Latest news with #RealWomenHaveCurves
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Bryan Cranston, Katie Holmes among Tony Awards presenters
June 3 (UPI) -- Bryan Cranston and Katie Holmes are part of the star-studded lineup of Tony Award presenters. The 78th annual Tony Awards will also see awards presented by Aaron Tveit, Adam Lambert, Alex Winter, Allison Janney, Ariana DeBose, Ben Stiller, Carrie Preston, Charli D'Amelio, Danielle Brooks, Jean Smart, Jesse Eisenberg, Keanu Reeves, Kelli O'Hara, Kristin Chenoweth, Michelle Williams, Oprah, Rachel Bay Jones, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Samuel L. Jackson, Sara Bareilles and Sarah Paulson. Cynthia Erivo will host the Tonys, while Brian Stokes Mitchell will serve as the announcer, a press release states. This year's ceremony will also feature performances by cast members of such shows as Death Becomes Her, Real Women Have Curves, Buena Vista Social Club, Dead Outlaw, Floyd Collins, Gypsy, Maybe Happy Ending, Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical, Pirates! The Penzance Musical, Sunset Blvd., Hamilton and Justin in Time. The awards show airs Sunday at 8 p.m. EDT on CBS.
UPI
a day ago
- Entertainment
- UPI
Bryan Cranston, Katie Holmes among Tony Awards presenters
June 3 (UPI) -- Bryan Cranston and Katie Holmes are part of the star-studded lineup of Tony Award presenters. The 78th annual Tony Awards will also see awards presented by Aaron Tveit, Adam Lambert, Alex Winter, Allison Janney, Ariana DeBose, Ben Stiller, Carrie Preston, Charli D'Amelio, Danielle Brooks, Jean Smart, Jesse Eisenberg, Keanu Reeves, Kelli O'Hara, Kristin Chenoweth, Michelle Williams, Oprah, Rachel Bay Jones, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Samuel L. Jackson, Sara Bareilles and Sarah Paulson. Cynthia Erivo will host the Tonys, while Brian Stokes Mitchell will serve as the announcer, a press release states. This year's ceremony will also feature performances by cast members of such shows as Death Becomes Her, Real Women Have Curves, Buena Vista Social Club, Dead Outlaw, Floyd Collins, Gypsy, Maybe Happy Ending, Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical, Pirates! The Penzance Musical, Sunset Blvd., Hamilton and Justin in Time. The awards show airs Sunday at 8 p.m. EDT on CBS.
UPI
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- UPI
'Death Becomes Her' cast members to perform at Tony Awards
1 of 5 | The Tony Awards air Sunday. Photo courtesy of CBS Entertainment June 2 (UPI) -- Cast members from such musicals as Death Becomes Her and Real Women Have Curves will perform during the 78th annual Tony Awards Sunday. Other shows with planned performances at the Tony Awards include Buena Vista Social Club, Dead Outlaw, Floyd Collins, Gypsy, Maybe Happy Ending, Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical, Pirates! The Penzance Musical, Sunset Blvd. and Just in Time. Hamilton's original Broadway cast members were previously announced to perform in honor of the show's 10-year anniversary, per a press release issued in May. Carleigh Bettiol, Andrew Chappelle, Ariana DeBose, Alysha Deslorieux, Daveed Diggs, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Jonathan Groff, Sydney James Harcourt, Neil Haskell, Sasha Hutchings, Christopher Jackson, Thayne Jasperson, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Stephanie Kelmons, Morgan Marcell, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Javier Munoz, Leslie Odom, Jr., Okieriete Onaodowan, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Jon Rua, Austin Smith, Phillipa Soo, Seth Stewart, Betsy Struxness, Ephraim Sykes and Voltaire Wade-Greene will all take the stage for that performance. Cynthia Erivo, who stars in Wicked, will host the Tonys. The event airs Sunday at 8 p.m. EDT on CBS and also streams for Paramount+ subscribers who have Showtime. Cynthia Erivo turns 38: a look back Cynthia Erivo arrives in the press room after winning a Tony Award at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre on June 12, 2016 in New York City. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Forbes
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Tatianna Córdoba Gets Her Wings ‘In Real Women Have Curves'
