When Tatianna Córdoba learned she would make her Broadway debut starring as Ana García in Real Women Have Curves, joyful tears immediately streamed down her face as she shared the personal connection of why the story resonates with her.
While growing up in the Bay Area, she followed in her mom’s footsteps and trained in ballet, a performing-arts discipline that is notoriously Eurocentric, historically valuing fair skin and a thin physique. Unifying her mom’s dance influence and her dad’s experience as a Latin American musician, musical theater became the space that embraced Córdoba and fortified her confidence. Much like Ana, the story’s protagonist, Córdoba tapped into a resilience that helped her achieve her dreams.
“Ballet was my first love,” explained Córdoba in our interview during a rehearsal break. “When puberty hit, I started to slowly notice that my body was changing in ways that the other girls’ bodies weren’t. I started noticing my friends getting attention from [professional ballet] companies, and I just knew that it wasn’t going to be in the cards for me because of what my body was. It was really hard for me. Luckily, musical theater is something that’s such an amazing marriage of what I love. I still get to dance, I get to sing, and I get to express myself.”
Starting April 1, Córdoba will be expressing herself at Broadway’s James Earl Jones Theatre as she leads the musical adaptation of Real Women Have Curves. Based on the 1987 semiautobiographical play written by Josefina López, the story follows Ana, an 18-year-old Mexican American navigating her own personal ambitions and family expectations while working at her sister’s garment factory in East Los Angeles.
After the play’s world-premiere production at San Francisco’s Mission Cultural Center in 1990, López cowrote the 2002 award-winning film adaptation starring future Emmy winner and Oscar nominee America Ferrera in her feature film debut. The musicalized version had a successful world premiere at Cambridge, Massachusetts’s American Repertory Theatre in December 2023, directed and choreographed by Tony Award–winning choreographer Sergio Trujillo. The Broadway transfer marks his Broadway directorial debut. In fact, 19 members across the cast and creative and design teams are making their Broadway debuts. Included in that number is book cowriter Lisa Loomer (working with Nell Benjamin, who wrote music and lyrics for Legally Blonde, and lyrics for Mean Girls), and the musical’s songwriting team, Grammy Award winner Joy Huerta (of Mexican pop duo Jesse & Joy) and Benjamin Velez.
“We are all just so eager, so excited, and are really pouring our whole hearts into it,” Córdoba said about the Broadway debuts. “It’s our first time to shine, and I think we all feel that in the room. They’re so, so incredible and wonderful and talented, and just amazing. I’m most excited for the world to see us.”
And how inspiring it will be for the world to see such significant representation on Broadway, especially considering the lack of stories about the Latin American diaspora throughout Broadway’s history. A decade has passed since the last original Latin American musical opened on Broadway, when On Your Feet!, the Gloria Estefan biomusical, premiered.
“The fact that we can count them on one hand out of all the years musical theater has been a thing is wild,” she said. “They’re so few and far between, so it means everything [to add to the legacy]. It’s a really awesome opportunity to be a face and a voice for young Latin and Brown kids.”
The musical offers more than just onstage representation: It addresses themes that are recognizably relevant offstage. As America debates over the topics of women’s bodily autonomy and reproductive rights, Real Women Have Curves provides a celebratory scene of the factory’s community of women reclaiming and reframing the lens through which their bodies are viewed.
“The show is technically a body-positive show and about embracing your body, but what I think is the most body-positive aspect is that most of the show is not speaking about our bodies,” said Córdoba. “Ana is far more concerned about everything else going on in her life. Her body is the last thing she is thinking about. I think a lot of times, just living joyfully and loving who you are in every aspect is enough.”
With its 1987 setting, the story also explores the immigrant experience López witnessed during the era. The threat of “La Migra” — the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement — created a widespread fear for undocumented residents in the area where López grew up. Nearly 40 years later, seeing these stories and experiences come to life onstage may feel like a mirror held up to modern-day America.
And while presenting these fears and vulnerabilities will offer an honest look into this community’s experience, Córdoba is excited for Broadway audiences to also witness the multidimensional humanity of these characters.
“One thing our show does beautifully is show how much joy comes from marginalized communities,” said Córdoba. “The struggles are there, but we continue to be joyful, to express love, and to be proud of our culture as a form of resistance and as a form of resilience.”