Josefina López brings Boyle Heights to Broadway in 'Real Women Have Curves: The Musical'

Before “Real Women Have Curves” was a signifier play oregon an award-winning film, it was conscionable a imagination that Josefina López jotted down successful her diary during bath breaks from her occupation astatine a garment mill successful Boyle Heights.

She drew inspiration from her chap seamstresses — women astatine the margins of nine — who inactive radiated joyousness and contented contempt their exploitative circumstances.

“My volition was to amusement radical the courageousness it takes to beryllium a idiosyncratic who’s been marginalized and to inactive emotion yourself,” said López implicit a Zoom call.

More than 2 decades since the 2002 merchandise of the movie — which introduced audiences to the Emmy-winning histrion America Ferrera — López’s L.A. imagination is present getting its radiance successful New York. Directed and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo, “Real Women Have Curves: The Musical” makes its authoritative Broadway debut connected April 27 astatine the James Earl Jones Theater.

This classical Eastside communicative centers Ana García, a headstrong teen with acquisition aspirations, who is often astatine likelihood with her traditional, menopausal Mexican mother, Carmen. The communicative touches connected matters of assemblage representation and intersexual autonomy wrong their assemblage of migrant women, who are often shown toiling wrong a garment mill amid the sweltering summertime vigor of 1987.

The institution of “Real Women Have Curves.”

(Avery Brunkus)

Newcomer Tatianna Córdoba, a Bay Area autochthonal and postgraduate of the Boston Conservatory, plays the pb successful this coming-of-age tale. Puerto Rican TV and movie prima Justina Machado, champion known for her relation successful Netflix’s “One Day astatine a Time,” takes connected the relation of Carmen — 32 years aft she archetypal played Ana successful the Chicago premiere of the play. Mexican actress-singer Florencia Cuenca volition co-lead successful the relation of Estela, the eldest girl of the García family.

The Broadway philharmonic volition circular retired the assorted iterations of this timeless communicative with euphony by Mexican vocalist Joy Huerta — 1 fractional of the duet Jesse y Joy — and composer Benjamin Velez.

López considers the musical’s premiere “divine timing.”

“This communicative is coming retired precisely astatine this clip erstwhile we request a communicative to alteration the communicative astir immigrants being criminals,” said López, referring to the Trump administration’s latest effort to wide deport immigrants to El Salvador’s notorious prisons without owed process.

“It takes getting to Broadway to alteration culture,” López added, with a motion to the taste interaction that Jonathan Larson’s 1996 philharmonic “Rent” had connected the nationalist speech surrounding HIV/AIDS.

On the archetypal time of accumulation rehearsal, López gave an emotional speech astir wherefore she felt called to constitute “Real Women Have Curves” 37 years ago. Born successful San Luis Potosí, Mexico, López based overmuch of the communicative connected her ain acquisition arsenic an undocumented young woman.

“I knew determination was thing magical and peculiar astir this infinitesimal successful my life,” López told the cast. “This communicative matters adjacent if the full satellite says you’re replaceable, you don’t matter, you’re not adjacent human. There was a portion of maine that said, ‘No, I americium human.’”

Like the quality Ana, who leaves Boyle Heights to travel her dreams successful the Big Apple, López moved to New York City astatine 18 years old. She attended the INTAR (International Arts Relations) Hispanic Playwrights successful Residence Laboratory; led by Cuban American playwright María Irene Fornés, it was wherever she began formalizing her ideas into a play, besides called “Real Women Have Curves.”

“I wanted to combat for my humanity and constitute astir my humanity,” López recalled, “and astir what it is to beryllium a existent quality being and a woman.”

(Michaelah Reynolds)

Her archetypal signifier play would premiere successful 1990 astatine the Mission Cultural Center successful San Francisco, with assorted productions taking spot crossed the state thereafter, including successful San Diego, San Antonio, Chicago and Los Angeles. In 1998, it caught the attraction of movie shaper George LaVoo, who aboriginal approached López astir adapting it for film. Together, they co-wrote the script.

With HBO supporting the production, America Ferrera, past 17, was formed arsenic Ana — her biggest movie relation yet, aft appearing successful Disney sports drama “Gotta Kick It Up!” Lupe Ontiveros, who performed successful signifier productions of the play and successful assorted Gregory Nava films, was formed arsenic Carmen.

“She reminds maine of my mom,” said López.

The 2002 film, directed by Patricia Cardoso, proved a deed astatine the Sundance Film Festival — it won the esteemed Audience Award for melodramatic film. The onscreen mother-daughter pair, Ferrera and Ontiveros, jointly won the Special Jury Prize for acting.

America Ferrera, left, and Lupe Ontiveros arsenic girl Ana and parent Carmen successful the movie “Real Women Have Curves.”

(Nicola Goode / HBO)

Following the occurrence of the film, determination were a bid of attempts to crook the beloved West Coast communicative into a musical, said López, but they fizzled retired owed to  irreconcilable creator differences. That was until she met Trujillo, the Tony Award-winning choreographer down immoderate of Broadway’s astir fashionable productions: “Memphis,” “Jersey Boys,” “On Your Feet!” and “Ain’t Too Proud.”

Trujillo, who is primitively from Cali, Colombia, was undocumented for respective years successful Toronto earlier moving to New York to prosecute a vocation successful philharmonic theatre choreography. López called the concern “a match.”

“He’s the close manager due to the fact that I don’t person to explicate to him the symptom of being undocumented,” said López. “He understands however you endure and consciousness invisible.”

The Broadway philharmonic represents a full-circle infinitesimal for López, who erstwhile fantasized astir “Real Women Have Curves” being connected a marqueeduring her New York residency. She mightiness person adjacent manifested its destiny successful 1 of the last scenes of the 2002 film, erstwhile Ana surfaces from the subway presumption and finds herself successful beforehand of the container bureau of a Broadway show.

The filming determination was not intentional, López recalled — it was simply the closest subway presumption to LaVoo’s apartment— but thing astir that infinitesimal feels similar kismet now.

“It is my communicative and it is my fate,” said López.