Tatianna Córdoba Photo courtesy Tatianna Córdoba The new Broadway musical Real Women Have Curves is making a big splash at the James Earl Jones Theatre. In this joyous, reflective show with a big heart, Ana García is a high school senior and aspiring writer living in East Los Angeles. It's 1987 and Ana dreams of going to Columbia University. A child of Mexican immigrants, she is the only United States citizen in her family, who relies on her. As much as Carmen, Ana's mother loves and deeply cares for her daughter, Carmen believes that Ana needs to stay close by and continue to work in Ana's sister's garment factory, where the family works. But everything is put to the test when Ana's sister, Estela, gets a high-stakes order to make 200 dresses on a crazy deadline. And Ana's dreams and loyalty hang in the balance. Based on the play by Josefina López which inspired the iconic hit film, Real Women Have Curves: The Musical is directed and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo, with a book by Lisa Loomer with Nell Benjamin. Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez wrote the show's uplifting and reflective songs, like 'Flying Away' which illuminates Ana's struggle to stay true to her wishes while wanting to thrive and succeed. As the lyrics go: 'What's the point of having wings at all/If I never leave the ground?/Why settle for less?/I'll impress thеm and show/I belong skyward bound…. Flying away/I'll make her see/That I'm gonna change the world/And still be the daughter she wants me to be/Could I fly away/With the wind on my side?/I hope that I'll fly/With them on my side.' The company of Real Women Have Curves Photo: Julieta Cervantes Making her Broadway debut as Ana, Tatianna Córdoba has been longing to be in Real Women Have Curves for forever. 'Being a young Latin woman in musical theater, there is not much that we can directly identify with in the musical theater canon. So when you learn about a show that's about Latin women, you can't let go of that,' says Córdoba. 'I wanted to be a part of it in some capacity. I joked that I would have played a sewing machine in this show.' Córdoba's ties with Real Women Have Curves run deep. She used one of the monologues from the original play to audition for Berklee College of Music and was accepted into the program with a scholarship. She grew up in the Bay Area outside San Francisco where the show first debuted in 1990. And then there were all the auditions that she had. 'I have been auditioning for this show for about two and a half years in different forms,' she says. 'I auditioned for a workshop. I auditioned for a reading. I auditioned for an out-of-town tryout in Boston. I was in final callbacks for that and it never was my time." And then last December it was Córdoba's time. After a week of auditions and callbacks for the show she got word via her agent that they were going to do another notes session with her on Zoom. At that point she had spent a week dancing, singing and doing scenes. 'I thought, 'Really? Another notes session? Can't I just be done and then, if I get it, you call me in two weeks?'' But when she got on the Zoom and about 15 or 20 people were ultimately of brought on, Córdoba began to wonder what was up. 'Then they told me I got the part. I've never cried so hard in my whole life,' says Córdoba. 'I was so excited. It felt like this big release of emotion after all of the work.' Doing Real Women Have Curves eight times a week with a cast that includes Justina Machado as Carmen, Florencia Cuenca as Estela, Shelby Acosta, Carla Jimenez, Aline Mayagoitia, Mauricio Mendoza, Mason Reeves, Jennifer Sánchez and Sandra Valls, continues to be a dream come true for Córdoba and makes all those years of auditioning for Ana worth it. When asked about how she remained unstoppable, she says that something in her heart kept her intrepid. 'I had to be," she says. "I would have auditioned for it as many times as they needed.' Córdoba's zen-like attitude continues to be her driving force. 