“Buena Vista Social Club,” a story about second chances, gets another one

It was an improvisation to begin with. In 1996, a recording session was planned in Havana with Cuban and Malian musicians, but the Africans had visa problems and did not arrive. Instead, a collection of veteran Cuban musicians, some long retired, recorded a collection of classic Cuban songs. This was “Buena Vista Social Club,” which became not only the best-selling Cuban album ever, but also a defining artifact of Cuban culture beloved around the world.

More albums followed: outtakes, offshoots, live recordings of performances like the one at Carnegie Hall. Wim Wenders made a documentary film. And now, almost 30 years later, there is a stage musical: “Buena Vista Social Club,” in previews at the Off Broadway Atlantic Theater Company.

This latest project began a few years ago, when a producer with the theatrical rights to the album approached Cuban-American playwright Marco Ramirez (“The Royale”).

“The first question,” Ramirez recalled after a recent rehearsal, “was, ‘Do you know this record?’ And for a Cuban kid growing up around the time the record came out, the answer was, “Of course.” The next question was: ‘Do you think there is a play here?’

The search for an answer to that question sent Ramirez to Cuba, where he interviewed some of the surviving participants. “It was about putting the emotional truth at the center,” he said. “For me, it’s ultimately about a group of people who were given a magical opportunity to revisit their past, make amends or simply relive their youth.”

That is the story this “Buena Vista” tells. It dramatizes the making of the album in the way the old gang gets back together, but also recreates, through flashbacks, the pre-revolution Cuba, the Golden Age-1950s Cuba of the musicians’ youth, imbued of nostalgia and regret.

This is “the emotional truth behind the factual truth,” Ramirez said. “It’s all inspired by real people and events, but I definitely take a lot of liberties to tell the best story possible.”

Where no liberties are taken is with music. The dialogue is in English, but the songs – drawn from the broader “Buena Vista” catalog – remain in Spanish. “Old songs bring back old feelings,” says a character in the show. “Given these lyrics, given the moods evoked by this music, what is the story that can emerge?” Ramirez said. “At first I felt like I was communicating to the songwriters, who have been dead for eighty years or more, that my collaborators were ghosts.”

Eventually, living collaborators joined him. The show, scheduled for Jan. 7 at the Linda Gross Theater, is directed by Saheem Ali (“Fat Ham”) and choreographed by the married team of Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck (Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story”). Casting was a challenge, especially since the flashback structure made it necessary to find two people (one older and one younger) to play each of the distinctive real-life Buena Vista personalities.

“We had to find artists who could sing and play like the originals,” Ali said. “But the Venn diagram of whoever had to act or dance was pretty intense. They are all doing something excellent, but they need to challenge themselves to do something different because of what we are building together. We looked internationally for people who could embody the music in a way that felt truthful.”

The common denominator, Ramirez said, is that everyone has a connection to the “Buena Vista” album. He comes through his Cuban grandparents, who played the songs in his house in Miami, so he already knew them when the record came out; it was exciting for several generations of his family to talk about a new album together. “The bittersweet irony is that they were nostalgic for Havana, and now that I listen to this record, I’m nostalgic for them,” he said.

Playing the elderly Ibrahim Ferrer – who shined shoes for money when he was recruited to supply his golden voice to boleros for the Buena Vista filming – is Mel Seme. He was a teenager in Cuba at the time of the album’s release.

“It first became popular outside of Cuba,” he said. “But then we fell in love with this music again, and it became the music that many of us wanted to play.”

After graduating with a degree in classical percussion from the University of Arts, Semé moved to Europe, where he slowly built a career as a drummer, guitarist, singer and bandleader. Since his acting experience was limited to commercials, he initially told the Buena Vista musical team that he might not be the person they were looking for.

“I feel like a teenager again and learning a new skill,” he said. Echoing a phrase used by many other cast members, he said playing Ferrer is a “huge responsibility” but he was helped by a deep bond with the singer, who rose to worldwide fame at 70 and released in 2005 died.

“Even though my story isn’t exactly his, I also had some success later in life,” he said. “I have always seen Ibrahim as a role model. No matter how late in life he got his chance, it was done with such grace.

Renesito Avich plays Eliades Ochoa, the cowboy hat-wearing musician who brought a more rural sound to the original Buena Vista group. The music, he said, “has been the backdrop to my whole life.” He was born in Santiago de Cuba, Ochoa’s hometown, and even met him once. Avich is a successful musician who specializes in the tres, a version of the guitar that is at the heart of Cuban music. He is also a novice in the field of acting. He said he feels the musical is “really a tribute to what the music means to Cuban people like me.”

Or like Leonardo Reyna, born and raised in Havana before pursuing a career as a classical pianist in Europe. The album ‘Buena Vista’ ‘had enormous meaning for me’, Reyna said, ‘it helped me rediscover forgotten figures like Rubén González’ – the virtuoso pianist Reyna plays as a young man.

The show feels authentic, Reyna said, “even from a writer and director who are not from the island,” because of the cultural sensitivity and attention to musical detail it engages. “Emotions arise from the distance that many of us have had to travel, the separation of families, but also from a sense of identity that is being reconstructed in some way,” he said. “It has a healing effect.”

Among the cast members who are not Cuban, Natalie Venetia Belcon is a Broadway actress who does not speak Spanish. But as she prepared to audition for the terrifying role of Buena Vista diva Omara Portuondo, the songs brought back a flood of memories of her Trinidadian musician parents. Kenya Browne, the Mexican-born singer who portrays the young Omara, knew the music as something her grandmother played. Her mother told her that “Dos Gardenias,” a bolero she sings in the show is one her great-grandmother often sang.

Peck and Delgado – her parents were born in Cuba – have long loved the album. They chose a number (“Pueblo Nuevo”) for the first dance at their wedding. As soon as they heard about the musical project, they asked to be involved.

“Since the songs are in Spanish,” Delgado said, “it is often our responsibility to make the audience feel something through the universal language of dance, without having to understand what is being said.”

The variety of dance in Cuba, Peck noted, includes ballet, contemporary, Afro-Cuban and a range of social dances. “We wanted to create a dance language that honors that, so it’s not one thing,” he said. “And we also want to give free rein to our imagination, our personal approach, so that it doesn’t feel like documentary dance, but like living.”

Peck recalled the experience of walking through Havana, hearing music and seeing people walking towards it. “And as soon as that sound starts to fade, another sound comes along in the distance,” he said. “That energy is something we want to weave through.”

Ali added: “It’s not a show where one thing stops and another begins. It’s all left to each other. We don’t follow a template of what a musical is, but let the music lead and let the songs dictate how the story should evolve.

Creating this way required a lot of trial and error, Peck said. “We’ve all had a huge process of building a lot and throwing stuff away. But that is the only way to find the final recipe.”

Ramirez compared the process to that of Juan de Marcos González, the musician behind the original “Buena Vista” recording: “He was the fixer, the guy who knew everyone involved, who knew where to find Omara and the right bassist. Like many. young Cubans at that time” – the “special period” of economic collapse after the collapse of the Soviet Union – “he was not about to miss an opportunity. For me he is the hero.”

“I’m not a jazz musician,” Ramirez continued, “but I feel like we improvised, made this up on the spot and built it up as we went along. I can’t think of anything more Cuban I’ve ever done.”