Part of the Problem: Porchlight’s Casting of ‘In the Heights’

F Newsmagazine: Earlier this week Porchlight Music Theatre, a mainstay in the Chicago theater community, announced the casting for their much anticipated production of Lin Manuel-Miranda’s “In the Heights.” Aside from the problematic handling of this announcement by The Chicago Sun-Times — Hedy Weiss described the cast as “unusually ‘authentic’” — the casting statement was bound to cause an uproar: Porchlight cast a white actor in the central role of Usnavi — a Bodega owner who received his name from the first words his family saw coming to New York from the Dominican Republic (US Navy). As expected, the roaring has begun.