On Your Feet! (Broadway) NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (2,416)
See it if you love Estefan's music; you'll enjoy the lively covers. The dancing is fun, the singing strong. Brisk pace hides OYF"s lack of emotion.
Don't see it if you require good lines and a meaningful story arc. Most of Act I was joyous; much of Act II fell flat. Final medley restored crowd's joy. Read more
See it if Even if you're not a fan of Gloria Estefan or jukebox musicals! This show was SO much better than I expected. I'm NOT a fan and I loved it!
Don't see it if You're looking for a quiet low energy night at the theatre. This show hits you with both barrels and knocks you on your feet! It's FUN!
See it if You enjoy good song and dance.
Don't see it if You do not like the Miami Sound Machine beat.
See it if Shocked at how much fun I had at this show. Walked in jaded, left singing and dancing.
Don't see it if You need a Shakespearean piece of theater. While it's not that it was really well done. You will know all the songs.
See it if you love the music of Gloria Estefan. The singing and dancing are well done. The plot skips over a lot of significant life moments.
Don't see it if you are not interested in the music or the life of this Gloria Estefan. There is nothing else on offer in terms of personal insight.
See it if you really like Gloria Estefan's music. (Despite Gloria's warning, the rhythm did not get me.)
Don't see it if you are allergic to cheese.
See it if you like Gloria Estefan and enjoy a Latin beat, you like some extraordinary choreography, and want to be absorbed into the music
Don't see it if you are looking for a strong story or like characters depicted with great depth, or if you don't like Latin/Cuban music and style of dance
See it if Musicalization of the rise of Gloria Estefan (via her husband's efforts) is a big, brassy Vegas-style entertainment Ana Villafane steals it
Don't see it if Book-heavy musical follows usual rags-to-riches format & sags considerably after Gloria's accident Knock-out finale but the 'beat' is gone
Critic Reviews (68)
"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."
Read more
"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."
Read more
"'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."
Read more
"The book here by Alexander Dinelaris is hardly a model of robust dramatic construction…But the story is packed with heart, above all in its tender depiction of the couple's sustaining love.…Musical-theater purists will sniff, but audiences looking for entertainment with emotional uplift will get what they came for. Even at its most shameless it's impossible to deny the production's generosity of spirit."
Read more
"'On Your Feet' is a play in which good news always far outweighs the bad — both in its story and in the production. It’s a syrupy, feel-good bio-musical, sure, but a near-perfectly executed one, with great songs and amazing dancing…The band sounds great, Jerry Mitchell’s direction is unsurprisingly crisp and polished, and Sergio Trujillo’s exuberant, Latin-flavored choreography is ferociously fun to watch."
Read more
"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."
Read more
"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."
Read more
"'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."
Read more
Trailer
Watch This Next (3)
Two teenage missionaries are sent to Africa to spread the word of Jesus Christ. What could go wrong?
Michael R. Jackson’s Tony Award-winning new musical about a young artist grappling with identity.
Alex Lawther stars in director Robert Icke's acclaimed production of Shakespeare's tragedy.