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Source: Ubisoft / Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is doing numbers, giving Ubisoft a much-needed win.
Take that haters. After plenty of rumbling and hoping Assassin’s Creed Shadows would be a massive flop for Ubisoft, the highly-anticipated next chapter in the Assassin’s Creed franchise is already a hit.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows reached 2 million players three days after its release. According to a post from Ubisoft, “Assassin’s Creed Shadows has now surpassed the launches of AC Origins and Odyssey.”
This milestone follows after Shadows reached 1 million players in the first 24 hours of its release, easily eclipsing AC Valhalla’s record. According to Ubisoft, Valhalla was the biggest launch on PC when it was launched in 2020.
We zap five years later, and Shadows seemingly smashed that record.
What also could have contributed to that record was that Shadows was launched on Steam from day one and immediately verified for Steam Deck use. It took two whole years for Valhalla after its original release to land on Steam.
Currently, Shadows’ all-time peak concurrent numbers on Steam are at 64,825, officially putting it past Odyssey’s 62,069 but easily blowing past Origins (41,551) and Valhalla (15,679).
If Assassin’s Creed Shadows continues at this pace, it could become one of the biggest releases of the year. To put things in perspective, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which was a very well-reviewed title, took two weeks to hit the 2-million player mark; it only took days for Shadows to reach that goal.
Ubisoft Finally Gets A Win With Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Shadows’ performance is a much-needed win for Ubisoft, which has been reeling thanks to commercial flops like Star Wars Outlaws and Skull and Bones. This could be the shot in the arm the video game developer has been looking for.
It also showed that all the social discourse around Shadows, specifically about the game’s dual protagonist, Yasuke, the Black Samurai, and Naoe, the female shinobi assassin, didn’t matter in the end.
Hell, it might have even helped the game sell.
Who knows.
Well, we loved Shadows and wrote in our review of the game that “Assassin’s Creed Shadows is an exceptional entry into the franchise that brilliantly combines all of the good features from the games over the years and stuffed them into a game that doesn’t require you to play 100+ hours to complete. It’s so good that you want to spend as much time in its world as possible to uncover more of the story because it’s absolutely worth it.”
Congrats to the Ubisoft team for the successful launch. You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
With classic hits like “Refugee,” “Here Comes My Girl” and “You Got Lucky,” guitarist Mike Campbell has been a key member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for over 40 years. And now Campbell is telling his story in their own words in a new book.
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On sale for $24.78 (reg. $32) on Amazon, Heartbreaker: A Memoir chronicles the start of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in 1976 until the frontman’s death in 2017. It follows Campbell’s early life in Florida to stardom in rock and roll.
If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can order now and Heartbreaker: A Memoir will be delivered to your home in less than two days once it’s released, thanks to Prime Delivery.
Not a member? Sign up for a 30-day free trial to take advantage of all that Amazon Prime has to offer, including access to Prime Video, Prime Gaming and Amazon Photos; fast free shipping in less than two days with Prime Delivery; in-store discounts at Whole Foods Market; access to exclusive shopping events — such as Prime Day and Black Friday — and much more. Learn more about Amazon Prime and its benefits here.
The memoir is also available at BookShop.org for $29.76 (reg. $32), while Heartbreaker: A Memoir is buyable at Barnes & Noble priced at $29.
Grand Central Publishing
‘Heartbreaker: A Memoir’
by Mike Campbell
$24.78
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Meanwhile, Heartbreaker: A Memoir is also available as an Audible audiobook, which is only $0.99 for subscribers only.
If you’re not a subscriber, you can sign up for a 30-day free trial. But right now, Audible has a new promotion, which gives new subscribers three months of service for just $0.99 per month. But act fast and sign up now, this deal ends on Wednesday, April 30.
Throughout his career, Mike Campbell has been nominated for five Grammy Awards and one win, as a member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for the music video for “Runnin’ Down a Dream.” He’s currently the frontman and lead guitarist for Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs.
In the meantime, Heartbreaker: A Memoir is available for $24.78 (reg. $32) right now at Amazon.
Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best Xbox deals, studio headphones and Nintendo Switch accessories.
The long-awaited, oft-talked-about Nas and DJ Premier album may really be happening. Over the weekend, Nas posted a screenshot of his calendar to his Instagram Story to wish DJ Premier a happy 59th birthday. However, that’s not why he’s making headlines. Fans noticed that the Queens rapper has multiple weeks blocked off for recording sessions […]
Live Nation has agreed to pay $20 million to settle a lawsuit claiming the company failed to warn investors about the kind of anticompetitive behavior that ultimately led to the Justice Department’s sweeping antitrust case.