'Since I graduated I learned that the projects that are meant for you will happen at some point. Of course, I was disappointed when I didn't get cast because I am so passionate about this project,' she says. "But I had no other choice but to believe that the things that are meant for you will come around.' Jeryl Brunner: Ana has so much heart and drive. She wants to move forward with her life and also deeply cares about her family who rely on her so much. What qualities does Ana have that you adore? Tatianna Córdoba: I always say that Ana is everything I wish I would have been at 18-years-old. She has so much fire, drive and confidence. I had a lot of drive and spunk to me at 18, but the confidence that she has at such a young age is so admirable. She really believes in herself in a way that I wish I did at that age. Brunner: In many ways Ana is fearless. Córdoba: What's cool about Ana is that her fire gets her into rooms that she wouldn't necessarily get into if it wasn't for that fire. In many ways I feel like Ana's big sister. As much as I have a lot of similar traits, one thing that she lacks, at least at the start of the show, is a sense of understanding and empathy for her family and the women in the factory and what they have had to go through in order to even be there. That is a really cool journey for her. Brunner: Also, her family loves her so much. Throughout the show you're really on everybody's side. You want the family to thrive and you also are rooting for Ana. There's this dichotomy. Córdoba: I believe that Carmen's relationship with Ana—how Carmen deals with Ana's fire and drive, comes from a sense of fear. A lot of parents can be overbearing or strict, especially when they are in a country that they don't really know. A lot of Carmen's overbearing attitude and protectiveness towards Ana comes from fear of the unknown. It's a cool layer that Justina, [Justina Machado, who plays Carmen], explores so brilliantly. That is why you end up actually really loving Carmen, because you can see that it comes from care more than anything. Brunner: What inspired you to become an artist? Córdoba: My dad is a Latin musician, and my mom was a dancer. I was surrounded by music and dance. My mom put me in ballet as soon as I could walk and I watched my dad sing and grew up around musicians all the time. I discovered musical theater when my parents showed me the 1980s Annie and I lost my mind. It was the coolest thing in the whole wide world. There was this little girl, not much older than me, doing this awesome thing on TV. I thought, 'That's what I want to do.' Singing, dancing and doing this thing called acting all together was so cool. I didn't give my parents a choice about anything else for me to do because I loved it so much. Even from a very young age, I took a lot of initiative and they were always very supportive. I took a lot of initiative at a young age and would say, 'I heard about this play that they're doing at school and I really want to do it.' Brunner: So what was your first show? Córdoba: When I was seven or eight-years-old I was in Sleeping Beauty at a community theater playing townsperson number four. Brunner: Does your father, Armando Córdoba Jr., compose his own work? Córdoba: My dad writes his own music and is kind of a genius. One thing that is awesome about my dad is that he doesn't know how to read music and was never properly trained. But he plays the piano, percussion and drums. And he's a singer and writes his own music without knowing how to do any of those things. I ended up going to a performing arts school for middle and high school I learned how to read music. There was a point where we started to teach one other things, which was really cool. Brunner: How important is it, especially now, to tell the story of immigrants and a Latina woman? Córdoba: It means so much to me and all of the cast. As a young brown Latin girl doing musical theater, it's hard to see yourself doing something if you don't have examples of someone that you identify with. Whether it's an astronaut, police officer, fireman or actor. A lot of people in the cast have talked about how getting a chance to be that face or voice for people to say, 'I can do this too, is amazing. The other day I performed Ana's big song, 'Flying Away' at 54 Below. I had a moment where I thought, 'Oh my gosh, this song is out in the world. And young Latin actors can sing it.' We released that song and a few other songs ahead of our full cast album. [The full original Broadway cast recording will be released on streaming and digital platforms June 6 on Ghostlight Records.] And it is out in the world for them. They can bring that song into auditions. Knowing that my voice is what they listen to when they're practicing is such a crazy thing to wrap my head around.
