Andréa Burns is red hot in ‘On Your Feet!’
By ALAN SMASON, WYES Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“)
For more than a year On Your Feet!: The Story of Emilio & Gloria Estefan has been playing to ecstatic audiences and receiving rave reviews from fans and critics alike during its run at the Marquis Theatre in New York.
Andréa Burns performs in “Mi Tierra,” a song made even more poignant with the recent passing of Fidel Castro. (Photo by Michael Murphy)
Ana Villafañe is absolutely superb in the lead role of Gloria Estefan, a role she seems to have been born to play. But part of the success of the show is the emotional arc carried by another actress-singer in the cast, Andréa Burns, who plays Gloria Fajardo, the pop star’s mother.
Burns is quite at home playing a strong Latin woman, because of her mother’s Venezuelan influence. But this singer of great renown (she created the role of hairstylist Daniela in In the Heights) also credits her father’s Jewish heritage in giving her a more rounded, diverse life experience, what she calls a “bi-cultural home.”
“My Dad was a nice Jewish guy from the Catskills,” she said in an exclusive CCJN interview. “I would consider my upbringing more culturally Jewish than religiously so. Although we attended neither church, nor synagogue, we celebrated all the holidays. My Jewish grandparents lived next door to us, and my grandmother lit candles and said the Sabbath prayer every Friday night.”
Andréa Burns lights up the stage in “On Your Feet!” where she portrays Gloria Fajado, Gloria Estefan’s mother. (Photo by Michael Murphy)
Burns fortunes as a performer rose when she was chosen to be a member of the cast of the national European tour of “West Side Story,” fresh from graduating from Miami’s New World School of the Arts. At the time of her selection, she was only 18, an ecstatic talent who was terrified to prove herself on foreign shores under the watchful eyes of performing veterans.
“Ecstatic and terrifying are completely accurate adjectives to describe that time,” she confessed. “I was living my lifelong dream, and because I was quite a nerdy student of the Great White Way, I knew the bios of almost every member of the company. I was elated to be beside these artists and very hard on myself in wanting to earn my place among them.”
Her life lessons began in earnest on the road. “I started out as an understudy, and went on for my first performance a week before my first rehearsal was scheduled, so the biggest lesson was: do your homework and always be prepared! An enormous part of my education on the road also came from observing these professionals and curating which qualities of each individual I wanted to work on in myself.”
After returning back to the U.S., she began working on several projects, but the most groundbreaking might have been her selection as one of the four roles in composer Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World, a small performance piece that gained has almost cult-like status since it premiered in 1995.
Andréa Burns after a performance of “On Your Feet!” (Photo by Alan Smason)
Her connection to Brown also led to her being cast as Lucille Frank in the national tour of Parade, the musical that chronicles the dark tale of the Leo Frank murder trial a century ago in Atlanta. Other noted roles included her playing Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Vicky Nichols in The Full Monty and Googie Gomez in The Ritz.
Then sometime prior to its off-Broadway premiere in 2007, Burns was recommended by a friend to the creative team for a new musical composer Lin-Manuel Miranda was writing with Tommy Kail directing and Alex Lacamoire serving as musical director.
“I had never met them before my first day participating in that reading,” she recalled. “The moment Lin opened his mouth and began to rap the opening number, I knew I was in the presence of something fresh and extraordinary. I read through the script with the cast and I think it was love at first sight/sound between Lin and myself. We both were very excited to be collaborators.”
The show, of course, was In the Heights and Burns originated the role of hairstylist Daniela. It was considered “a landmark moment” for everyone, Burn said. The show went on to open on Broadway and to snag four Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Choreography, Best Orchestration and Best Score, a Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Recording and a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
“We were presenting something absolutely original and incredibly engaging to the world, and through the lens of our various Latin heritages,” the Broadway star recalled. “We were all exalted from the experience of sharing this piece with audiences.”
