Review: Emilio and Gloria Estefan Musical Will Have You ON YOUR FEET! in Beverly

Whether autobiographical like “Jersey Boys,” “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” and “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” or fictionalized like “Mamma Mia!,” jukebox musicals often rely on the drama of  their source material as much as their familiar scores for success.

Such is the case with the jukebox musical “On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio & Gloria Estefan” with a book by Alexander Dinelaris Jr. (“Birdman’) – now at Bill Hanney’s North Shore Music Theatre through June 14 – deals with Gloria’s estrangement from her mother, Emilio’s separation from his family, the Cuban-American couple’s journey from struggling performers to music royalty, and the tour bus accident that almost claimed Gloria’s life.

The Cuban-fusion pop score by the 26-time Grammy Award-winning Estefans - 19 for Emilio and seven for Gloria - and Miami Sound Machine, includes hits like “Conga,” “Anything for You,” “Coming Out of the Dark,” “Don’t Wanna Lose You,” “Get On Your Feet,” and “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You” which helped make Gloria Estefan – first with Miami Sound Machine and later as a solo artist – the most successful Latin crossover performer in the history of pop music.

In Beverly, Isabel Leoni captures Gloria’s familiar style and spunk, but while she’s got the look, she doesn’t always quite have the sound. Leoni is well-matched, however, with scene partner Marcello Audino as husband Emilio. Terrific work is also done by Karmine Alers as Gloria’s fierce mother Gloria Fajardo, Sydia Cedeño-Genat as Consuelo Garcia, her spirited grandmother, and Henry  Gainza as Jose Fajardo, her often abent father. Olivia A. Cruz is a pleasant, if ill-defined presence as Rebecca Fajardo, Gloria's sister.

Ipswich seventh-grader Sebastian D. Harvey does double duty as Young Emilio, and Nayib, Gloria and Emilio’s son, while Cohasset resident Kendall Rivera, a sixth-grade honors student at Derby Academy in Hingham, brings youthful charm to young Gloria.

Director/Choreographer Marcos Santana, a two-time Elliot Norton Award nominee for last season’s acclaimed NSMT production of “Rent,” once again leads a stellar ensemble – this time majority Latino – through one high-energy dance number after another. Gloria and Emilio’s extensive song catalogue, under the music direction of Jose Delgado and with ample percussion and drums, provides most of the show’s soundtrack.

Disco fans, however, will delight in hearing the Gerald and Peter Jackson classic “Turn the Beat Around,” a 1976 Billboard Top 10 pop hit for Vickie Sue Robinson, rerecorded and released by Laura Branigan in 1990, and in 1994 by Gloria for the soundtrack of the feature film “The Specialist.” That tune and the oft-covered Buzz Cason and Max Gayden song "Everlasting Love" are both excerpted in a dazzling mega-mix that serves as the show's dance-infused coda.

The score is joyous, but emotions run high in “On Your Feet!” – which opened at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre on November 5, 2015 – especially when scenes depicting the singer’s 1990 tour bus collision with a semi-truck outside Scranton, Pennsylvania leave Gloria critically injured with a fractured spine and an uncertain future.

While on a medical transport helicopter the next day with Gloria and their then 10-year-old son, Nayib, flying from a hospital in Pennsylvania to the NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan. When the sun broke through the clouds, Emilio wrote “Coming Out of the Dark” on a slip of paper.

At his wife’s side while she recovered from surgery and endured intensive physical therapy, Emilio monitored her progress closely. About six months into her recovery, Dick Clark started calling regularly. Clark wanted Gloria to make her return to performing on the American Music Awards.

Once Gloria agreed, the pair decided it should be a new song with Emilio remembering the words he’d scribbled down during that helicopter ride months earlier. And together with Gloria and Jon Secada, a onetime member of Miami Sound Machine, writing ‘Coming Out of the Dark.’ With that ballad, and her triumphant return to performing, Gloria proved once again that to come out of hard times, you have to believe.

This emotioinally affecting and wonderfully performed production of “On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio & Gloria Estefan” will have you doing just that.

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