broadway
The original Broadway cast recording of Maybe Happy Ending – led by Emmy Award and Golden Globe-winner Darren Criss and Helen J Shen – scores the year’s highest debut on Billboard’s Cast Albums chart, as the set enters at No. 5 on the list dated March 29. Maybe Happy Ending was released on March 14 […]
One is a Broadway veteran; the other a debutante. Natalie Venetia Belcon and Isa Antonetti are the stars playing legendary singer Omara Portuondo at different stages of her life in BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB, the new Broadway musical about the Cuban artists who brought the acclaimed Grammy-winning album of 1997 to the world.
With Broadway credits including Matilda (Mrs. Phelps) and Rent (Joanne), Belcon is a Trinitarian-American actress and singer best known for originating the role of former child television star Gary Coleman in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Avenue Q. She had already played the Cuban icon knows as “La Novia del Filin” (“The Bride of Feeling”) during the BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB off-Broadway run, receiving the 2024 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Performer in a Musical and a nomination for a Drama Desk Award for the role.
Meanwhile, Antonetti is a “Latinx, indigenous, mixed race LGBTQIA+ actress and singer from the Greater Rochester, New York area,” as stated in the show’s playbill, and is currently completing her BFA in Musical Theatre at Carnegie Mellon University. With credits including Evita (NYCC), Macbeth (CMU), and A Chorus Line (OFC Creations), she recently made her film debut in Gift of Fear, and is excited to make her Broadway debut in BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB — “as it reflects her own experiences growing up performing with her father’s Latin band, Orquesta Antonetti.”
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Buena Vista Social Club was formed in Cuba in 1996, as a project organized by World Circuit executive Nick Gold, produced by American guitarist Ry Cooder and directed by Juan de Marcos González, who named the group after a popular music venue in Havana in the 1940s. To showcase popular styles of the time, such as son, bolero, and danzón, they recruited a dozen veteran musicians, some of whom had been retired for years.
The group’s eponymous debut album was released in September 1997 and quickly became an international sensation. On the Billboard charts, it reached No. 1 on Tropical Albums, where it stayed at the top for 24 weeks and spent a total of 266 weeks on the chart. It also reached No. 1 on Top Latin Albums and World Albums, and spent 19 weeks on the Billboard 200. In 1998, it won the Grammy for Best Tropical Latin Album, and the Billboard Latin Music Award for Tropical/Salsa Album of the Year by a Group. The Buena Vista Social Club album was also voted into the National Recording Registry in 2022 and the Grammy Hall of Fame last year.
With a book by Marco Ramirez, the Saheem Ali-directed Broadway show is inspired by true events, and features a band of international musicians to narrate the legendary story of the artists who brought the original album to life, going back and forth between the mid-90s and the 1950s. The company also features Julio Monge as Compay Segundo, Mel Semé as Ibrahim Ferrer and Jainardo Batista Sterling as Rubén González — with Da’von Moody, Wesley Wray and Leonardo Reyna as their younger versions, respectively. Renesito Avich plays Eliades Ochoa, and Ashley De La Rosa a young Haydee. Also performing are Angélica Beliard, Carlos Falú, Hector Juan Maisonet, Ilda Mason, Marielys Molina, and Sophia Ramos, among others.
Last Tuesday afternoon (March 19), dressed to the nines for the musical’s official Broadway premiere, Belcon and Antonetti sat with Billboard Español to share their experience giving life to one of the most beloved singers of Cuba. (Hours later, Omara Portuondo herself, now 94, would pay the cast a visit at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater in New York City ahead of opening night. She was not available for press).
What did you know about Buena Vista Social Club before joining this musical?
Natalie Venetia Belcon: I have musicians for parents, and they introduced me to Buena Vista Social Club, the album. I was 26, 27, something like that.
Isa Antonetti: I also have musicians for parents, and they would play the music [with their band] or the music would play it in the background and I would never know what I was listening to, until my dad told me: “You should do some more research on this on this Cuban band that we love to play sometimes.” And I was like, “Okay.” So I heard [the song] “Chan Chan” and I heard a couple of their songs and I was just humming them all over the place. And then they kind of just stayed in my Spotify and I would listen to them once in a while.