Andréa Burns in “On Your Feet!” (Photo by Matthew Murphy)
To her delight, Burns found other members of In the Heights, who also identified as Jewish, including cast member Stephanie Klemons, also an associate choreographer to Andy Blankenbuehler. Observing Jewish holidays proved to be a time to manifest their Jewish upbringing. “Stephanie joined me, Mandy Gonzalez, Rosie Lani Fiedelman along with my son and husband, (who would pop by) to eat apples and honey in the dressing room for a sweet new year, or light Chanukah candles,” she explained.
In 2013 Burns played opposite Nathan Lane and Cady Huffman in The Nance, a play by Douglas Carter Beane about the repression and persecution of gays during the Burlesque era of the 1930s.
The following year Burns received a special acknowledgment. “Every once in a while a divine thing happens in a Broadway career and this was it: (director) Jerry Mitchell offered me the role of Gloria Fajardo on Broadway directly,” she gushed. Her initial response, though, was guttural. She wasn’t sure that she was right to play a much older woman. “He was convinced I should do it, even though I wasn’t sure at first,” Burns explained. “The role hadn’t been fully developed yet and I didn’t know if it would be a match, but Jerry saw it was a perfect fit and strongly encouraged me to do it. I’m so glad I did!”
Having grown up in Miami, Burns was already a huge fan of both of the Estefans, recalling attending a Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine concert when she was still in high school. “She is our queen in South Florida, so meeting them and working so closely with them was an unbelievable honor,” Burns stated.
Ektor Rivera and Ana Villafañe as Emilio and Gloria Estefan. (Photo by Matthew Murphy)
Burns’ dramatic turn as a woman who gives up her promising career in Cuba only to be an impoverished immigrant mother in America provides important tension throughout the story. The Estefans spoke reverently about her. “What struck me most was the way (a) family member’s behavior changed when they spoke about her,” Burns continued. “Gloria Fajardo’s presence in a room is incredibly powerful, even when she’s not even physically there.”
Burns revealed the Estefans refer to her affectionately as “Big Gloria,” but they also recognize that she can be an intimidating and sometimes difficult personality to confront. “The family loves her dearly, but express that it wasn’t always easy to live with her. Emily Estefan, Gloria’s daughter and extraordinary musician in her own right, regularly features her grandmother, Gloria Fajardo, in her Instagram videos. At 87, my namesake and muse is electric. Whether she’s singing along with the radio, rapping in Spanish or landing a joke, I am in awe of her and humbly attempt to channel some of her magic each night onstage.”
Last week’s death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro cast a pall on On Your Feet!, especially that part of the show which showcases pre-revolutionary Cuba in “Mi Tierra,” Burns’ biggest song and one in which she has an opportunity to take a turn on the dance floor. “It’s become an even deeper, three dimensional experience,” she said. “I always take the responsibility of that scene quite seriously it offers a momentary lens in which the audience can peek into the beauty, elegance and splendor of Cuba in its heyday. Then, within minutes, they witness (through my character’s lonely vantage point) how it’s all about to come crashing down to a reality worse than anyone can imagine.”
Last Saturday night, following Castro’s death, the audience was listless. “We played the scene as we do nightly and the number stopped the show,” Burns related. “I remember hearing a few strong male voices shouting passionately above the crowd as I walked offstage, but I couldn’t even make out the words. It didn’t matter. The feeling behind those cries were for Cuba. Feelings of loss and hope.”
Burns says that’s what she loves about theatre. “One day it’s entertainment, on another it’s cathartic and on rare days, it becomes historic. I will never forget the privilege of telling this Cuban story during this time.”
As Gloria, Ana Villafañe plays opposite Ektor Rivera as Emilio Estefan. The show’s terrific choreography is by Sergio Trujillo and the outstanding costumes are designed by ESosa. With a book by Alexander Dinelaris, On Your Feet! offers theatre goers a juke box musical that soars with a live orchestra on stage throughout the show and orchestrations tendered by the Estefans. Mitchell’s brilliant direction and overall guidance of the project clearly shows in the work of scenic designer David Rockwell, lighting designer Kenneth Posner and sound design by SCK Sound Design.
On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio & Gloria Estefan continues weekly at the Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway in New York. For ticket information call 212-382-0100.
