'Buena Vista Social Club' star Gina Torres is getting her second chance on Broadway

Back on the NYC stage after more than 30 years, the Suits and Firefly TV star is playing a limited run as Cuban singer Omara Portuondo in the award-winning musical.

Summary

• Suits and Firefly TV star Gina Torres plays Omara Portuondo in Buena Vista Social Club on Broadway from October 13 to November 29
• Torres returns to Broadway for the first time in over 30 years
• The actress discusses her personal connections to the Cuban music and culture represented in the show and what Omara has in common with her other famous roles

In another lifetime, Gina Torres could have found her fame as a stage actress. Early in her career, between 1993 and 1994, she performed in two Broadway shows. One ran for 13 days. The other ran for only six, closing before opening night. That was in her mid-20s, and Torres, now 57 and a household name thanks to TV shows like Suits and Firefly, has always wanted another go.

"I got cheated the last time I was on Broadway!" the actress said with a laugh. "I was on these back-to-back flops, if you will, and that was heartbreaking." But that makes her grand return, as Cuban singer Omara Portuondo in Buena Vista Social Club, all the more thrilling. And this one's a certified hit, having picked up five Tony Awards since its Broadway run opened in 2025.

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

Buena Vista Social Club is a show all about second chances. It tells a fictionalized history of the same-named Cuban band in which its members first met in dance halls in the '50s. The Cuban Revolution upends their budding careers and interpersonal relationships until, 40 years later, a music producer reunites them to record the now-famous 1997 Buena Vista Social Club album that revitalized classic Latin dance music.

Torres, a first-generation Cuban American, grew up listening to the album and watching Wim Wenders's 1999 documentary, also called Buena Vista Social Club, which further widened the band's global reach. Their story hit home: "I had actually visited Cuba as a teenager. There's so little known about that country," Torres said. "To have this look into this world I was familiar with, but that the rest of the world wasn't, and then to have it be so well-received was, as a Cuban American, like, 'See, we exist. We really do exist beyond Ricky Ricardo.'"

The album's and film's success gave Torres "a sense of pride," she continued. "The fact that we were accepted [...] that you saw the beauty of the music, of the people, the resilience of them was incredible."

The Buena Vista Social Club musical has been similarly praised by viewers, including when it comes to Omara. Original cast member Natalie Venetia Belcon, whom Torres is temporarily replacing from October 13 to November 29, won a Tony Award for playing the role. Like Suits's Jessica Pearson and Firefly's Zoë Washburne, the musical's Omara is well-respected and steely. Torres noted that her version of the renowned singer is a work in progress — she was still in rehearsals at the time of this interview — but that she's most interested in digging beneath Omara's towering reputation. The character is initially reluctant to come out of retirement to record songs that would bring up decades of unresolved hurt.

"What's so beautiful about this journey we go on with Omara is, yes, she's very strong. Yes, she's very capable. Yes, she is a legend and incredibly talented, but that does not keep her from being human, does not keep her from being flawed," Torres said.

"I never see any of my characters as being just one thing," she added. "Part of the fun is to flesh out these women, to find out what their weaknesses are, not just their strengths, to be able to give something that is more layered so anybody can see themselves in her."

She similarly described the show itself as "joyful" while also bringing about "ugly, wet, big fat tears" when she first saw it. "It brings me back to the family I didn't get to visit every summer like so many people get to do [...] It really felt like coming home in a way that is so rare, to find something that so completely expresses my own personal story or the personal stories of my family members," she said. "To have that kind of representation on this stage was soul-fulfilling and nurturing, and I was a wreck at the end of it."

But, she emphasized, "you don't have to be Cuban to enjoy this show. 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. That's a beautiful feeling."

Get Buena Vista Social Club tickets now.

Photo credit: Gina Torres. (Photo by Aaron Farrier)