By David Browne
Bono and the Edge took a shot at Spider-Man, Barry Manilow followed his muse to write about a singing group in Germany in the Thirties, and Cyndi Lauper rebooted her career by penning Kinky Boots. In the latest instance of a pop star venturing into musical theater, Gloria Estefan and her daughter, songwriter and singer Emily Estefan, announced today an in-the-works show about … a scrap-metal orchestra.
The upcoming musical Basura (Spanish for “garbage”) will feature original songs written by the Estefans and will tell the real-life tale of the Recycled Orchestra, a school ensemble from Paraguay that, over the last 20 years, has been making instruments out of refuse taken from a landfill in the capitol city of Asunción. The show is set to open in Atlanta in May 2026.
The Recycled Orchestra is one of the more unusual pop success stories of the century. Families living in a low-income community near the Cateura Landfill in Asunción would scavenge the area for anything usable. To be able to play in their school’s orchestra, students began making instruments out of bent utensils, tin cans, dinner-table legs, discarded pizza pans, remnants of footwear, and whatever else they could find in the landfill. Launched about 20 years ago, the newly christened Recycled Orchestra was chronicled in the award-winning doc Landfill Harmonic. Playing both classical and local folk music, the Orchestra has since jammed with Stevie Wonder and opened for Metallica on a South American tour.
The project began with producer Michael Shulman (Hamilton, Sunset Boulevard), who fell in love with the doc and then brought the idea to Estefan. (According to a production source, Shulman “had met her husband Emilio Estefan Jr. at a party years ago and always saved Emilio’s business card in his wallet.”) Having already written the musical On Your Feet! with her husband Emilio Estefan, Estefan was said to be eager to take another crack at the form, and with her daughter. At a meeting in Miami, Shulman brought Estefan a recycled violin from the school, which helped seal the deal. Estefan mother and daughter have since written over a dozen original songs for the show.
Basura also involves the work of theater pros like director Michael Greif (Rent, Dear Evan Hansen) and musical supervisor Alex Lacamoire (Hamilton). The show’s book was written by Karen Zacarías. Current plans call for Basura to move to Broadway after its Atlanta run next year.
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