Before “Hamilton” made “Immigrants, we get the job done” a viral catchphrase, there was “In the Heights” to set Lin-Manuel Miranda down the path to Broadway and hip-hop history by winning the best musical Tony Award in 2008. That first leg of Mr. Miranda’s road to superstardom comes to the Benedum Center, Downtown, Friday, when Pittsburgh CLO takes its first shot at a rap musical.

The same can be said for its star, Joshua Grosso, a 2016 Carnegie Mellon University graduate.

“In the Heights” is packed with Broadway veterans, but for Mr. Grosso, this is a coming-out party as a regional theater leading man — and as a rapper.

Pittsburghers may know him from shows during his college career, including “The Full Monty” for director Patrick Wilson, and as Fabrizio in “The Light in the Piazza” for Front Porch Productions. Television audiences got to know him as the best actor winner of the 2012 Jimmy Awards — the National High School Musical Theater program co-founded by Pittsburgh CLO’s Van Kaplan — which were filmed for the PBS documentary “Broadway or Bust.”

Mr. Grosso, then 17 and a runner-up from Florida, made it to New York for the Jimmys when the winner of his local competition declined due to a conflict. He made a big impression singing an aria from “The Light in the Piazza” — in Italian — which left many people making assumptions about his heritage.

“It’s that, and the last name,” said the singer, who is not Italian. He emigrated from Colombia as an infant and grew up in Queens, N.Y. — not too far away from the Washington “Heights” of the title. When he auditioned for CMU, he was asked to translate his Shakespeare monologue into Spanish, “on the spot.”

He had heard tales about the unusual CMU auditions — he related how one actor was asked to perform his monologue as a chicken — and he found the experience invigorating and a little scary. When it came time to choose from the schools that had offered financial assistance, he picked Carnegie Mellon, sight unseen.

After graduation, Mr. Grosso headed to New York and a life of auditioning. In May he appeared as Siddhartha in the first English-language presentation of the Korean musical “Under the Bodhi Tree,” about the life of Buddha. Then the call came for him to audition for “In the Heights” in Pittsburgh, for a role previously played by Mr. Miranda and another CMU graduate, Kyle Beltran, who starred in the original touring company.

“I had auditioned for ‘Hamilton’ because you have to go in for that — everyone is going in for that. When I came in to do ‘In the Heights,’ and I did the rap, I wasn’t very self-conscious about it, though. It was like, this is my take, this is how I see the character,” he said.

Mr. Grosso is an actor who tends to run toward what scares him. He is the first to admit he is an unexpected choice for the role of Usnavi, our guide through vibrant Washington Heights.

“It’s a huge departure from anything I’ve done,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s something that’s very close to home, in terms of the style of the music and the culture and even the story. This is something I am so drawn to, and yet totally afraid of.”

“In the Heights” is centered around a group of friends and family striving and loving in the mostly Hispanic community, where a lottery ticket looms large one hot summer. Mr. Grosso’s character is from the Dominican Republic, a place he longs to return to while also putting down roots as an American.

“The reason why it’s such a huge show is that it’s an immigrant story, and many people can relate, not only Hispanics, but people coming to America and wanting to start something on their own,” Mr. Grosso said.

After the thrill of getting the part, he was most excited to see he would be working with a cast of experienced actors “who I will be learning from all the time.”

His castmates for the Pittsburgh CLO show include Marcus Paul James as Benny, a role he understudied on Broadway, and Stephanie Klemons, a Drama Desk Award-winning performer and choreographer who was in the original cast of “Hamilton,” “In the Heights” and “If/​Then.” She returns to Pittsburgh CLO in the role of Vanessa, after appearing in the 2006 production of “Bombay Dreams” here. Another CMU grad, Broadway veteran Patricia Phillips, the first African-American woman to play the role of Carlotta in “The Phantom of the Opera,” will play Abuela Claudia. Damon J. Gillespie (“Newsies” and “Aladdin” on Broadway) portrays the neighborhood dancer and tagger Graffiti Pete. Local actors include Billy Mason as Piragua Guy and Javier Manente, who steps away from CLO Cabaret’s “Miss Abigail’s Guide to Dating, Mating & Marriage” to work in the “In the Heights” ensemble.

Doing a show in Pittsburgh feels like a homecoming, but there is a big difference between being a big man on campus and a leading man for Pittsburgh CLO. More than being nervous, he was eager to get started in the days before opening night. “In the Heights” is a story he wants to share with an audience.

“Wherever I go, I am asked where I am from. And he is wondering, where do I belong? That question is something I am extremely familiar with, and at the end of the day, it is OK to be both, to inherit both sides of such different worlds, and incorporate those two different cultures into one,” Mr. Grosso said, adding, “That makes you who you are.”

Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg.

First Published: July 6, 2017, 4:00 a.m.