LA LUPE: MY LIFE, MY DESTINY is a play with music based on the life of the great Cuban singer of the 1960s and 1970s, La Lupe. Victoria Guadalupe Yoli was born in 1939 in Cuba and died in New York City in 1992. Her meteoric rise in the music business in the United States was unprecedented and has since rarely been seen. At the beginning of LA LUPE: MY LIFE, MY DESTINY, Lupe is at Lehman College in the Bronx in New York City. Due to illness and financial problems she no longer livesthe life of a successful singer. Lupe is a student pursuing a degree in Education. She asks her Writing professor to change her grade. The professor had asked the students to write a story based on a real life experience. Lupe wrote a story about her life and the professor did not believe that this humble woman was an international super-star, hence he had given her an “F”. She proceeds to defend her life by reading the essay she wrote and her story comes to life. This is a true story.

The story she recounts to him takes us back to her first break on Cuban radio, to her starring days at La Red Nightclub in La Habana then on to the United States. In New York City she connects with fellow Cuban musician Mongo Santamaria and starts to make a mark in the Salsa world. It was at this time when she was baptized into the religion of Santeria. When the initiates are baptized they receive their life path. A prophecy came to her god-mother – Lupe would achieve riches and fame BUT she would fall. This prophecy plagues Lupe throughout the entire play.

We then see Lupe become an international super-star with Tito Puente and go on to a highly successful solo career, with appearances on the Dick Cavett Show, the Merv Griffin show and two solo, “sold-out” performances at Carnegie Hall. With every recording, with every show, throughout her marriages and the birth of her children; Lupe tries to avoid her the prophecy of the “fall”, she tries to avoid her destiny. Inevitably the “fall” arrives. First with her husband’s illness, then with a severe back injury, which prohibits her from working. Without work Lupe disappears from the music scene a sick and destitute woman.

Toward the end of her life, Lupe converts to Christianity and builds a new life for herself. Although we see her trying to avoid her destiny, Lupe proves to be a survivor. From every calamity she pulls herself up and continues living life with a warrior’s attitude.

At the end of the play the professor still refuses to change the grade. He still does not believe her until a fellow colleague recognizes her. Her last song for the evening is TODO – celebrating the ups and downs of her life – and giving thanks that she has experienced everything life has to offer.

This show is a surreal drama, which virtually has no set. It includes a Salsa band on stage. What has been utilized in the past is a four-piece orchestra: piano, conga, bass and timbales.

This is the Texas Premiere of La Lupe: My Life, My Destiny and only the second time this play has ever been produced.