Interview: Michael Alonzo of IN THE HEIGHTS at Theatre Under The Stars

Michael Alonzo is in Theatre Under the Stars' current production of In the Heights. It's running at the Hobby Center May 20th through June 1st, and it's a musical that has music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame. This is Michael Alonzo’s third appearance at TUTS, and ironically, his third run at doing In the Heights! TUTS has produced the show previously in 2016, but this production sounds like a high-energy revival that is full of Latino talent. Broadway World writer Brett Cullum got a chance to interview Michael about this special production. 

Michael, tell us a little bit about what In the Heights is about. What do you consider the story?

In the Heights follows three days in the life of a community in Washington Heights. We get to see several different stories and vignettes that are happening throughout the show. It's this community that's having to deal with instant change. We have one store, that is, that is preparing to close and move to a different location. We have a college student who just returned from a year at Stanford, having to think about going through life on the West Coast after having lived on the East Coast all of her life. And we're seeing all of these changes happening within this, this community and its culture, and they essentially face a blackout one night. We have to remember this is the mid-2000s. So access to phones, access to Uber, access to anything is not there! This community is stranded and powerless for a day or so. We get to see this community face against this blackout, and they come back together, and we have a lovely ending.  

You are playing the Piragua guy, I mean, that's literally what you're billed as. So you sell snow cones? Tell me about that!

It's a Puerto Rican custom. It's basically shaved ice you use like a cheese grater. There's a block of ice, and you use a shredder, and as you shred it, it starts filling with all of the ice you poured into your cup. Essentially, you take your liquid, pour it over. So for us, it's very similar to a snow cone. Just the methods of how it's made are slightly different.

You've got a big production number about this whole process, right?

Yes, I get to sing a really cool song in the middle of towards the end of Act One. And then again, towards the end of Act 2, we get a little bit of resolve as to why this poor guy's facing a conundrum. 

Yeah, and you're also understudying one of the leads, and that has to be nerve-wracking, because not only are you learning how to make piragua, but you have to learn another part too.

You know, it's not my first time understudying. It's the coolest job! I've told people in the past, I am terrible at every other job. I worked at a gas station many years ago, and I struggled with the cash register. You know, everyone has their quirks and abilities. My ability is getting to do theater. I can sing, I can dance, I can act, and I'm great at memorizing stuff. You know, there's a book that I read that I've held on to for a while called The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and the main character expresses in the book so many times that “panic is a luxury.” Anytime I have to swing or understudy, or just immediately go on, I always tell myself, “Panic is a luxury. Get the thing done. Do it scared. Freak out later.” When it comes to understudying, I take it just as seriously as the role I'm preparing. I make sure I come in with the material learned. I'm flexible enough for the rehearsal process to look at when I'm watching and what they're doing. If the music director wants a slightly different thing than that they're asking the man who's playing Kevin to do. You know, you need that flexibility to adapt to their vision. I think it's the coolest thing. I'm not scared of it at all. In fact, anytime I do get to go on it's just this great sense of accomplishment. You keep the show going. You keep the show running.

I'll be honest. I still get nervous every time. I'm anxious about anything I do, but as I don't know what it is, it's like kind of like Severance. I don't know if you've seen the show, but as soon as I walk on the stage, it's like there's this flip and you forget. The audience isn't there to judge you. They're not there to critique you. They're there to enjoy,  they're there to be entertained. They're supporting you, and I think that idea of, “Oh, wait! They're on my side.” That's always a reminder to the performer that they want you to succeed and have a great performance. So I think those little things help to make it easier and calm down those nerves a little bit.

 It sounds like this show is about community, and ironically, you all have to pull together as a large cast to make In the Heights happen. What has this production been like?  

There's so much community and diversity on stage and talent! I keep on pinching myself every day that I'm here getting to tell this story, getting to do this show with this group of people! It stems from the top. We have a world-class director, a choreographer, and an amazing assistant director. We have an amazing set of choreographers and dance captains, and swings that have had a history with the show, and they bring so much love and joy to the process that it's it's so infectious. I've always been proud to be Latino, but being with these people, it's just been like, “Gosh! I am so proud to be Latino! I'm so proud and happy to get to be in a room with these people.” William Carlos Angulo is directing, and he was the choreographer for the Newsies production last year.

Michael, how did you get started in theater? Because it sounds like, you know, you obviously are pretty aware that this is the job for you. When did you start training and figuring out that this is where you want to be?

