NEW YORK -- At the start of another scorching July day, the guy who runs the corner bodega perfumes the air with the scent of café con leche. Hip-hop begins percolating, too, one ingredient in a musical stew flavored with salsa, merengue, bachata, mambo, Reggaeton. Dominicans, Cubans and Puerto Ricans breathe to these beats, some getting ahead, others just getting by.

The scene could be a snapshot from many a Miami neighborhood. But it's actually the opening sequence of the Broadway show In the Heights, whose 13 nominations make it the leading contender going into Sunday's 62nd annual Tony Awards.

The musical represents a nine-year odyssey and, no matter what happens on Sunday, a dreamer's triumph for its wiry creator and star, 28-year-old Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The first successful Broadway musical created by and featuring Latino artists, In the Heights is a joyful mosaic of life in Washington Heights, a neighborhood near the George Washington Bridge in far north Manhattan. The show is reflective of the place that inspired it, one neighborhood down from Inwood, where Miranda grew up. But just as its fictional residents have far-reaching roots, In the Heights has multiple connections to a place far to the south of its setting.

''Miami,'' says Miranda, ``is our secret weapon.''

Miami has, in fact, been a major source of the talent involved in In the Heights. Andréa Burns, a New World School of the Arts grad who plays the show's sassy beauty-salon owner, pinpoints one of the reasons why: ``You can't really replace the experience of growing up in two cultures simultaneously. Many of us are first-generation Americans. That's what connects us so much.''

Says Nina Lafarga, a Miamian in the show's ensemble: ``This is about Latinos in Washington Heights, but we all can relate to the story on some level. How do you hold onto your culture but learn to adapt? . . . We have so much Miami pride in this show, it's insane.''

Besides Burns, Carlos Gomez and Janet Dacal have leading roles; Lafarga, Tony Chiroldes, Afra Hines and Joshua Henry are in the ensemble. All have South Florida roots -- most have relatives still living here -- and studied at such places as New World, Coral Park Senior High School, Miami Senior High, the University of Miami and Florida International University.

STEALING RARE MOMENT

Alex Lacamoire, the musical's Tony-nominated co-orchestrator/arranger and musical director, was a high-school music major at New World. An arranger and associate conductor on the smash hit Wicked, he now conducts (while playing keyboards, no less) every performance of In the Heights. Recently, he stole a rare quiet moment in his dressing room at Broadway's Richard Rodgers Theatre to reflect on the sounds and the appeal of Miranda's show.

When he listened to Miranda's music and joined the creative team in 2002, Lacamoire says, ``It was the first time I'd heard someone successfully rap in musical theater. It just flows, with little twists and turns. The show mixes all three at once -- Latin music, rap and musical theater. . . . It's very contemporary and still a musical theater show. It's pioneering.''

As the composer-lyricist, Miranda had the final say regarding every note in what became an exuberantly lush, eclectic score: ''[In the Heights] is his brainchild; he came up with it out of nothing,'' Lacamoire says.

But he also allowed Lacamoire, whom he calls ''a godsend,'' and fellow arranger-orchestrator Bill Sherman, a college pal of Miranda who focused on the hip-hop sounds, great creative leeway.

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