Time Out
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Justina Machado on coming full circle in Real Women Have Curves
If you ride the curves well enough, sometimes you come full circle. One of Justina Machado's first major roles as an actor was in a 1992 Chicago production of Josefina Lopez's Real Women Have Curves, in which she starred as Ana, the play's big-dreaming and full-figured teenage Latina heroine. Machado went on to become a beloved TV star on such series as Six Feet Under and the reboot of One Day at a Time; meanwhile, Lopez's play went Hollywood, too, where it was made into a 2002 indie film. Now that Real Women Have Curves has been further adapted into a warm, funny and entertaining new Broadway musical, Machado has been reunited with the material—but this time as Ana's loving but hard-headed mother, Carmen. Her performance is a master class in presence, timing and old-fashioned comic knowhow, and it has garnered her a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. We chatted with Machado about her history with the show and her experience of performing it for adoring audiences today. In advance of the Tony Awards on June 8, Time Out has conducted in-depth interviews with select nominees. We'll be rolling out those interviews every day this week; the full collection to date is here. This isn't your first Broadway musical: You also did a stint in In The Heights in 2009. How is this experience different from that one? Well, in In The Heights, I was just taking over for a short period of time while Andréa Burns had her vacation. I had already seen it—my friend Carlos Gomez played the father and I went to go see it, and I said, Oh my God, I have to do this show! This is my generation's West Side Story! It just blew me away. That was an incredible dream come true. But Real Women is something that I've always wanted to do: to originate a role in a musical. That's such an important distinction, because the original casts of musicals have a profound effect on their development: The things that work for them get kept, things that don't work for them don't, and their DNA ends up getting stamped into the show—everyone who does it afterwards has to fit a role that was shaped by the original performer. How far does your involvement with this particular show go back? I did the play! I did this play when I was 20 years old—19 going on 20—at Victory Gardens in Chicago. I played Ana. Wow! I somehow didn't know that. That's wild. If you get the play by Josefina Lopez, I'm on the cover. The company that did Real Women Have Curves in Chicago in 1992 is on the cover. And now in the show I say the name Marisela Ochoa—the name of my friend who played my sister in that play, and who died of breast cancer [in 2011]. We have little things like that in the show. But Carmen is very different from who she was in the original play. And the musical is very different from the original in a whole lot of other ways, too. The essence of Ana is there, and that's the most important thing. That story is there. But everybody else has been kind of musicalized. So I do have DNA in this. I think you actually said that perfectly—everything you just said is exactly how it went. I did a 29-hour reading —not the first 29-hour reading, but maybe the second or the third—and then there was a workshop that I couldn't do because I was making a movie. But then there were the rehearsals for A.R.T. [American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge] and then doing it over there, and then now this. So yes, we worked on it together. They were very collaborative. There were things that I thought would work better or they thought would work better, and they absolutely allowed me to shape her. And then you're in front of an audience, where—especially in a musical—the response is so immediate: You can tell right away whether a musical number's working or whether a joke is working. Has the show changed much from the version at the A.R.T.? It's interesting, because when you're in it, I don't think you really know it. I went off and did a whole other project that I was involved in, and when I came back, it felt cleaner and more streamlined. I do know that people who saw it at A.R.T. and then saw this one, think that a lot has changed. I just know that it's tighter and it flows better. How much other theater have you done in your career? Because I think a lot of people know you mainly from your work on television. Well, I started a long time ago. I'm from Chicago, and when I first started I did a lot of theater and commercials and industrials and all those things. And then I moved to New York in '94 with the goal of getting on Broadway—with the goal of doing exactly what I'm doing now, thirty years later. But what ended up happening was I got a job in L.A. about six months later. I got a pilot, and I never left—I just kept working in Los Angeles. So really, not a lot of theater. That's where I started, but…you know, L.A.'s not really a theater town. But I did two shows in L.A. early in my career. And I did Mambo Kings, which was 20 years ago. That's how I met Sergio. Sergio was choreographing Mambo Kings, and that was gonna be my way into Broadway. I was like, Yes, finally, I'm