Venetia Belcon belts her way to a Tony for Buena Vista Social Club

Natalie Venetia Belcon, 56, is still savouring her Tony Award win for best performance by an actress in a featured role in a musical for her portrayal of Cuban singer Omara Portuondo in Buena Vista Social Club.

The production, inspired by the Grammy-winning 1997 album of the same name, was nominated for ten Tony Awards, including best musical. It opened at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on June 8 and has been getting strong reviews for its tribute to Cuban music.

For Belcon, who played the middle-aged version of the singer, the award was deeply satisfying after decades of dedication to her craft.

“It’s been a long time coming. I’m proud of it. I feel I deserve it,” she told WMN.

Belcon had been to the Tony Awards before as part of the original cast of Avenue Q, a satirical musical with puppets which won three Tony Awards in 2004, but this was her first time being nominated personally.

“I always had in the back of my head there’s the five per cent chance it could not happen, but again, I fell I absolutely did deserve it. So most of me expected it.”

She put a lot of work into her character and the show in general, with some of her input being implemented in the final production. She said it was a personal mission to ensure the production honoured the musical roots and the people it represented.

“My parents are musicians. I know the music from them. You’ve probably see my mother's and my name on the back of a lot of calypsonians’ albums. We did background (vocals) for a lot of them.”

Among those calypsonians was The Mighty Sparrow, who would go to their home in Port of Spain to pick up her mother to go to performances, and Belcon tagged along. Her mother was also a classical pianist who studied at The Juilliard School in New York, and her father played the trumpet.

The family moved to the US when she was five. Initially, she intended to pursue a career in medicine and had plans to become a neurologist or neurosurgeon. However, in her early teens, a school friend pointed out her talent in the arts.

She had a dance scholarship and performed in a band with her parents, so she eventually accepted her friend’s observation and applied to the prestigious High School of Performing Arts, now known as Fiorello H LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts, the school on which the 1980s TV series Fame was based.

She auditioned for the dance department, music and voice department and the drama department, but in the end she chose acting as she was already getting experience in the former disciplines.

While her parents were supportive of her decision to pursue the arts, her grandmother was not initially pleased. Her grandmother wanted her to go to medical school and only let go of that dream a year or two later, after watching Belcon perform at a professional theatre and realising her granddaughter could make a living doing what she loved.

Her Broadway credits include Matilda (Mrs Phelps), Avenue Q (original cast as Gary Coleman) and Rent (Joanne). She also performed off-Broadway in Ahrens and Flaherty’s The Glorious Ones at Lincoln Center and toured the US in Wicked as Madame Morrible.

“I have to say, I get it. I don't have children of my own, but I have a niece and nephew, and I completely understand it. Because, in the back of my head, although I was lucky to work all the time, I see that a lot of people don't have it that easy.

“I have heard come out of my mouth, ‘Oh my God, please go to medical school,’ because it's (a professional career in the arts) not an easy way. There are very talented people that don't ever get a chance to make it. I don't know that I would ever, in good conscience, be able to tell somebody, ‘Yeah, go do this,’ without telling them all of that.”

Belcon went on to attend Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1991 with a degree in musical theatre, which included acting, dancing and singing.

She fondly recalled her freshman year, describing it as “very busy” with only a 30-minute break each day.

“The classes started at eight in the morning. We were done, typically, at maybe four or five in te afternoon, and then we had to go off and do these things, like rehearse with our scene partners for classes the next day. My freshman year, we literally had 30 minutes. A few of us ended up in the ER on IV. It was nuts!”

At Carnegie Mellon, students also worked with the university’s professional theatre doing costume preparation in the first half of the year and costume runs, including lighting, set design and other behind-the scenes work in the second half. She said her class started with 64 people but only 18 graduated.

“That curriculum, although it was crazy, it did prepare you for the craziness of what the reality was outside. But at that point even the worst student in the class was extremely talented. ”

She said despite her medical dreams, theatre was her first love.

Initially she wanted to do classical theatre but, by the time she graduated she realised it would be difficult to make a living in that niche.

“I wound up out in LA on a tour with Once On This Island and they decided to send me on a few auditions. I was just booking things left and right. So that's how I ended up out in the TV world.”

Belcon went on to guest star in popular TV shows in the 1990s and early 2000s including The Cosby Show, Martin, Melrose Place, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. She also appeared in a few movies including Sugar Hill (1993), Grace of My Heart (1996) and Hootchie (1998).

Among her most memorable encounters was working with the late Della Reese, best known for her role as Tess in the TV series Touched by an Angel.

“One of the most memorable experiences was sharing a dressing room with Della Reese and actually becoming friends. Being in a show and performing with her is also one of my best memories.”

Her advice to aspiring artists is simple: “Make sure you have teachers that know what they're doing.”

Belcon told WMN she would like to return to TV and movies as she liked the “grown-up money.” She is also interested in doing voiceovers for animations.

Based in New Jersey, she still has family in TT, although her closest relatives are in the US, Canada and the UK. She last visited Trinidad around 2018, but has retained a deep connection to the place if her birth.

“When I close my doors or I visit family, that's what it is – the accents, the food, all of it is Trini.”