In the musical, you speak in English but sing in perfect Spanish. Are you fluent? How did you achieve the accent?
Antonetti: I’m not fluent, but I do speak.
Belcon: My father’s side of the family is Spanish, [but] I don’t speak Spanish. When we moved up to this country, we moved to the South Bronx, which is, you know… [heavily Puerto Rican]. So I am used to hearing it. I just never had to speak it. But I treat languages like I would music — I go off of the sounds and the dialect coach, so I’m good like that, just repeating and recording and putting my earphones in and you know, listening to it all the time is how I learned, anyway.
Antonetti: I always think musicians have the ear. You could give me some sheet music and I could make my way around it, but I learned best by our dialect coach, you know, speaking it and sending us voice memos, making sure I’m pronouncing it the way that is authentic to this show.
Beyond the Spanish, how did you both prepare to play Omara at these two stages in her life?
Belcon: I’m lucky in the sense that the stuff that you see of her is of her older. And so I watched “Adiós” quite a few times and listened to the stuff a lot. I mean, I can’t even help it now, it’s just kind of, you know, on repeat, basically.
How about you, Isa? There’s not so much of Omara from that era.
Antonetti: It’s so funny because I was thinking about it and I remember in the rehearsal room when they had the pictures up, it’s just like one picture of Omara when she was younger. I would do some research, I would look to see if there’s some videos of her when she was younger with like her sister and with her quad. And so I would use that, and I would also talk to [Associate Music Director] David Oquendo and ask what is the essence of someone who’s 19 in Cuba? You know, and I would try and bring that to her as well.
What was the biggest challenge of portraying a vocalist known as “La Novia del Filin” [The Bride of Feeling]?
Belcon: Well, today, it’s going to be [hard] to not pass out when I meet her. I hope my understudy is ready, ’cause I might be in the ER with IV (Laughs). The challenge is, even though this is a fable, to make sure that we are still being respectful and not making up somebody entirely. And to have a semblance of who she is, to have it resemble her as much as possible.
Antonetti: Absolutely. I could just quote what she said. All of it!
But this is your Broadway debut so, for you, what was the biggest challenge?
Antonetti: Besides the genuine general things about Broadway being exhausting through the rehearsals and the previews — you know, that it’s challenging in its own way. I think for the show specifically, it’s keeping making sure the time period stays in your body when you step on stage. I’m playing someone in the 1950s, so that’s different than how I would play someone else. I think the challenging part is remembering when you step on stage that you are a different person and you’re being respectful and you’re bringing life to something. It’s challenging and rewarding and all of the above.
At some points during the musical, your characters meet, creating really emotional moments. Any favorites for you?
Belcon: I think it might be [Ibrahim Ferrer and Portuondo’s duet] “Silencio,” when the younger two are up top on the malecón (pier) and Ibrahim comes in and then I’m having all the memories of things. That and, not necessarily my favorite but I think in my head the most important, which is how it all starts when she — again, it’s a “Do I go left or right?” It’s a crossroads: “Do I make the album or not?” Then she chooses and it’s a butterfly effect; it kind of affects everything and everybody else.
Antonetti: I would say “Chan Chan” — it’s had different iterations since we started rehearsal and I’m so grateful that I get to be a part of that number even longer because it’s so emotionally devastating, but I love the moment and I only get to see it from behind the stage of the malecón. I get to see Natalie come in and Angélica [Beliard] do this beautiful dance move where she transfers the trauma into Natalie. Just remembering it, that moment, I’m telling you, I need like three hours to recoup.
Belcon: I need three drinks! (Laughs)
What did you both learn from Omara Portuondo in this process, as a person and as an artist?
Belcon: I mean, to say that she’s strong is an understatement. There needs to be a better word — maybe it needs to be “I am Omara,” right? You know, she’s been through a lot, just a lot, and came through it all and succeeded. More than succeeded. Just the time period, what was happening [in Cuba], and she not only survived that, she thrived regardless.
Antonetti: As a person, as an artist… She is more than just those words. Whenever I think of her, it’s like what you said, strong is an understatement. She is just this powerful being that can take my breath away.
