CHICAGO — Part-time Vero residents Gloria and Emilio Estefan are about to raise national awareness of the Cuban émigré experience, as their new bio-musical “On Your Feet!” opened in previews in Chicago last week.
The Estefans’ moving personal challenges, down-to-earth personalities and hell-or-high-water pursuit of success had the audience on its feet by the show’s close.
The Estefans built a second home in Vero Beach a decade ago and opened their resort hotel, Costa d’Este, in 2008, transforming the barrier island’s Ocean Drive business district.
The last Estefan production to capture Vero’s heart was a YouTube video Gloria shot not far from her oceanfront home here. She isn’t singing; she is huffing and puffing on a bicycle riding over the Sebastian inlet bridge, with a Go-Pro camera on her head.
That a global pop star could be so determined – and so goofy – isn’t news to anyone who knows her.
But many in the packed audience at Chicago’s ornate Oriental Theatre were learning about her and her husband, Emilio, for the first time last weekend.
Along with its superstar subjects, the show’s director is the Broadway veteran Jerry Mitchell, director and choreographer of “Kinky Boots” – he won a Tony for his choreography and was nominated as director.
Complementing Mitchell’s extensive experience in dance is the Colombian-born Sergio Trujillo, choreographer of “On Your Feet!”
After shows including “Memphis” and “Jersey Boys,” Trujillo has a field day with the habanero-hot dance moves of Cuba, splashed across the show’s scenes from Vegas to Havana to Miami.
Screenwriter Alexander Dinelaris wrote the book; he won an Oscar last year for Best Screenplay with “Birdman.”
Taking much of Gloria’s music out of its chronology, he carefully recast the lyrics as narrative. The plays spans the period from her childhood to her famous 1991 post-bus crash comeback, when she conquered a broken back and sang “Coming Out of the Dark” at the nationally televised American Music Awards.
While there was talk in the past couple of years as the play took shape of a big star playing the role of Gloria – pop singer Ariana Grande was a most recent rumor – the producers ended up picking an actress who is a virtual unknown outside of Miami.
Ana Villafane, whose chief credit is a role in the Andy Garcia film “Magic City Memoirs,” turns out to be just the ingénue Gloria once was; or if she isn’t actually as smart, serious and unassuming as she seems on stage, then she’s a hell of an actress.
For certain, she is a dead ringer for Gloria in both her physical beauty and her voice and dancing.
As for the role of Emilio, he is played by an Orlando-born actor of Puerto Rican descent, Josh Segarra, who had one role on Broadway in a short-lived musical.
Also starring are half-a-dozen original members of Miami Sound Machine, the band that backed Gloria once Emilio discovered her talent.
As explosive as ever, the group’s polish lends a luster to the production, appearing often on stage.
As much as the music, though, it is the Estefans’ personal story that stirred many in the audience.
“Did that all really happen?” asked a smiling, slightly stunned Jerry Gilbert who was learning for the first time details of the Estefans’ exile background, including a teen-age Gloria nursing her father through to his premature death, her diligent studies pursuing a degree in psychology, and her near-tragic bus accident from which she recovered with steely discipline and months of agonizing therapy.
Gilbert had driven in from the affluent Chicago suburb of Highland Park with his wife, Pam, and another couple for a med school graduation of a friend’s son, and decided to take in the show. They were delighted.
“I’m not really familiar with the music, but I see a lot of theater, and I thought the show was great,” he said.
“I’m definitely a fan,” says Maureen Schiller, of Bloomington. “It reminded me of ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter,’ and I absolutely loved it. I absolutely think it’s going to be a hit on Broadway. I think the combination of the singing and the dance is going to be a surefire success.”
“It was much better than I thought it would be,” said Betty Gaul, of Aurora, Ill. She bought tickets after hearing Gloria interviewed on public radio a few weeks ago. “I was excited about it, but I was like, oh, I hope it’s going to be good. It exceeded my expectations.”
The performance drew a standing ovation from a mostly non-Hispanic audience; Chicago, with a population of 9 million, has only 21,000 Cuban-Americans, as compared to Miami’s one million.
It was also an older audience, much like one for a production at Vero’s Riverside Theatre. That is not to say that Chicago’s theater district only appeals to older viewers; the night before, it was a college- and early middle-age audience that cheered and cried through “Once,” on tour at the Palace Theatre down the street.
That musical, too, is based on a musician couple, set in present-day Dublin.
And unlike “Once,” that was peppered with f-bombs in an Irish accent, set in a pub in modern-day Dublin, “On Your Feet!” was sweet and squeaky clean, save one gutsy confrontation Emilio has with a resistant New York recording exec.
“This is what American looks like,” he says, pointing to himself. The line drew applause from a spattering in the audience.
The Estefan PR staff made clear that “On Your Feet!” is still a work in progress, a six-week stint of preview performances before heading to another preview period in New York.
If all goes according to plan, “On Your Feet!” will open on Broadway in November.
There were to be no reviews before June 16 when a red-carpet affair will introduce the media to the show for the first time; changes are the norm during the preview phase, when lines and even entire numbers can be cut, sets tweaked and roles codified.
