‘REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES’: Florencia Cuenca & cast. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES: THE MUSICAL
Music & lyrics by Joy Huerta & Benjamin Velez
Book by Lisa Loomer & Nell Benjamin
Based on the play by Josefina Lopez
and HBO’s Real Women Have Curves,
screenplay by Josefina Lopez & George LaVoo
Directed & choreographed by Sergio Trujillo
James Earl Jones Theatre
138 West 48^th Street
https://www.realwomenhavecurvesbroadway.com/

By Scott Harrah

Musical stage adaptations of films and plays can be tricky indeed. On paper, a musical adaptation of Real Women Have Curves—the 1990 play by Josefina Lopez about an 18-year-old Mexican American woman in Los Angeles and her immigrant family’s struggles that was adapted into a hit 2002 HBO film starring America Ferrera—might have seemed like a hard sell. However, the finished product is sensational and one of the spring 2025 Broadway season’s most delightful surprises.

Tony nominations

The Broadway musical received two 2025 Tony Award nominations: Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Justina Machado) and Best Original Score (Music and Lyrics) for Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez. Some might argue, including this reviewer, that the show deserved even more Tony nominations because it is such a beautiful and poignant musical on many levels.

From play & film to musical

When the film came out 23 years ago, it turned then-unknown America Ferrera into a star. She went on to play opposite co-star Vanessa Williams in the hit ABC TV comedy “Ugly Betty” for four seasons. The film was primarily known as a vehicle for female empowerment for plus-sized women. In 2025, however, the story of undocumented Mexican and Latina immigrants working in a women’s dress factory mirrors the current struggles of hard-working migrants in fear of being deported.

Tatianna Córdoba stars as Ana, an 18-year-old living in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles in 1987. Her family is from Mexico, but Ana is the only one who is a U.S. citizen. She has recently graduated from high school and wants to become a journalist. She obtains a full-ride scholarship to prestigious Columbia University in New York, but her mother, Carmen (Ms. Machado) wants Ana to stay in L.A. and help out with the garment-making business because the family is struggling. Carmen expects Ana to assume a traditional woman’s role and also follow in the footsteps of her older sister, Estela (Florencia Cuenca).

The family is working hard to meet a deadline for an order of 200 dresses. Each dress must be handmade, in a factory room without air-conditioning. Everyone in the factory is undocumented, but in the Reagan era, a law granted amnesty to non-citizens who had been in the USA since 1982. Although this law existed, many immigrants still felt unsafe because employers who knowingly hired “illegal” foreign nationals faced large fines and possible imprisonment.

Family decisions & the plight of Latina women

Ana faces a dilemma that is common when one is part of any family business: She’s independent, has her own dreams and wants her own life and career. In addition, she is grappling with the cultural expectations of her family as well as body-image issues. She wants to spend the summer working as an intern at a local newspaper instead of working in the factory, and this does not please her mother. What’s more, Ana meets a nice guy, Henry (Mason Reeves),  at the newspaper and starts dating him.

Real Women Have Curves is both the story of an immigrant family and also the collected stories of Latina women. All of the women are just trying to make an honest living in bleak conditions, in a city and country that is not exactly kind to them.

Itzel (Aline Mayagoitia) has one of the most moving stories. She is a refugee from Guatemala working in the factory with the others. When Itzel is arrested by immigration police, the other women fear they will be next.  Itzel and Ana have one of the show’s most powerful duets, “If I Were a Bird.”

Show-stopping ‘Curves’

Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez’s musical score is high-spirited and uplifting, with many great songs. The muscal’s showstopper is Act Two’s “Curves,” a song that follows a scene in which Ana and the factory women strip down to their undergarments in the stifling heat and sing about rejecting the social limitations placed on them. It’s a feel-good moment that has the audience cheering and erupting into thunderous applause.

Trujillo’s triumph

Director and choreographer Sergio Trujillo has worked on many great shows in recent years, but Real Women Have Curves: The Musical is one of his best. He has directed the cast skillfully, and the performances all coalesce well.

