Mischief, Music and Buena Vista: Natalie Venetia Belcon’s Big Broadway Moment

Natalie Venetia Belcon always felt most comfortable on stage. Or at sea. “On stage and in the middle of the ocean with all those weird creatures—that’s where I feel most at home,” she says. So when the world shut down in 2020, she exhaled. “I sailed through. I didn’t have to see anybody. I didn’t have to go anywhere. I Zoomed into dinners. It was heaven.”

But if the world insists on re-opening, you may as well leave the house for a role as rich as Omara Portuondo in Buena Vista Social Club, which already won her a Lucille Lortel Award for its off-Broadway premiere. Now, after an uptown transfer, she’s back where she belongs—center stage on Broadway at the Schoenfeld Theatre. And she’s not pretending the moment is business as usual. “A 56-year-old Black woman leading a Broadway show, playing a legendary Latin singer? It’s wild. It’s beautiful.”

The show is based on the beloved 1997 album and Oscar-nominated documentary of the same name, and tells the story of legendary Cuban musicians returning to their roots in the 1990s while reflecting on their lives in 1950s Havana. In the case of Omara Portuondo, Belcon shares the role with rising star Isa Antonetti, who plays the younger version of the iconic singer.

At first, she thought the offer might be a mistake. Or worse—a setup. “I was like, I think I’ve just killed my career. This is too much. I don’t speak Spanish. That song—‘Candela’—it’s difficult for native speakers. It’s just words, nonstop. I keep saying I’m going to make a horror movie called Candela and the villain is the bongo.”

Every night, before she walks through the stage door, she whispers the same thing: “Spirit, be with me.” That reverence comes not just from the material but from the woman behind it. Omara Portuondo—now 93 years old—came to the show during previews. Too tired to attend opening night, she returned the next evening, wheeled into the Schoenfeld by her son and granddaughter just as the performance ended.

“She was only there for maybe an hour,” Belcon says. “But just her presence… it’s like the heat coming off a sidewalk in August. You feel her even when she doesn’t move.”

Belcon had the honor of announcing her to the audience. “When they realized she was actually sitting there, they lost it,” she says. “That moment is burned in my brain. Forever.”

Omara’s presence deepened Belcon’s sense of responsibility to the role. “Yes, it’s a fable. Yes, we’re building a world. But I can’t walk on stage and claim I’m Omara. There’s a spirit you have to tap into. Out of respect.”

And yet, she finds plenty of play in the portrayal. “Honestly, this character should’ve been done already,” she laughs. “Every drag queen on [RuPaul's Drag Race's] Snatch Game should’ve wanted to do her. She’s that kind of full. There’s glamour, there’s strength, there’s humor. She’s a whole thing.”

Belcon was born in Trinidad, but grew up in a three-family house in the Bronx, surrounded by cousins and music. Her mother studied classical piano at Juilliard. Her father was a jazz trumpet player of Venezuelan and Spanish descent. “There was always band rehearsal in the house,” she says. “Everybody played an instrument. It was just loud boys and music all the time.”

Before Broadway, she had a brief but busy stretch in television. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon, she booked an episode of The Cosby Show, playing one of Theo Huxtable’s many girlfriends. “I was everybody’s girlfriend,” she jokes. That turned into a steady run of sitcom guest spots, including roles on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air—“I stole Carlton’s virginity”—and Martin, before it had even premiered. She spent three years in Los Angeles chasing TV work, but her heart was still in the theater. “They thought I was crazy,” she says. “Every summer I’d ask my agents to book me in anything that would get me back on stage.”

She thought she might become a brain surgeon—but after choosing the performing arts track in high school, she never looked back. Today, she lives in New Jersey in a high-rise apartment, with her 89-year-old mother living just downstairs. Her dogs Percy Sledge (a black lab/pit mix) and Bob Marley (a Jack Russell/dachshund blend) are 14 years old. Her black cat, Winnie Mandela, rounds out the pack.

Although she’s appeared in major Broadway hits like Rent and Matilda—and toured the country as Madame Morrible in Wicked—Belcon lights up more when talking about the quirky, short-lived off-Broadway turns that defined her voice. In The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, she played a character the New York Times described as “part Angela Davis, part giddy Valley Girl.” She’s played everything from seductive belters to sitcom girlfriends. But her most famous role—by far—is the one that still makes people do a double take.

In the world of Avenue Q, the late child star Gary Coleman was reimagined—hilariously and mockingly—as the superintendent of a run-down apartment building, still hustling for rent money long after his fame had faded. The show’s creators actually asked Coleman to play himself, and he even left a voicemail saying he was interested… then vanished. The role ended up going to Belcon, who had exactly the right energy. “I grew up in a house full of boys,” she says. “Jackassery is my favorite thing in the world.”

To this day, the cast of Q still texts each other. “For important stuff, and for dumb stuff,” she says. “We were a motley crew. And no one would’ve expected us to be friends, but our humor was skewed and inappropriate in the same ways. We just got each other.”

She’s proud of what they built, even as she acknowledges the show's jabs at touchy topics would have a harder time launching in today’s climate. “People still tell me they love it,” she says. “But I do wonder—if Avenue Q happened now, would we even make it past opening night? Or would people show up with pitchforks and burn the building down?” She sighs. “I don’t know what happened, but somewhere along the line, people forgot how to laugh at things. Or forgot that they could.”

Belcon has a sharp eye for what works, even when no one else sees it yet. “You know how some people on HGTV walk into a busted-up house and already see what it could be? That’s how I read scripts. I can see the whole thing.”

She lights up when talking about The Last Smoker in America, a short-lived off-Broadway flop in which she played a recovering nicotine addict-turned-Bible-thumping-conservative-turned-pyro. “She used to be a drug dealer and a total ho-bag. And she blows everything up at the end. I loved her.”

Her comedy heroes make perfect sense once you’ve seen her work: Benny Hill. Phyllis Diller. And especially Paul Lynde. “He’s my spirit animal,” she says. “I still go on YouTube and watch Hollywood Squares clips like it’s church. He always had the punchline before they finished the question. That glint in his eye—it was genius.”

Next, she wants to direct. “I’ve been on the actor side of the table. I know how to talk to actors, how to help a performance.” She’s also drawn to producing—especially shows that bend genres or challenge norms—and dreams of booking a voice role in a long-running animated series. “Give me The Simpsons, BoJack Horseman, whatever the next thing is. I want a cartoon life.”

Broadway may not always know what to do with a performer like Natalie Venetia Belcon. But when the material’s as rich, the spotlight’s as hot and the bongo is banging? Just get out of the way and let her cook.

Styling Credits: Hair and Makeup: Tameeka Lee Walker