After months of rehearsals, how does it feel to see the whole show finally come together on Broadway?
Belcon: I had a little bit of a heads-up cause I’ve done it once before [off-Broadway.] I think it is different in the bigger space, definitely, but that’s always a fantastic payoff moment. All the hard work and the not sleeping and all the rest of it, when you see everything fall into place, you know, those moments when you see the younger and the older [characters together], it’s always the payoff. They’re emotional moments. They are.
Antonetti: There are moments where I just have to hold myself back because I am an emotional person. And I was like, “This is a dream and it’s coming true and I have to be grounded in that or I’ll freak out.” It’s like what I told someone else outside: It has been exhausting, but it is worth every inch and ounce of that exhaustion. Absolutely.
Actors Natalie Venetia Belcon and Isa Antonetti on the red carpet as they arrive to the Buena Vista Social Club musical opening night on Broadway on March 19, 2025, in New York City.
Andy Henderson
Of course Joe and Kevin Jonas were in the house on Tuesday night (March 18) to support their brother Nick Jonas in his return to Broadway in The Last Five Years. The siblings were reunited on the stage with Nick’s co-star, Adrienne Warren in a family snap at the kick-off of preview performances at the […]
James Taylor‘s music is headed to the theater. Fire & Rain, a jukebox-style musical based on the music of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was announced on Monday (March 17), with the in-development project to feature a story by Tony-winning playwright/actor Tracy Letts (August: Osage County, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and direction by Tony-winner David Cromer (The Band’s Visit).
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According to Deadline, while no details have been announced so far about the storyline for the show, a release announcing it heaped praise on six-time Grammy winner Taylor, referring to his musical legacy as, “one of profound influence on American music, particularly in the genres of folk, pop, and singer-songwriter traditions. His career spans over five decades, and his impact can be felt in both the personal nature of his songs and his stylistic innovations. His deeply personal, introspective lyrics and soulful delivery helped define the era’s musical landscape.”
The statement noted that the title song — which was featured on the singer’s 1970 sophomore album, Sweet Baby James, and reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart — “helped solidify James Taylor’s career and introduce him to a wider audience. The song’s vulnerability and honesty made it resonate with listeners and became one of the defining songs of his career.”
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At press time there was not timeline for when Fire & Rain will be staged or where it will debut.
Taylor is the latest in a long line of iconic pop, country and Latin artists who’ve brought their music to the stage in biographical musicals, including Elton John, Cyndi Lauper, The Go-Gos, Sting, Alanis Morissette, Carole King, Michael Jackson, Neil Diamond, Alicia Keys and many more.
The 77-year-old singer is gearing up to launch his 2025 summer tour, which is slated to kick off on May 5 at the Footprint Center in Phoenix and keep him on the road through a July 1 gig at the BankNH Pavilion in Gilford, NH.
Stephen Schwartz, who wrote both music and lyrics to all the songs in Wicked, is about to become even more “Popular.” The veteran songwriter is set to receive the 2025 Johnny Mercer Award at the Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala on Thursday, June 12, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.
The award presentation will come near the midpoint between the November 2024 release of Wicked, which quickly became the highest-grossing film ever based on a Broadway musical, and the November 2025 release of a sequel, Wicked: For Good. Both films are based on the 2003 stage musical Wicked.
Schwartz, 76, has won three Oscars, four Grammys, four Drama Desk Awards and a Golden Globe. He has received six Tony nominations, in addition to receiving their Isabelle Stevenson Award in 2015 for his support of young artists.
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The Mercer Award, the highest honor bestowed by the SHOF, is reserved for a songwriter or songwriting team who has already been inducted into the SHOF and whose body of work upholds the high standards set by Mercer, wrote dozens of hits from the 1930s through the 1960s. (Learn more about Mercer here.) Schwartz was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2009.
“With every lyric and melody, Stephen invites us on an unforgettable journey,” SHOF chairman Nile Rodgers said in a statement. “From his iconic list of award-winning musicals, including Godspell, Wicked and Pippin, Stephen continually proves that he is the only person who can turn a simple story into a Broadway musical masterpiece, one catchy chorus at a time!”