A solid cast

The show’s standouts include Ms. Córdoba (making her Broadway debut) as Ana. Ms. Córdoba brings all the grit, charm and determination needed for such a complicated character. The magnificent Justina Machado is a complete natural as Carmen, the traditional, no-nonsense mother of Ana and Estela. Her scenes with her family and also in the factory are all exquisitely performed.

The supporting cast members are all adept and each give their character a true-to-life quality that is often inspiring. Aline Mayagoitia’s portrayal of young Itzel is especially heartwarming. There’s just so much to enjoy in Real Women Have Curves: The Musical, from the clever dialogue to the down-to-earth production numbers and the overall message of hope when faced with the harsh realities of pursuing the American dream.

Published May 9, 2025
Reviewed at press performance on April 30, 2025

‘REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES’: (left to right) Florencia Cuenca, Tatianna Córdoba & Justina Machado. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES’: Justina Machado. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES’: Mason Reeves & Tatianna Córdoba. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES’: Tatianna Córdoba & Aline Mayagoitia. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES’: Mauricio Mendoza & Justina Machado. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES’: The cast. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES’: Tatianna Córdoba & cast. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

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‘BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB’: The cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB
Book by Marco Ramirez
Music by Buena Vista Social Club
Choreography by Patricia Delgado & Justin Peck
Directed  & developed by Saheem Ali
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
236 West 45^th Street
https://buenavistamusical.com/

By Scott Harrah

Don’t miss this joyful tale of music in Cuba told during two separate time periods: In the 1950s, in the days before the Cuban Revolution, when President Fulgencio Batista still ruled and Havana was a gambling haven. Juxtaposed cleverly with this timeline is the year 1996, when a group of Cuban musicians reunite to record the titular Grammy-winning album on which this lively, colorful musical is based.

The backstory

In 1996, producer Juan de Marcos (Justin Cunningham) brings together a backup band for the older Cuban singers. The story focuses on four musicians, Omara Portundo (Natalie Venetia Belcon), Ibrahim (Mel Semé), Rubén (Jainardo Batista Sterling) and Eliades (Renesito Avich), all coping with the Fidel Castro regime and how it has affected their lives.

The narrative tells how the eponymous album (released in 1997) was made, bringing the musicians world recognition. The story was made into an acclaimed, Oscar-nominated 1999 documentary of the same name, by German filmmaker Wim Wenders.

When approached about doing the album, Omara is hesitant because she has not sung in years. But she is soon convinced by the album producer to reunite with old friends at the club. She, of course, immediately has no regrets.

From the 1950s to 1996

Part of the story is told in flashbacks to the ‘50s. The young Omara (Isa Antonetti) and sister Haydee (Ashley De La Rosa) are being pursued to sign a recording contract. In addition, Haydee is enthralled with the glamour of the white clubs frequented by tourists in Havana, while Omara prefers performing at the mostly Afro-Cuban Buena Vista. We also meet the younger Compay (Da’Von T. Moody) and Rubén (Leonardo Reyna). Rubén is a master at the piano and gets the whole group jamming with glee.

This is that rare stage musical in which flashbacks actually work and make sense. All songs are performed in Spanish. The best aspect of the show is seeing all the magnificent choreography by Patrick Delgado and Justin Peck, with characters all sporting Dede Ayite’s authentic Cuban costumes.

An entertaining evening

Mr. Delgado and Mr. Peck, with the help of creative consultant David Yazbek, Marco Paguia (music director, orchestrations and arrangements) and music director Dean Sharenow, have assembled an incredibly entertaining evening.

Director Saheem Ali gets marvelous performances from the entire gifted cast, and the story and songs all flow together well. Dav’Von T. Moody as young Compay and Leonardo Reyna as young Rubén make a dynamic duo.

Standouts include Ms. Belcon as Omara and Ms. Antonetti as the young Omara. The two women have powerful voices that soar. For instance, Ms. Belcon’s vocals are both incredibly sultry and raspy in the song “Candela.”

