They are all struggling with rising rents, how to pay for university and how to reconnect with their roots – themes that, while very specific to the Washington Heights neighbourhood, also echo loudly through the suburbs of Sydney.

“Everyone connects with struggle,” says Omaji, who plays Benny and is best known off stage as the singer and dancer Timomatic​.

“The wanting for more in life is universal. The audience will really connect with the culture, the community and the dysfunctional family vibe of it.”

“It’s kind of a mismatch group of random people that kind of struggled and built something for themselves to live in,” adds Gonzalez, who plays Usnavi.

“They created this little hub of life where they don’t get judged – they don’t have to worry about struggling because they all help each other out.”

When the musical premiered on Broadway in 2008, The New York Times hailed Miranda as a “singular new sensation”, “tossing out the rhymed verse currently known as rap like fistfuls of flowers”.

And it was this rap – plus the musical’s pulsating mix of Latin pop and salsa – that secured Miranda’s early fame, which he built on with his 2015 hip-hop musical Hamilton, which went on to secure a record-breaking 16 Tony nominations.

Like almost anyone who has seen Miranda’s shows and heard his music, Gonzalez hails him as “genius”.

“You just look at the music and the lyrics alone – phwoar! – they are out of control,” he says.

“Rapping is hard, but rapping with a story is harder. And just the fact he is able to squish so many different stories into a minute of music, it’s just incredible. He’s next level.”

Could hip-hop be the new language of musicals?

“I think it’s adding to the colour of it,” says Omaji. “I think musicals are going to push boundaries regardless, but hip-hop adds a layer that wasn’t there. I think the most urban musical before this one would be West Side Story.”

Vasquez, who plays Vanessa, adds: “I think that’s why a lot of people are going to relate to it, too. It’s not your traditional musical theatre show that a lot of people are turned off by, or they don’t really appreciate. Whereas this one, it’s got a lot of hip-hop and Latin, and people appreciating any musical genre are going to really like it.”

When the Brisbane production of In the Heights was cancelled last year it was because of the controversy over its casting of predominantly white actors in ethnic roles. The producers of the show defended it by saying, “While Brisbane has only a small Latinx​ community, and an even smaller community of Latinx musical theatre performers, we do have a rich and vast multicultural heritage, and this was proudly reflected in our casting of the work”.

And while Gonzalez, Vasquez and Omaji all readily agree that productions have a responsibility to cast correctly, Gonzalez also believes it’s important that local audiences don’t miss out on seeing international productions just because Australia doesn’t have the depth of talent needed to reflect a production’s ethnic roles.

“In Australia we do have a lack of some ethnicities,” he says. “I also do like to play devil’s advocate, because you do want to serve the story, but sometimes you also want to bring a production and tell that story, you want to use an Australian cast and you just want people to see it. I understand both sides of it.”

Vasquez, meanwhile, is happy to be in a show that, for once, reflects her own background.

“It’s a blessing to be a part of it,” she says. “I guess we all have stereotypes as performers as well, we fit into a box, whether we like it or not. And this musical is awesome, it’s part of my heritage.

“I’m half Chilean and half Greek, so I fit into the wog box, and then the Latin box and the exotic person [box]. So in this, I really feel like I belong as opposed to ‘Yeah, you could do that’. They’ve made us all feel really good, like we belong.”

In The Heights is at the Hayes Theatre, Potts Point, from March 16 to April 15.

By Louise Rugendyke for The Sydney Morning Herald