Passionate ballads, Latin moves and hip-hop beats may not be a part of your family’s Turkey Day ritual, but this year’s Thanksgiving celebrations may be a thrilling leap from tradition.

The defining musical of new generation is coming to Columbus Nov.24-29. CAPA and Broadway Across America present In the Heights at the Ohio Theatre, 39 E. State St., as a part of the musical’s first national tour, which runs through mid-August.

The production was the talk of Broadway when it opened in March 2008 and now the whole country can experience a show that will surely join the canon of musical theater classics.

The story of In the Heights revolves around the community of New York City’s Washington Heights and follows characters through the struggles of chasing dreams while remaining faithful to home and family. Last year, the production picked up four Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album.

Rolanda Copley, publicist of CAPA, agrees with critics who have praised In the Heights as a high-energy, traditional musical with a fresh edge.

“You still get the big Broadway songs but they are channeling that power into a modern type of music. There is a part where the lead character does a little bit of rap. It’s an interesting mix that really works,” says Copley.

Even though the show is set in a specific immigrant neighborhood and the script contains a lot of Spanish dialogue as well as “New York-isms,” the themes are universal.

“It’s about being a Puerto Rican but not being in Puerto Rico,” says Copley, “(It’s more about) an internal struggle of being not at home.”

Columbus has come to expect A Christmas Carol performance the weekend following Thanksgiving, which, this year is Nov. 27-29 at the Palace Theatre. But Copley does not think this will negatively impact the In the Heights turnout.

“We have high hopes. It’s a special production,” she says, on the contrary.

Josephy Calloway and Thomas Kail, the original directors, will accompany the tour with a fresh cast of enthusiastic performers, many of Latin background. Columbus will see Kyle Beltran, Daniel Bolero, Rogelio Douglas Jr., Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer and Arielle Jacobs, who all have an extensive list of Broadway credits to their name.

As far as inspirational stories go, the only one competing with this production is the remarkable account of its creation. Lin-Manuel Miranda, writer of the music, script and lyrics, was a college sophomore when he wrote In the Heights in just two weeks.

“At a really young age, I saw how theater music affected people,” Miranda said in an interview with Allied Live in May. Miranda, who grew up on 200th Street in Inwood, just north of the Heights in NYC, is a Broadway baby with a passion for entertainment, which reveals itself in the show’s subtle musical tributes to Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and a tip of the hat to A Chorus Line.

“Then I saw Phantom (of the Opera), which is, at the end of the day, about an ugly songwriter. And I said, ‘Oh, this is about me.’ I was at the cusp of puberty at the time. I related very deeply,” he added.

Miranda began performing in the sixth grade and by his senior year of high school he was directing student shows. He was encouraged to write by his English teacher and finished two one-act musicals while still in high school. Just a few years later at Wesleyan University, In the Heights was born and received a lot of attention with Miranda as director and the lead character, Usnavi.

A series of serendipitous events gave Miranda a professional cast album and a relationship with “Tommy” Kail, who would see the show through to its Broadway debut and is now directing the national tour. Kail advised and guided Miranda while tailoring the show for its move to New York.

“Even before we had producers, he (Kail) had us meet every Friday, bring in songs, bring in scenes and pick them apart. There have been five different plots, and 60 cut songs. Writing this show was like my grad school degree.” Miranda says. “More often than not, musical theater doesn’t work. There are a lot of bad musicals in the world. But when it works, it’s more transporting than anything else. It’s magical.”

For ticket information visit www.capa.com or call the Ohio Theater Ticket Office at 614-469-0939 or 800-745-3000. Tickets are also available through Ticketmaster outlets and www.ticketmaster.com.  

Anastasia Glogowski is a contributing writer for CityScene.

***Allied Live is a marketing and communications firm specializing in Broadway and the performing arts. Excerpts of their interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda on May 1, 2009 were used with full permission.