The primary time Broadway director and choreographer Sergio Trujillo heard about Actual Ladies Have Curves, he didn’t pay a lot consideration. His husband, producer Jack Noseworthy — with whom he runs Truworthy Productions, centered on discovering Latino tales to empower the group by musical theater — had watched the America Ferrera-starring 2002 film and requested him to see it, pondering it might make “a very attention-grabbing musical.”
“Principally as a result of he’s been rising up with my household — my mom, my sisters, all of them — and he stated he noticed one thing in it,” Trujillo, who was born in Colombia, tells Billboard Español. “I used to be so absorbed with so many different tasks, that I type of noticed it however I didn’t listen.”
One night time, he determined to present it one other shot, studying that it was initially a play by Josefina López – which he learn instantly. “I used to be like, ‘Oh, my God, this is a musical! Principally as a result of the characters have been larger than life. The language was so buoyant, it was like music. The story was lovely,” he remembers joyfully. “And there’s a phrase that [the protagonist] Ana says within the play — ‘Ladies are strongest once they work collectively’ — that resonated with me deeply, greater than the rest.”
Set within the Boyle Heights part of Los Angeles in 1987, Actual Ladies Have Curves follows Ana García, a cutely chubby, uber-smart daughter of immigrant mother and father who struggles between her ambitions of going to varsity and the wishes of her mom for her to get married, have youngsters and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile manufacturing unit. The present offers with gender politics and the Latina immigrant expertise, with immigration brokers messing with their husbands, judgment from different characters, and goals that for a lot of undocumented appear merely not possible to attain.
Trujillo, each as an immigrant and as one of many few males in his household, felt a profound connection. “I assumed, ‘What an effective way to,’ to begin with, within the mission to empower our group, ‘to empower girls, but additionally have fun all of my mom and my sister and my aunts, the entire girls which have made so many sacrifices in order that I may have the life that I’ve.’” And that’s what he did.
Formally opening on April 27 on the James Earl Jones Theatre, Actual Ladies Have Curves: The Musical is now nominated for 2 Tony Awards at Sunday’s present: finest authentic rating, by Latin music star Joy Huerta (half of the Mexican pop duo Jesse & Joy) and Benjamin Velez, and finest efficiency by an actress in a featured position for Justina Machado — who in a full-circle second performs Carmen García, the mom of Ana, greater than 30 years after taking part in Ana herself on the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago.
The truth that each Huerta and Machado obtained nominations this 12 months is outstanding. The previous is a Grammy-winning singer who had by no means achieved theater earlier than. The latter — whom Trujillo labored with greater than 20 years in the past and was fully satisfied she was his Carmen — was initially reluctant to simply accept the position as a result of she couldn’t see herself in it.
“Once I did the play once I was 20 years previous, it was only a totally different form of position. And once I noticed the film, you understand, with the fantastic, iconic Lupe Ontiveros [as Carmen], I simply didn’t assume that was one thing that I might need to do or that I might match with,” Machado explains to Billboard Español. “I needed to be talked into coming and doing a 29-hour studying — one of many first stuff you do whenever you’re creating a brand new musical or a brand new play.”
So the actress, identified for TV collection like Six Ft Beneath and One Day at a Time — and whose solely earlier Broadway credit score was as a alternative for In The Heights‘ Daniela for a few months in 2009 — flew from Los Angeles to New York.
As soon as there, she not solely discovered a much less critical, much less judgmental Carmen, but additionally a set of inspiring songs — from the hovering coming-of-age tune “Flying Away” to the humorous “Adiós Andes,” type of a humorous ode to menopause which she performs brilliantly through the present. (You may take heed to the complete album of Actual Ladies Have Curves: The Musical here.)
“Actually, what made me fall in love with the position was the music,” Machado admits. “I used to be like, ‘Oh my God, I really like this music.’ However I needed to be satisfied that I used to be the individual to play this position.”
And as a lot as she liked the music, the music creators liked her. Huerta, who was recruited early on as a songwriter and was there throughout that first studying of the present, remembers how the actress made her really feel. “Justina was the primary individual I bear in mind saying, ‘It is a non-negotiable for me,’” she tells Billboard Español. “I had by no means felt – I imply, I had felt it with music, however seeing an individual carry out that actually made me overlook in regards to the world? I used to be like, ‘Please, please be certain to get her. … What do it’s important to do to make this occur?’”
“Sergio actually was the one, he actually saved on,” Machado says of what satisfied her. “They have been very persistent, and I’m so very blissful that they have been. … I by no means thought that I might be revisiting this play once more in one other kind, and it actually works as a musical. It’s nearly prefer it ought to have all the time been a musical. It’s simply so lovely.”
Though it didn’t obtain a Tony nomination for finest musical or finest actress, regardless of widespread popularity of the present and for Tatiana Córdoba, who performs Ana in her Broadway debut, the solid of Actual Ladies Have Curves will be performing on the awards ceremony on Sunday night time.
Trujillo hopes the hassle he’s put into representing Latinos on Broadway doesn’t go unnoticed by his target market. “I’m on this mission to empower our group, to attempt to create content material and tales wherein they will see themselves,” he says. “However I want them to come back to the theater. I want Latinos to do their half and help us.”