Schwartz won his first two Oscars – best original song for “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas and best original musical or comedy score for that same film, in tandem with Alan Menken, who received the Johnny Mercer Award in 2017. Schwartz won his third Oscar – best original song for “When You Believe” from The Prince of Egypt – by himself.
Schwartz is the second Mercer recipient in the past three years who is largely known for his work in theater. Tim Rice, who teamed with Andrew Lloyd Webber to write such classics as Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, won the award in 2023.
Schwartz has been a major force in the American musical theater since the early 1970’s, when he had three hit shows running on Broadway – Godspell, Pippin, and The Magic Show.
Four of Schwartz’s songs – two from stage musicals and two from films – have become top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. “Day by Day” from Godspell (credited to Godspell) reached No. 13 in 1972. The Jackson 5’s cover version of “Corner of the Sky” from Pippin reached No. 18 in 1972, Vanessa Williams’ “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas hit No. 4 in 1995, and Whitney Houston & Mariah Carey’s “When You Believe” from The Prince of Egypt reached No. 15 in 1999. The latter film was DreamWorks’ first animated feature.
Schwartz’s other musicals, in addition to those already named, include The Magic Show, The Baker’s Wife, Working, Rags, Children of Eden, and the upcoming The Queen of Versailles, which is slated to open on Broadway this fall. His other films, in addition to those already named, include The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Enchanted.
In the classical field, Schwartz collaborated with Leonard Bernstein on Mass and composed the opera, Seance on a Wet Afternoon. He has also released two singer/songwriter albums, Reluctant Pilgrim and Uncharted Territory.
Under the auspices of The ASCAP Foundation, Schwartz runs musical theater workshops in New York and Los Angeles, and serves on the ASCAP Foundation board. He is also a member of the Council of the Dramatists’ Guild.
Gracie Abrams, 25, was announced two weeks ago as the recipient of the SHOF’s other major honorary award, the Hal David Starlight Award. That award, named after the Oscar- and Grammy-winning lyricist, is presented to young songwriters who are making a significant impact in the music industry with their original songs.
Previously announced 2025 SHOF inductees are George Clinton, Ashley Gorley, Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, Mike Love, Tony Macaulay and three members of The Doobie Brothers (Tom Johnston, Michael McDonald and Patrick Simmons).
A songwriter with a notable catalog of songs qualifies for induction into the SHOF 20 years after the first commercial release of a song.
Winnie Holzman, best known for her work on Wicked and My So-Called Life, will be honored by her alma mater, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, at its annual gala on April 7 at Cipriani South Street. Holzman wrote the book for the blockbuster stage musical Wicked, with music and lyrics by Stephen […]
Nick Jonas admitted that he might have taken the title of the song “Moving Too Fast” a bit too literally during a rehearsal for his upcoming return to Broadway in The Last Five Years. In an Instagram video posted on Tuesday (March 4), the Jonas Brothers and solo star revealed that he had an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction.
“I was singing ‘Moving Too Fast,’ one of my character Jamie’s songs,” Jonas said of the run-through of the song he performs with his Tony winning co-star. “I’m supposed to jump onto this platform and then pull my co-star, Adrienne Warren, up onto the platform with me and keep singing.”
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And then things went a bit sideways. “I do it, and I hear a [ripping sound]. And I’m like, ‘Oh no, oh no.’ Then I feel a cool breeze in a place you don’t want to feel a cool breeze,” Jonas laughed before moving back from the camera to display the huge tear in the groin of his camo cargo pants. “This is what happened to my pants,” he said. “They’re not tight pants by any means. It just was the perfect spot and the position that I jumped up.”
It was bad, but it could have been worse, and it was.
Jonas mentioned that the pants split happened in front of the show’s director, Whitney White, as well as its composer, Jason Robert Brown, “and, of course, my co-star, Adrienne Warren,” as well as the stage management department, musical director, pianist and percussionist. So, basically, the whole team.
The singer shared that he attempted to fix the pants himself — “I tried to duct tape it, it didn’t work… I tried to put some safety pins in, didn’t hold” — before the crack stage managers ran over to Target to fetch him some black shorts so he could finish the rehearsal.
