TDF Stages

Writer Marco Ramirez and director Saheem Ali discuss their joyous new Broadway musical

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Marco Ramirez may be a successful screenwriter and playwright (The Royale), but growing up in a large Miami-based Cuban family, music was his first love. The sounds of the island informed his childhood—he fondly recalls cruising through South Florida’s steamy streets as his grandfather sang along to son Cubano classics featuring tres guitar, bongos and maracas. Those instruments are critical components of Afro-Cuban music, enriching Latin genres such as salsa, guajira and bolero.

Ramirez has been thinking about the music of his adolescence a lot of late as the book writer for Buena Vista Social Club™ at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Inspired by the history of the Grammy-winning 1997 album and Cuban musical group of the same name, who became international sensations for reviving the sounds of their homeland's golden age, the show has transferred to Broadway after a sold-out run at Atlantic Theater Company last season.

Ramirez began listening to the eponymous ensemble as a teen. Working on the script, which alternates between the 1996 recording sessions in Havana and the key players in their youth on the cusp of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, has conjured a lot of memories.

"My grandfather listened to these old cassettes that were a lot of re-recordings," he recalls. "They were always like a copy of a copy of a copy that was recorded 60 years prior, which made them sound kind of teeny. When the album Buena Vista Social Club came out, it was the first time I could hear the bass, which made me feel like I was in the room. I think the record did that for a lot of people around the world. You could feel the bass in your chest in a way you couldn't with those earlier recordings."

On an entirely different continent, Buena Vista Social Club™ director Saheem Ali (Fat Ham) had a similar experience. A Kenyan-born theatre-maker, he embraced the namesake record as a teen, affirming the power of the music, regardless of language.

"I listened to that album day and night, just obsessed, and learned all the Spanish lyrics without knowing any of what they were saying," says Ali. "There's the melodic structure, what the lyrics are expressing, and then the music underneath it all. I didn’t know enough at the time to understand there was something about the combination of those elements that was doing something to me and people all over the globe."

The album's international success sparked Wim Wenders' Oscar-nominated 1999 documentary, also called Buena Vista Social Club, about the recording sessions with renowned but retired Cuban musicians, many of whom hadn't performed since the Cuban Revolution.

That backstory is the basis for Ramirez's book, which mixes fact and fiction in a series of flashbacks. The story centers on four of the most famous artists involved in that landmark album: vocalists Omara Portuondo and Ibrahim Ferrer, guitarist Compay Segundo and pianist Rubén González. Juan de Marcos González, who was instrumental in gathering the musicians for the original recording, is the show’s music consultant.

Considering what the album means to so many Cubanos, Ramirez had his work cut out for him. Since he knew the music would be the star of the show—the band members, not the actors, actually get the last bow—he opted to support the songs with his story.

"The album and the songs are pretty much perfect, so we didn't need to move too much stuff around, change lyrics or rearrange songs," Ramirez says. "The sound, the orchestrations, the arrangements are the reasons why we're all here. So rule one on day one for me was no translating any of these songs into English."

Ali agreed "1,000 percent" but understood that not translating the lyrics could be a challenge for non-Spanish-speaking audiences, especially since songs typically move the plot forward in musicals. He knew they needed to find a way to "allow storytelling to function while preserving the original language of the songs." Ultimately, numbers are given enough context so that theatregoers can understand "the emotion—the music moves you from one point to the other without needing to rely on the lyrics," explains Ali.

Buena Vista Social Club™ marks Ramirez's Broadway debut and he's well aware that he is part of a too-small club: Latine playwrights who have been produced on the Great White Way. He's glad to be doing it with such a simpatico collaborator.

"When Saheem and I first had a conversation about the show, he said the music was No. 1, and for me that felt like, okay good," Ramirez says. "There's been a lot of really interesting cultural exchanges between us, and we’ve talked a lot about Cuban sensibilities and history."

They're both honored to bring this uplifting and tuneful tale to the stage. With the Cuban Revolution, so many musicians were stripped of their livelihoods as well as their art. Some worked menial jobs for decades. Nearly 40 years later, an album catapulted them to global fame and now their story and songs are on Broadway.

"No one could have known what this album and music were going to do," Ali says. "Juan de Marcos is here in the flesh, in our theatre, decades after he put those musicians together. There was just no predicting that." For the director, it’s a reminder that artists should always "do what brings you joy. There’s no telling what is going to emerge when you plant those seeds, but you just plant them with love and care, kindness and respect. You have no idea what's going to blossom in the future."

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