Second Chance in Havana, Gina Torres Joins Buena Vista Social Club on Broadway

The story of Buena Vista Social Club begins in the dance halls of 1950s Cuba, where a group of musicians first met. On Tuesday, October 13, Gina Torres steps into that world on Broadway. She plays the Cuban singer Omara Portuondo through Sunday, November 29.

TicketNews reported the casting in September. Torres, known to television audiences for Suits and Firefly, temporarily replaces Natalie Venetia Belcon, who is taking a planned leave of absence. Belcon won the 2025 Tony Award for best featured actress in a musical for originating the role. The show plays the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.

A Hit She Missed

Torres has been on Broadway before, and it did not go well. New York Theatre Guide reports that between 1993 and 1994 she appeared in two Broadway shows. One ran for 13 days. The other ran for six and closed before opening night. TicketNews names her earlier credits as Face Value and The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public.

"I got cheated the last time I was on Broadway!" Torres told New York Theatre Guide, laughing. She is now 57, according to the same interview.

Buena Vista Social Club is, by contrast, a certified hit. It has won five Tony Awards since its Broadway run opened in 2025. TicketNews notes that this engagement is her first Broadway appearance in more than 30 years.

"To be able to come back with this show in particular is a dream I couldn't have dreamt for myself," Torres said.

Home in the Music

The musical tells a fictionalized history of the Cuban band. Its members meet in dance halls in the 1950s, and the Cuban Revolution upends their careers and relationships. Forty years later a music producer reunites them to record the 1997 album that revitalized classic Latin dance music.

Torres is a first-generation Cuban American. She grew up listening to the album, New York Theatre Guide says, and watching Wim Wenders's 1999 documentary of the same name. She also visited Cuba as a teenager.

"I grew up listening to these songs," she said in a statement quoted by TicketNews. "They're the heartbeat of everything that feels like home and connects me to my family and my culture."

Strong, and Human

Torres told New York Theatre Guide that her Omara is a work in progress. She was still in rehearsal when the interview was done. What interests her is looking beneath the singer's towering reputation. The character is reluctant at first to come out of retirement and record songs that bring up years of unresolved hurt.

She said she does not see any of her characters as just one thing. The interview likens Omara, who is respected and steely, to two of her best-known roles, Jessica Pearson on Suits and Zoë Washburne on Firefly.

"You just have to be human to love this story, to love the people you invest so much in during the course of the play," she said.

A Night Out in Midtown

The show sits in a long New York conversation about rooms for music, a conversation that also took in Freddie Jackson and the voice from Harlem this week.

The show has a book by Marco Ramirez and is directed by Saheem Ali. Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, who received a Tony for their choreography, staged the dancing. Her first performance is Tuesday.