On Your Feet (The Emilio & Gloria Estefan Broadway Musical) – Cadillac Palace Theater – April 7, 2018

The one time I don’t sit on the aisle at a play, the cast comes dancing down both middle aisles right before intermission, interacting with the audience, even inviting a few of the patrons sitting on the aisles to stand up and join in the fun. Thus I miss my chance to make a complete fool of myself in front of hundreds of people.  Darn.

The audience was ready to party from the start of the show, including the six young women who sat in the row in front of us, exuding excitement. As they funneled in, Cindy said they looked as if they were sisters. Good call. They turned out to be four sisters and two sisters-in-law, which caused Cindy to make some reference to the Duggar family, apparently a reality tv show family with 19 children, of which I was unaware, and so I kept asking Cindy to repeat what she was saying, thinking that she was saying Donner family and wondering why she was comparing this innocent looking group of young ladies, out to have a good time, to a group of cannibals.

Until we cleared up that confusion at intermission, I kept my eyes on the ladies, just in case. Also, at intermission, half the audience pulled out their smart phones and started searching online for information on Gloria Estefan’s mother, who, we were told in the show, had been offered, but had declined, prior to her daughter’s birth, the chance to leave Cuba to go to Hollywood to dub Shirley Temple’s singing voice in Spanish.

I was just as interested in the actress playing the mother, whose name looked familiar. Looking at her credits in the program, I probably have seen her before, but I think the reason her name looked familiar is, I discovered, that she is the sister of the woman who played Melina in Total Recall. So, close but no cigar, Cuban or otherwise.