Well, so in elementary school, we had a great choir teacher, and she loved musicals, so she made an effort to try to get everyone to do the show. And it was this whole school thing. So the first thing they did was The Music Man, and both days of auditions, I was sick with a fever, and I hated that. Okay, so I thought to myself, “If I'm this upset that I didn't get to audition because of a fever, there's something there. There's something about the stage that I'm yearning for as a 5th grader at this point! So the 1st time I ever was on stage was the next year, 6th grade, we did a production of Schoolhouse Rock, Junior. I have a tenor voice. I have a voice that's here, but you can imagine a younger me was way up here. So anytime I had to try to sing any of the music. It just was not high enough for me. So they gave me essentially the lead, but he's a non-singing role. That was my first experience on stage, and I went to a small school. So we had some theater. We may have done a production a year.

So it wasn't until I saw a production of Wicked. That was the first live production I'd ever seen of anything professional. I can guarantee hundreds of others have had the same experience. You're sitting there, you're watching Elphaba fly up into the air, singing “Defying Gravity.” The lights go off, and you go, “People get paid to do this! That's a career? You can do that!”  I sat at the Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas. And said to myself, “That's what I'm going to do! I have to do that!” So my parents let me enroll in a community production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. They had already done auditions. My dad sent an email saying, “Hey, my son really wants to be a part of the show, can he be a part?” And they said, “Yeah, come on over.” I went into a final callback to assign the brothers, and we were all having to go through singing this music I had no idea about. I was freaked out and probably the most nervous I've ever been. But that's the beauty of theater, is it? Regardless of where you're at. It is always a community of people who are looking out for everyone and want everyone to succeed and have this great experience. And the fact that these 30 or so strangers, all of whom had experience together at this community stage, saw me walking in, they came up to me with open arms, and several years later. Now I'm here.

Well, tell me about working with TUTS or Theatre Under the Stars. What do you like about working with this company? You've done it three times. What do you find really great about it?

TUS is a well-oiled machine from every single department, everyone. So, something that I really appreciate that TUTS does is that on the first day of rehearsal, we have a big meet and greet. So we have the company. We have the casting creatives. We have the teen ensemble, and then we have all sorts of different departments within TUTS - human resources, finance. Everyone is in this room together we all introduce ourselves. We all say hello. With every other company I've been to, that's not a thing. You may do the circle with your creatives and the cast, and the crew. But TUTS makes an effort to show everyone has their specific role and assignment to make this company and the production as successful as possible. But for that to happen, it's important that everyone knows everyone in the room and sees that everyone's contributing to this bigger picture, to this bigger idea. It's not just the person at the top, or this person that, like everyone, is important; everyone matters, so when I say it's a well-oiled machine. They're bringing the industry's best and brightest and foremost educators and instructors, and directors here, and I'm fortunate to get to be with this company of talented, incredibly trained performers who walk through the rehearsal process with. It doesn't feel like rehearsal, because you're getting to play. You're getting to make magic essentially. The stars align here. Everything is perfect, the way that it's run, the way that rehearsals go, the talent, the preparation from everyone, the idea that everyone is on the same page and wants the show to be as successful as possible. So we're gonna we're gonna put our best foot forward every single day. That's what makes TUTS so special to me.

So do you act and sing exclusively? Do you do anything else as a day job?  

Muggle jobs, as I call them. I'm really heavy into the marching band world. So I used to be a color guard director. I've since left directing, but I still think it's technically labeled as a tech position, I like to say, like a color guard clinician. I've been working with a couple of programs over the past couple of years, working on outdoor marching band shows, teaching classes, teaching equipment combinations, flag combinations instructing dance classes. I've been really big into that.

Before I got into what I wanted, which was musical theater, I went to school for voice at the University of North Texas. So while I was there, I kind of got bitten by the classical bug. We were doing a production of Sandrion by Masinet, the French Cinderella, and I remember being there thinking, “Wow, this is so beautiful. I want to do this.” So I ventured into the classical world for a couple of years. So my other side gig is I'm a church sub. So anytime that a church needs extra tenors on a Wednesday or Sunday, they reach out to me and they say, “Hey, Michael Alonzo, can you be here? Here's all the music. Prepare it.” So sometimes I'm having to get thrown into the wolves and just sing a song without getting to actually sing it with the ensemble, or I'll sometimes have to canter and lead services. So those are my, those are my other survival jobs that I do.