The show, adapted from the play and movie, was first staged last winter at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass.
A musical adaptation of “Real Women Have Curves,” Josefina López’s exploration of immigrant experiences through the story of a group of Latina women working at a Los Angeles garment factory, will run on Broadway next year, the show’s producers said Thursday.
The story began its life as a play, which had an initial production in San Francisco in 1990, and has been staged many times since. In 2002, a film adaptation was released, starring America Ferrera.
Directed and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo, the musical was first staged last December and January at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. It features music and lyrics by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez and a book by Lisa Loomer, with additional material by Nell Benjamin.
The musical is set in 1987 in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, and focuses on an 18-year-old woman who is torn between staying home to work at the family factory and relocating to New York to enroll at Columbia. In addition to its immigration theme, the show also deals with body image issues.
The critic Don Aucoin, writing in The Boston Globe, called the show “outstanding,” but Laura Collins-Hughes, in The New York Times, was less impressed, deeming it “ungainly.”
The Broadway run is being produced by Barry and Fran Weissler, the lead producers of the long-running Broadway “Chicago” revival, along with the actor Jack Noseworthy, who is married to Trujillo. In a news release, the producers said the play would open on Broadway in 2025; they did not specify whether it would be during the current Tony Awards eligibility season, which ends in April, or the following season, and a spokeswoman said no further information was available.
The musical is being capitalized for $16.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Source: Theater - nytimes.com