Jonas, who is returning to Broadway 13 years after starring in 2012’s revival of the musical How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, will take the stage for the debut of The Last Five Years on March 18.
Watch Jonas relive his trouser tragedy below.
Cynthia Erivo is set to host 2025 Tony Awards on Sunday, June 8. The ceremony will return to Radio City Music Hall in New York City for the first time since 2022. It will broadcast live to both coasts on CBS and stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.
“I am so proud and excited to take on this glorious honor,” Erivo said in a statement. “I am looking forward to ushering the theater community at large through a night that celebrates the wonderful performances we have witnessed throughout the year. I hope I can rise to the occasion.”
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This is Erivo’s first time hosting the Tonys, where she was a winner in 2016 for her lead role in The Color Purple. Ariana DeBose, also a Tony winner, hosted the Tonys the last three years. This will be the fifth year in a row that a woman of color has hosted the Tonys. Audra McDonald did the honors in 2021.
Erivo, 38, is the star of Wicked, which has become the highest-grossing film adapted from a Broadway musical. Erivo is Oscar-nominated for best actress for her role in Wicked, though she is not expected to win when the awards are presented on March 2. (Rumors persist that she and co-star Ariana Grande may be enticed to perform on the show.) It’s Erivo’s third Oscar nod, following dual nods (best actress and best original song) five year ago for Harriet.
In addition to her Tony win, Erivo has won a Grammy and a Daytime Emmy, both for projects related to The Color Purple.
“Cynthia is a remarkable talent and with her deep roots in the theater community, we are honored to have her host this year’s Tony Awards on CBS,” Mackenzie Mitchell, vp of specials at CBS, said in a statement.
Nominations for this year’s Tony Awards will be announced on Thursday, May 1.
The Tony Awards are produced in collaboration with Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League, and White Cherry Entertainment. Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss are executive producers and showrunners for White Cherry Entertainment. Weiss will serve as director.
As he nears the end of his run in Broadway‘s Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, singer Adam Lambert celebrated his run with a stunning performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday night (Feb. 10).
Dressed in all-black and wearing some glossy black lipstick and eyeshadow, Lambert performed “I Don’t Care Much,” the melancholy act II ballad sung by his character in the show, the Emcee. Dropping his character’s German accent, the American Idol alum sauntered through the jazzy number, placing particular emphasis on its harsh lyrics.
“Words sound false when your coat’s too thin/ Feet don’t waltz when the roof caves in,” he belted. “So if you kiss me, if we touch/ Warning’s fair; I don’t care very much.”
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Lambert released his rendition of the song as a single back in December, and in an interview with radio presenter Elvis Duran, explained the track’s painful meaning in the larger context of the show. “It’s like a torch song,” he said. “It’s really beautiful, and this is in the second act when things are sad, and it’s a song about indifference, and kind of just saying ‘I give up.’”
Cabaret takes place in Berlin during the late 1920s and early 1930s, as the Nazi party rose to power. In “I Don’t Care Much,” Lambert’s Emcee sings about Germany’s apathy in the face of the Nazis’ fascist, antisemitic rhetoric. While he was recording the song, Lambert says he couldn’t help but think about the parallels between that story and today’s politics.
“The day after the [2024 U.S.] election, I know we all felt some kind of way. We recorded this right around election week,” he explained. “I kept going back to how I felt, how a lot of the people that I know in my community felt [after the election], and it was this feeling of … ‘I don’t know what else to do, except to say that I guess I don’t care now as a coping mechanism.’”
Lambert currently stars in the production alongside Auli’i Cravalho (as Sally Bowles), with both of their last performances slated for March 29. Starting on March 31, the roles of the Emcee and Sally will be taken over by country singer-songwriter Orville Peck and Tony-nominated actress Eva Noblezada.
Watch Lambert’s full performance of “I Don’t Care Much” above.
Country music artists have long had ties to musical theatre — and it seems natural, given that both country music concerts and the electrifying shows of Broadway share similarities. Both are built around stories and tales that connect with human emotions, and both feature teams of people intent on combining music, songwriting, performance, lighting and […]