How Playing Gloria Estefan in On Your Feet! Prepared Ana Villafañe to Star in Chicago on Broadway

Ana Villafañe stepped into the role of Roxie Hart when Broadway's long-running Chicago resumed performances at the Ambassador Theatre on September 14. Broadway.com correspondent Charlie Cooper caught up with the star to chat about how playing Gloria Estefan in On Your Feet! prepared her for this role and more.

"It feels like a massive responsibility," Villafañe said. "Ann Reinking just passed away in December, so to play this role after her passing and also post-pandemic is just monumental to me. I keep that very sacred. It's also fun. It's such a female-empowerment show. It's such a sexy show—it has so much depth. I'm discovering something every day, it's been thrilling."

Chicago marks the Broadway return for Villafañe who made her debut starring as Gloria Estefan in On Your Feet! in 2015. "[On Your Feet! prepared me because it's stepping into something that everybody knows and loves," Villafañe said. "For Gloria, people were coming into the theater [with] a point of reference, so there was no getting it wrong. I was very hard on myself, but in the best way, to be professional, to show up every day, to have the integrity, to ask the questions. In this case, we didn't have the luxury of time, and it was more of creating it from a new and refreshing place in my point of view. It's something that's already iconic; legends have played this role. For me, as an artist, and as a woman of color, I can show people that I can just be a leading lady and it doesn't have to be Cuban and it doesn't have to be Hispanic. It's very liberating.

Villafañe has been busy with screen work, and she relishes this return to live performance. "I've been doing TV, so going back into the Broadway world and the sense of community and being tangibly in the room and sweating with each other again and being out of breath is unlike anything else," she said. "That's the magic of Broadway. That's the excitement of Broadway. That's the energy you can't find anywhere else but in live theater. It's a bit of a ride emotionally, but ultimately I'm just very, very grateful."

Watch the interview below, and head here to check your local listings for The Broadway Show. Hosted by Emmy-winning anchor Tamsen Fadal and powered by Broadway.com, it is the only nationally syndicated weekly theater news program.