NEW YORK CITY — A 21-year-old South Florida star is shining in a five-time Tony-award-winning Broadway musical centered on a love of Cuban music that transcends politics.
Wesley Wray, a University of Michigan student, was born in Miami-Dade County and is a graduate of Norland Middle School in Miami Gardens and the American Heritage School in Broward County.
Wray sings in Spanish, as he plays a Cuban singer at an Afro-Cuban hot spot that opened in 1932 in Havana’s Buena Vista neighborhood and closed after Fidel Castro took power.
“Being in Miami, there’s a lot of Cubans, a lot of Dominicans, a lot of Latinos, so doing this show kind of brought me back to that,” Wray said.
Wray, who isn’t of Cuban descent, plays Ibrahim Ferrer in the Broadway show that is named after the “Buena Vista Social Club,” which went on to become the inspiration for the 1997 Grammy Award-winning album.
“This is the first show to do that, the first show to have a Spanish score,” Wray said.
Castro’s revolution came with heartbreak and the end of Havana’s nightclub life, and the musical manages to bring joy to the audience with Son Cubano, bolero, guajira, and danzón, while telling the story of the Cuban families’ separations.
Ferrer, an Afro-Cuban singer, performed with Jovenes del Son, Conjunto Sorpresa, Chepín y su Orquesta Oriental, Los Bocucos, and Afro-Cuban All Stars, and often sang in the streets of Havana, as he struggled financially after Castro’s revolution.
“A lot of people come to the show, wherever they’re from, whatever their ethnic background, and they are all like, this music really resonates with me.”
During the show, the actors who play Afro-Cuban musicians perform live on stage, using traditional Cuban instruments like congas, bongos, tres, and timbales. They don’t hide in the pit, but instead are front and center.
Before Castro took power, Ferrer sang with a younger Omara Portuondo, a controversial figure whose photograph was removed from the Miami International Airport after a group of Cuban exiles protested last year.
Wray performs with Isa Antonetti, a New Yorker who plays the young Portuondo who performed with her sister Haydée Portuondo at the Tropicana Night Club in Havana. She faced a tough decision when her sister moved to the United States after Castro took power. It tells the story of how Cuban families were separated.
“Meeting people and their stories of how they relate to this, it’s beautiful to see,” Wray said.
Natalie Venetia Belcon, a Trinidadian-American actress, plays a bitter and older Portuondo who was reluctant to perform again in the 90s. Ferrero died in 2005 at 78. Portuondo still lives near Havana’s Malecón. She is 94.
John Leguizamo was among the co-producers of the Broadway show, which opened on March 19 and has been playing eight times a week at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre at 236 West 45 Street.
For more information about the Broadway show, visit this page.
Watch the trailer
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