In a filing Friday (March 21) in California federal court, attorneys for the plaintiffs said the deal with Live Nation would provide a “fair, reasonable, and adequate result” for thousands of investors who could be covered by the settlement. Live Nation continues to deny any wrongdoing, according to the court filings.
The case, filed in August 2023 as a proposed class action, claimed that Live Nation had failed to disclose to investors that it had engaged in anticompetitive conduct that was “likely to incur regulatory scrutiny and face fines, penalties, and reputational harm.”
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“Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements and omissions of material fact about the company’s compliance with antitrust laws, its cooperation with governmental investigations, and the regulatory risks it was currently facing,” attorneys for the investors wrote.
As the government’s antitrust investigation was slowly revealed in the press — and then the blockbuster case was finally filed in May — Live Nation’s share price dropped, allegedly causing investors to face “significant” losses.
“The gradual revelation of the truth about the company’s anticompetitive conduct in violation of antitrust laws, refusal to fully cooperate with investigators, and undisclosed risks of regulatory action caused precipitous declines in the market value of the company’s stock,” attorneys for the investors wrote.
The DOJ and dozens of states filed their case in May, with the aim of breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster over accusations that they form an illegal monopoly in the live music industry. The case, which remains pending, accuses the company of a wide range of wrongdoing, including coercing artists into using the company’s promotion services and retaliating against venues that opted not to use Ticketmaster.
According to the lawsuit filed by the investors, Live Nation’s stock dropped $7.92 per share, or 7.8 percent, when the feds filed their case. Even before the lawsuit was formally filed, media reports about the investigation — including that Live Nation had “stonewalled” a Senate probe — had caused similar decreases in price.
According to settlement papers submitted on Friday, experts for the investors estimated that a best-case scenario might net them a whopping $743 million in damages at the end of the lawsuit. But their lawyers said that continuing to litigate the case also posed “significant” downside risk.
“The settlement provides a favorable, immediate and guaranteed recovery and eliminates the risk, delay, and expense of continued litigation,” plaintiff’s lawyers wrote. “While a greater recovery might be a theoretical possibility, evaluating the benefits of settlement must be tempered by recognizing that any compromise involves concessions on the part of all parties.”
Under the terms of the deal, the attorneys who represented the plaintiffs will be able to seek as much as 33 percent of the settlement, meaning up to $6.6 million. The two named plaintiffs, shareholders Brian Donley and Gene Gress, will get an extra $5,000 each.
A spokeswoman for Live Nation and an attorney for the plaintiffs did not immediately return requests for comment on the settlement.
Even LISA isn’t immune to Bieber Fever. In a recent interview about her favorite songs, the BLACKPINK star shouted out Justin Bieber‘s breakout hit before recalling how starstruck she was the first time they met. While speaking to The Guardian in a piece published Monday (March 24), LISA shared that the American pop star’s “Baby” […]
Bunnie XO is opening up about the lesser known emotions of IVF. In a new episode of her Dumb Blonde podcast, the star got vulnerable about her emotions as she goes through the process of trying to conceive a child with her husband, Jelly Roll. She compared the process to “slot machine in Vegas” due […]
Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco — her fiancé who happens to be one of the top pop producers of today — are making the rounds with their joint album I Said I Love You First.
Best representing the creative collaboration between two halves of a shared heart, the set is home to 15 tracks, including “Call Me When You Break Up,” featuring Gracie Abrams, and “I Can’t Get Enough,” the pair’s 2019 team-up with J Balvin and Tainy.
“It just felt like it was a little taste of what we are and how we made this together, and how much we loved it and how much we love each other,” Gomez recently said about working with her romantic partner in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “And it just felt like it was meant to be.”
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One of the set’s standout track is “Ojos Tristes,” a bilingual glam-pop track that features vocals from the Marías leader María Zardoya, who is also credited as a songwriter and producer. The song — whose lyric video has nearly 2 million views and is in the top 10 on YouTube’s Trending chart for music at the time of publishing — samples Jeanette’s 1981 classic “El Muchacho de los Ojos Tristes.”
Below, Billboard compares the 2025 version with the original by the English-born Spanish singer.
