"The recipe may be familiar, but the flavor is fresh in 'On Your Feet!,' the half-formulaic, half-original and undeniably crowd-pleasing musical...But with an often mechanical book, moving through its rags-to-riches paces as if to a rigid percussive beat, 'On Your Feet!' ultimately falls somewhere in the middle of the hefty pack of jukebox musicals that have plugged in to Broadway’s power strip."
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"There’s not much about it to inspire reaction of any kind. A serviceable jukebox musical...Neither Estefan nor her life nor her music are especially dramatically interesting...With the bland diligence of an authorized mass-market biography, Alexander Dinelaris’s script trudges through Estefan’s journey...The audience perks up each time one of Estefan’s Latin-flavored hits begins, then palpably wilts as the numbers go on. Rhythm can only get you so far."
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"You will do as the title tells you and be 'On Your Feet' because this dazzling and delightful musical will lift you up like nobody’s business…Here the authors have let the music do the talking and the story follow in its footsteps. The result is a perfect 10. Fun, tears, greats songs and dancing…The warp and woof of story and music blend to make an evening that does justice to Estefan’s tale. This show does not pretend to be anything other than what it is."
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"'To say that 'On Your Feet!' is better than most of its ilk is therefore faint praise…The happy news is that in its music and staging it re-creates the excitement of the songs when they were new…Here, in a story about making it big in America by becoming more like everyone else, the form at last matches the content. Is that a new high or a new low? Maybe a bit of both. 'On Your Feet!' — even the title sounds pre-owned — is a little bit special but mostly the overmiked same."
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"Alexander Dinelaris’s book is heavy on the Hollywoodian clichés, but it has its charming moments, too, and every other aspect of the production, directed by Jerry Mitchell, is slick and satisfying, starting with the smoking-hot choreography of Sergio Trujillo and the tear-it-up onstage band...Yes, I know, it’s just a jukebox musical, but I liked 'On Your Feet!' In fact, I liked it a lot—and I think you might, too."
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"'On Your Feet!' is every bit as propulsive as the music and the personalities it celebrates. It has the flaws of an authorized biography; it’s worshipful of the central couple...A star is surely born with the Gloria of Ana Villafañe… As story-telling, 'On Your Feet!' can be as clunkily generic as the title. But there’s a deep well of life in the music that comes across powerfully in the staging — especially in that central supernova performance by a young actress I hope we’ll be seeing a lot more of."
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"A paint-by-numbers portrait can still be colorful — and a kick. Case in point: 'On Your Feet!,' a predictable but entertaining show about Gloria Estefan...The jukebox musical checks off all the usual-suspect plot points: humble roots, showbiz hurdles, tragedy, triumph, plus a gratuitous dance concert as a chaser...In spite of shortcomings, it makes good on a promise…Resistance is futile when it comes to these Latin-flavored hits…Cheesy and crowd-rousing."
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"A surefire audience pleaser...Newcomer Ana Villafane is a knockout in the leading role, the dazzling centerpiece of this flashy, splashy spectacle helmed by Jerry Mitchell...Structurally, the show builds to the full flowering of this Cuban-fusion sound, song after familiar song from the Estefan canon, mounted in full production numbers for Villafane’s dynamic voice, backed up by a robust singing-and-dancing chorus. It’s exhausting— but you can’t say it isn’t fun."
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