The Atlantic Theater Company originally produced the musical in 2023. Granted, this reviewer never saw that production, but there is no question that this festive celebration of Cuban music and life belongs on Broadway. It is one of the spring 2025 season’s best musical revivals—a nonstop jubilee of culture, history and Cuban music that will keep audiences spellbound from beginning to end. ¡Viva Cuba!

Published April 4, 2025
Reviewed at press performance on March 27, 2025

‘BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB’: Leonardo Reyna (seated at piano) & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

‘BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB’: Isa Antonetti. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

‘BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB’: (left to right) Justin Cunningham, Marco Paguia (seated at piano), Renecito Avich, Natalie Venetia Belcon & Román Diaz. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

‘BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB: (left to right) Natalie Venetia Belcon, Mel Semé (foreground) & Wesley Wray. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

‘BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB’: The cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

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‘LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS’: John Leguizamo. Photo: Matthew Murphy

LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS
Written by & starring John Leguizamo
Directed by Tony Taccone
Through February 25, 2018
Studio 54
254 West 54th Street
212-390-5983, www.latinhistorybroadway.com

By Scott Harrah

Funnyman John Leguizamo is a master at solo performances, as anyone who saw his previous one-man Broadway efforts Freak and Ghetto Klown can attest. Mr. Leguizamo has always hilariously mined material from his Hispanic heritage and streetwise New York roots, but here he takes the focus off himself (well, sort of) by talking about his bullied teenage son’s quest to find a Latino hero from history for a school project. Although Mr. Leguizamo covers much of the same territory he did in past shows, his statements about the “whitewashing” of U.S. and North American history ring with veracity in the xenophobic, anti-immigrant political environment in which we currently live.

The 95-minute monologue centers on Mr. Leguizamo giving a laugh-inducing lecture on how white Europeans, from Christopher Columbus to the Spanish Conquistadors and our own American founding fathers, skewed history through the decades to marginalize, overlook or flat out omit facts about the native people in the Americas, from the Native Americans in the USA and Canada to the Aztecs of Mexico, the Taino people of the Caribbean and the Incas of South America. As Mr. Leguizamo says, Hispanics have more Native American blood than Spanish or anything else, adding, “And we’re also 25% white, 25% Jewish, 25% Lebanese and 25% I don’t know what the f**k!”

Using Rachel Hauck’s minimal set, with not much more than a classroom blackboard, Mr. Leguizamo is an amusing mad professor, talking about how Hispanics fought in the American Revolutionary War and in the Civil War. He traces Latino people from the ancient Mayans all the way to up to what we have now, Pitbull.

There are many hysterical lines about how the European imperialists destroyed the indigenous peoples of the New World, particularly the Conquistadors with their many diseases and ravenous sexual appetites. The Spaniards, he says, were such predators of the native women of early Latin America that the guys were “like NBA players at a Kardashian pool party.”

Mr. Leguizamo also pokes fun at his Jewish wife and includes his trademark lampooning of his boyhood New York street life.

Besides the crisp writing, Mr. Leguizamo is most enjoyable when he’s imitating everything from friends and relatives to famous folks like Stephen Hawking and “Project Runway” host Tim Gunn. His portrayal of Montezuma as a fey, campy gay man perhaps comes across too much like his character Chi Chi Rodriguez in the drag-queen road movie To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, but he has so much fun (as does the audience) that it doesn’t matter.

Granted, not everything works here, as some of the talks with his wife and son become tiresome, but director Tony Taccone allows Mr. Leguizamo free rein to do what he does best: Satirize history while bringing colorful characters to life with energy, wit and enthusiasm, making us all laugh about the delicate and controversial topic of diversity while showcasing the absurdity of bigotry and ignorance in American society.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published November 20, 2017
Reviewed at November 19, 2017 press performance.

‘LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS’: John Leguizamo. Photo: Matthew Murphy

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