Title: “El Muchacho de los Ojos Tristes”
Artist: Jeanette
Year: 1981
Song: A song about a young man with sad eyes became one of the most emblematic songs of Jeanette’s career. Lyrically, she sings about coming across a lonely man who has sad eyes and needs love, and her desire to see him again and make him feel better. Musically, it’s a soft, glam-pop ballad that transmits melancholy backed by Jeanette’s dreamy and dulcet vocals. “El Muchacho de los Ojos Tristes” was written and produced by Manuel Alejandro and marked the third single from Jeanette’s Corazón de Poeta album released in 1981.
Video: A video published on Jeanette’s official YouTube channel shows the then-30-year-old singer performing the song in a live television setting. Completely alone onstage, the artist interprets the song’s lyrics with grace, passion and her own sad, brown eyes glistening. She’s wearing a sequined purple dress with cowboy boots as she sways side to side.
Title: “Ojos Tristes”
Artist: Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco
Year: 2025
Song: While the ’80s song is about the desire of knowing more about that mysterious man with the sad eyes, Gomez’s “Ojos Tristes” is about an unwanted breakup. “It’s not your fault I have to leave/ Please don’t you look that way, baby […] Those sad eyes, sad eyes/ You know I don’t wanna say goodbye,” she sings at the beginning of the track. Produced by Blanco, Josh Conway and Maria Zardoya of The Marías, the song conserves its hazy-disco aura, but with more percussion and instrumentation. The Marías also sings Jeanette’s timeless chorus in Spanish and adds another verse about never forgetting her ex despite the years.
Video: An official music video has yet to be released, but a lyric video featuring Gomez hugging Blanco in bed on a loop captures the nostalgic sentiment of the song.
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Greenland and the United States appear to have strained relations after the general perception that President Donald Trump eyes a takeover of the world’s largest island. With reports that President Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz will be visiting Greenland this week along with another visit from Vice President JD Vance‘s wife, Usha Vance, some online are mentioning Vance’s recent comments about the North American Denmark territory.
As reported by The Independent, Greenland’s prime minister Mute B. Egede was quoted by a local news outlet regarding Walz’s upcoming visit with U.S. energy secretary Chris Wright also in tow.
“We are now at a level where it can in no way be characterized as a harmless visit from a politician’s wife,” Egede said to Greenland’s Sermitsiaq newspaper per The Independent. “What is the national security adviser doing in Greenland? The only purpose is to demonstrate power over us.”
Egede continued, “He is Trump’s confidential and closest advisor, and his presence in Greenland alone will certainly make the Americans believe in Trump’s mission, and the pressure will increase after the visit.”
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That sentiment is an increasingly notable one considering the vice president’s comments about annexing Greenland for American needs. In a February Fox News interview, Vance said, “Here’s the thing which I think a lot of folks don’t appreciate about Greenland. It’s really important to our national security.”
For years, the United States and Denmark have held an agreement to allow the U.S. military to have a presence on the island. However, Trump wants to absorb both the island and Canada as part of the States.
On Monday (March 24), Trump continued his stances, telling reporters after a Cabinet meeting, “I think Greenland is going to be something that maybe is in our future.”
On X, the reactions to Usha Vance, Mike Waltz, and Secretary Chris Wright’s Greenland visits are in and we’ve got them listed below.
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Photo: JEFF KOWALSKY / Getty
Concert promotion titan AEG Presents bolstered its presence in Music City with the late February opening of its flagship Nashville venue, The Pinnacle, located in the 19-acre, mixed-use Nashville Yards complex. Kacey Musgraves performed at the 4,500-person capacity, 88,500-square-feet concert venue’s inaugural concert on Feb. 27.
“We spent a lot of time going back and forth over who the first artist was going to be,” Mike DuCharme, regional vice president for AEG Presents, tells Billboard. “We loved the idea of having a female artist from Nashville that isn’t straight down the country lane but crosses demographics and music and has fans of all genres. She really hit the mark and did great. And the fact that her voice is so great, you really got a good feel for how the room can sound. There were times you could hear a pin drop, and it was incredible.”
AEG Presents’ new concert hall has been a decade in the works, and is owned by the Yards development, through a partnership between Southwest Value Partners and AEG Real Estate, with AEG Presents operating the venue. The Pinnacle joins a slate of other mid-sized AEG venues that have launched across the country, including Atlanta’s 2,300-capacity The Eastern, Boston’s 3,500-capacity Roadrunner, Brooklyn’s 1,800-capacity Brooklyn Steel, Denver’s 4,000-capacity Mission Ballroom and Los Angeles’ 4,000-capacity Shrine Expo Hall. AEG Presents just announced another addition to its set of venues, with an upcoming 4,000-capacity, as-yet-unnamed venue in Austin, Texas.
