredible resolve, incredible resoluteness and lifeforce.”

She said: “Growing up, looking like me, I got to ingest the same information as everyone else except when it came time to implement my contributions, they weren’t as welcomed or as seen. The dream is to be seen and to be recognized. Maybe I could be an astronaut or an ingenue on Broadway? You can’t achieve stuff that you haven’t imagined. When it talks about DREAMers, it talks about that and it talks about how to not be passive in a culture that would have you think you are passive but to be that change and to dare to be that change.”

Dreams Come True

Dreams are coming true. Alongside the nationwide release of the much-anticipated film, Random House announced it will publish In the Heights: Finding Home, which will give a behind-the-scenes look at the beginnings of Miranda’s 2008 breakout Broadway debut and journey to the soon-to-be-released film adaptation. The table book will chronicle the show’s 20-year voyage from page to stage—from Miranda’s first drawings at the age of 19 to lyric annotations by Miranda and essays written by Hudes to never-before-seen photos from productions around the world and the 2021 movie set. It will be released to the public on June 22, eleven days after the release of the film; an audiobook will be simultaneously released by Penguin Random House Audio.

Hinting at the year-long delay due to the pandemic, Rubin-Vega said, “It’s been a year waiting, you know. It’s like the lid’s been on it and so we’re just so ready to explode.”

Bigger Dreams

“Jon [Chu], I think, dreams bigger than any of us dare to dream in terms of the size and scope of this,” Miranda said. “We spent our summer [in 2018] on 175th Street. You know, he was committed to the authenticity of being in that neighborhood we [all] grew up in, that we love, but then also when it comes to production numbers, dreaming so big. I mean, this is a big movie musical!”

Miranda continued, “We’re so used to asking for less, just to ask to occupy space, you know? As Latinos, we’re, like, ‘Please just let us make our little movie.’ And Jon, every step of the way, said, like, ‘No, these guys have big dreams. We’re allowed to go that big!’ So, I’m just thrilled with what he did ’cause I think it’s bigger than any of us ever dreamed.”

Speaking at the online press conference, Miranda said, “I’m talking to you from Washington Heights right now! I love it here. The whole [movie] is a love letter to this neighborhood. I think it’s such an incredible neighborhood. It’s the first chapter in so many stories. It’s a Latinx neighborhood [today]. It was a Dominican neighborhood when I was growing up there in the ’80s. But before that it was an Irish neighborhood and Italian. It’s always the first chapter in so many American stories.”

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