Beyond the walls of the studios of 721 Broadway lives a world of professional theater that NYU Tisch juniors and seniors yearn to become a part of. However, one fearless junior was not going to wait around until graduation to get his invitation. 

“It’s important to be really hungry about this and to really want this,” Emmanuel Lopez said while sitting outside of Broadway’s Marquis Theatre. After three callbacks and almost a year of waiting, Lopez was finally cast in the new jukebox Broadway musical “On Your Feet!”

“This is my first big outside production, because everything I had done before was educational,” Lopez explains.

Having only started his musical theatre studies this semester at NYU’s New Studio On Broadway, he attributes the majority of his training to growing up in Puerto Rico, where he began salsa dancing at a very young age.

“Studio gave me professionalism, but what I did in the audition room and what I do in the show is all salsa dancing, and that came from Puerto Rico,” Lopez said.

“On Your Feet!” was still in previews when Lopez and his mother sat in the last row together on Oct. 12, 2015. They shared the same thrill and excitement while watching their native salsa music and dance glorified on a Broadway stage.

This performance is what initially inspired Lopez to audition.

“After I saw the show, I looked in the playbill to see who was behind the show,” Lopez said, “because I thought to myself, ‘I feel like I can work for this.’”

While performing in “On Your Feet!” eight times a week and attending last minute rehearsals, Lopez is learning to juggle the responsibilities of a Broadway performer and a student while continuing his rigorous training with New Studio On Broadway. He even still lives in his dorm room.

“It’s a lot of work,” Lopez said. “I had to drop a class in order to keep all the important things, like my financial aid and my dorm. It’s definitely a matter of trying to prioritize what’s important in the moment.”

Although Lopez has the passion and ability to balance acting in a Broadway show and his college courses at NYU, he is appreciative and realizes that he could not do it without the support Tisch has given him throughout the process.

“I finished the Tisch production of ‘In The Heights’ on a Saturday, and on that Tuesday I started rehearsal for ‘On Your Feet!’”
Lopez said. “During the rehearsal period of ‘On Your Feet!,’ my studio teachers at Tisch were really understanding of the situation because I had to miss a lot of studio. I’m really grateful for Tisch and New Studio on Broadway, specifically for making this work.”

Lopez has been given an extraordinary gift. Without even graduating college, he landed his first professional show and is an equity performer. He will be sharing his charm and talent for salsa dance every night on the Marquis Theatre stage.

“My first night in the show, the curtain raised and the lights came up, and I immediately locked eyes with my mother in the audience, to see her crying,” Lopez said. “It was so surreal for me, to think that just a year ago I was sitting with her in that audience and now I am the one dancing on the stage.”

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Nov. 14 print edition. Email Blair Best at [email protected].