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“As we build these venues, they get more refined,” adds Brent Fedrizzi, president of AEG Presents’ North American regional offices. “We take 10 things from the last one we did and ask what we can do better. Every market has its own nuances and I think with Pinnacle, it’s the best thing we’ve done.”
The Pinnacle, helmed by general manager Katie Millar, also aids AEG Presents in bolstering its profile further in a town that has been largely dominated by Live Nation venues. Crucially, the venue’s 4,500-person capacity fills a void Nashville’s touring landscape for an indoor venue larger than the smaller clubs or venues such as Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl (1,200-capacity) and Marathon Music Works (1,800 standing room capacity), or the 2,362-seat historic Ryman Auditorium, though not as massive as the up-to 20,000-capacity Bridgestone Arena. Though the 4,400-seat Grand Ole Opry House’s capacity is close to that of The Pinnacle, the new venue’s various configurations feature both seated and standing options.
“The sweet spot for a lot of touring acts and artists these days is that 3,500 to around 5,500 capacity,” Fedrizzi says. “As we roll these [venues] out, we’re looking at markets that are under-served.”
With The Pinnacle, AEG Presents was equally focused on creating a venue that can serve as a home spotlighting a breadth of musical styles in the city most famously known for country music. Jason Isbell is currently doing a multi-show run of solo concerts, while other artists with upcoming shows include 311, Alice in Chains, Wilco, Warren Zeiders, Zac Brown Band, Adam Ray, Megan Moroney, Jack White, Denzel Curry, JOHNNYSWIM and Santana.
“It’s a venue for everyone, for the community. We’re going to do it all — country, EDM, rock — we’ve already checked a lot of those boxes,” Fedrizzi says. “I think the market was under-served in that capacity, in that configuration. And then obviously even the EDM shows so far, whether it’s been Illenium or deadmau5, that crowd hasn’t really had a place in Nashville to go.”
The venue already has many shows booked through November. In addition to The Pinnacle, the Nashville Yards complex also houses AEG Presents’ regional office, along with the global touring team and Messina Touring Group’s Nashville office will move into Nashville Yards in July. L-Acoustics also announced it will have office space in the complex.
The Pinnacle’s easily accessible location has led to spontaneous concert bookings. “This being an industry town, the artists can actually just come down and see it,” Fedrizzi says.
“They love the production, the sight lines,” DuCharme says. “We’ve taken artists through to tour [when they] are there for other shows and then confirmed shows at shows. The agent will be down there watching another show and be like, ‘Yes, we’re playing here.’”
The venue also boasts top-shelf production and sound, with a K2 L-Acoustics sound system from Clair Global and Solotech lighting/video systems. The multi-level venue also features an upper level balcony and risers with seating.
The venue’s decor reflects the uniqueness of its Music City locale, with Emily Cox of Formation commissioning murals, wallpaper and installations from more than two dozen local Nashville artists to display throughout the venue’s hallways, restrooms, artist rooms and concourses.
The backstage areas received just as much attention as front of house, with multiple dressing rooms, each with its own decor. Artists have protected parking for buses, and just off the main stage is an area with seating for artists’ family and friends. An open-air rooftop patio offers opportunities for industry gatherings and intimate performances.
“It’s an industry town, and we know our peers and the people we work with day-to-day will be in the space,” Fedrizzi says. “How can we make their experience great? Because they may be going to three different shows in a night — how do we make that a great experience? We don’t have that at every single venue we do, because not every venue is in an industry town. We always have a VIP space, but Nashville in particular, we know that our peers and the people that we work with day to day are going to be in the space, so we thought about how we can make their experience appealing?”
“The other thing is, we had Carly Pearce sit in on Russell Dickerson’s show [on March 14],” DuCharme says. “There are so many special guests who sit in with someone else because of friendships, or they ask to do a song. Having a place where those artists can host their guests and have them easily come out to do a song, that has been really well-received.”
Beyond solely concerts, the venue is meant as a multipurpose venue, and is wired for television and broadcast, making it a potential space for various televised and livestreamed events.
“We want to have those ACM and CMA-type events and all those things Nashville is known for,” Fedrizzi says. “When designing the space, we very much contemplated how do we activate the space to complement what is happening in spaces like CMA Fest or the Opry.”
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