How Isa Antonetti’s Broadway Debut in Buena Vista Social Club Taught Her to Enter Rooms Voice First

Age: 23

Hometown: Rochester, NY

Current Role: Isa Antonetti plays Young Omara, a singer learning to harness the power of her voice in 1950s Havana, in Marco Ramirez’s Tony-nominated new musical Buena Vista Social Club, directed by Saheem Ali.

Credits: Prior to making her Broadway debut in Buena Vista Social Club, Antonetti was in the ensemble of Evita at New York City Center. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s musical theater program.

The Family Band
When Isa Antonetti was 13, her father decided it was time for her to start singing in the family band. He and her grandfather and uncles had been performing around upstate New York as the Latin band Orquestra Antonetti since before she was born. Isa knew all of the melodies—he’d been singing since before she could walk—but she didn’t know the lyrics. They were all in Spanish. Her father pushed her to try learning a song, so she chose “Usted Abusó” by Celia Cruz and sang it for him. “I was like, ‘This is what I’ve got. This is the extent of what I can do.’ And he was like, ‘That’s perfect. Now it’s time for you to get up on stage.’”

A Place for Her
At first, Antonetti wanted to be a pop singer. But the summer before she started high school, she played Gabriella in High School Musical 2 and got hooked. “I was like, this is definitely a bug,” she said, “and I am ready to ride the ride of theater.” Antonetti kept doing musicals at her high school. At 15, she auditioned for Maria in the film remake of West Side Story and got far enough to sing for Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner. Seeing the possibilities within her reach, she kept auditioning for other projects. “This is not something you just run away from when you get so far on your own, she said.” Eventually, she ended up at Carnegie Mellon University’s prestigious musical theater program.

Joining the Club
The summer before her senior year of college, Antonetti got an audition for a musical called Buena Vista Social Club. A few weeks later, Antonetti flew from Rochester to New York City for final callbacks to play Young Omara Portuondo. She crashed with a friend, spent the day singing and reading for the creative team, hopped on a plane home at midnight and landed at two in the morning. When she woke up the next day, she had a call from her manager saying that she’d gotten the job. “I called up all my professors and was like, ‘I’ll be there in person in the fall, and then I’m saying sayonara and I’m going to Broadway in the spring.’” She wasn’t able to take days off to walk at her graduation in Pittsburgh, so her Buena Vista Social Club company threw her a graduation ceremony on the stage of the Schoenfeld Theatre.

The Voice Will Come Out
Early on, Antonetti got a piece of advice from David Oquendo, the show’s guitarist who helped write the arrangements and has recorded with members of the real-life Buena Vista Social Club. “Omara isn’t a soft singer. She’s a singer that lays her heart out with her voice,” he told her. “I have always had a powerful singing voice,” Antonetti said, “but sometimes, it doesn’t match who you are.” Where Antonetti tends to be timid or reserved, especially when she’s doing something new, Omara isn’t. “I’m starting to realize that Omara Portuondo walks into a room with her head held high and her shoulders pushed back, and she’s like, ‘This is my voice.’” Now, months into playing Young Omara, she’s noticed the character starting to rub off on her. “I’m realizing that I’ve started to walk into the room with my shoulders back and my chin high and with my voice first.”

Surrounded by Music
Coming from a family of musicians, Antonetti was nervous for her dad to see the show. “He’s very specific, and he has a good ear,” she said. “I was like, ‘Dad, you need to separate the musician you are from the audience member that you will be.’” He promised to go in as a proud father—and after the show, he had the highest of praise. “Of course, you have faith in all your castmates and the musicians in the band,” she said. “But to hear him say it, that means a lot.” It’s not lost on Antonetti that she’s making her Broadway debut in a musical where she gets to do exactly what she did with her family band: sing in Spanish. “I think the world was ready to say, ‘If you’re going to be in a show, you’re going to be in a show that means so much to you. You’re going to be in a show that is surrounded by music, because that’s what you were.”