realizing that dream! And then that died. We did it at the Golden Gate [Theatre in San Francisco], but never came to New York. And then In The Heights was the next thing. So that's what it's been. It's sporadic. But you did do a sitcom with a live studio audience, and you did it for years. I think people may not quite realize how theatrical that set-up is. It's sort of a holdover from a time when the culture was transitioning from live theater to television. It absolutely is. Our musical is so incredible that we get a lot of reaction from the audience. When Ana and Henry kiss, they're like, 'Woo!' Or when I fat-shame Ana, I get hisses and gasps and all that. So it reminds me a lot of the studio audience in One Day at a Time. And when you shoot in front of a studio audience, if a joke doesn't work, they will change that joke immediately. They'll come up to you, give you new lines, and you'll have to learn those lines then, and try it again. So it really is like theater. I've never not felt comfortable in front of an audience, because that's where I started. It's just not where my career led me. It feels like you have a special relationship with the audience at Real Women —you know how to ride the waves of response, which people sometimes don't. Yeah. I think that came from One Day at a Time. I swear to God! Because at One Day at a Time, that's what happens. You let them write it with a studio audience. You let them write it, you let them guide you. And I think that was probably the best training I could have had before this. I saw the show on a press night, when the audience generally is usually more responsive than on a regular night, but even so, I was struck by how vocal the crowd was—in a great way. It was great fun to be a part of that energy. But how much does that differ night to night? It can't always be that big a wave. It's not always that way, believe me. But one of the things I've learned is that just because they're not responding the way you'd like them to doesn't mean that they're not listening—it doesn't mean that they're not in it, it doesn't mean that they're not appreciating it. Sometimes I'll be like, Oh my God, that was terrible. And then my friend who was sitting in the audience will say, 'Are you kidding me? We were going crazy! Didn't you hear that?' But like any human being, you go to the bad thing right away, even when it's just one thing that throws you off. Of course, audiences vary. But I will say, honestly, probably 85% of the time they are excited and vocal. And it's really incredible. One thing people may not know about this show is how clever it is. The comedy songs are not only funny but also feel really fresh—they're singing about things we haven't heard in Broadway musicals before. Yeah. Like menopause! Like menopause, yes, or the philosophical number in the first act about being a bird. And of course the big title number, when everyone lets it all hang out. That one always gets a huge reaction. That one, probably 95% of the time, gets a standing ovation. Which is a payoff for us, because nobody wants to take their clothes off. Everybody's like, Oh God, here we go! But the audience gets it. They get the message, and the message is layered. People sob and people get up. One of the things that we always notice is that most of the time, men are the first to get up. And of course, women follow. But it's really beautiful. Not in a gross way—in an empowering, fantastic way. I think probably a lot of men agree with the sentiment of the title more than mass culture suggests. You know what, I think you're correct. We've been fed all this of what we're supposed to look like and be like. But we learn something every single day. I mean, listen, I have the most clothes on, so I'm okay. I have basically shorts that go all the way up. If I had to have little panties, that might be a different story. But thank God, it's nestled in between things, so we don't really have much time to think about it. And everybody's great. I stand on that stage every night with those incredibly brave, fierce Latina women that stand in their authenticity, that stand in their power. A lot of them are new to the business, and they're so incredible. They're going to be big stars. Are there any parts of the show that you especially look forward to performing every night? Once I get on that stage, I have to look forward to everything, because it's a roller coaster. I never really leave. I have to just enter with enthusiasm and be like, Okay! One of the numbers that I love is "I Got It Wrong." It's for many reasons—one is because it's the end of the musical, and I'm like, Yes, I've made it through! But also because it's so freaking beautiful. So I look forward to that number. But I look forward to it all. The musical is so funny and sweet, but it also deals with immigration in a way that feels very timely for the moment we're in. I know that you're from Chicago, but I wonder if you have any personal relationship to that issue. We're Puerto Rican. I'm first-generation, but we didn't immigrate, we migrated. But still we have the same experience. This is the thing. What's happening right now—if you're Latino, if you speak Spanish, it doesn't seem like you're safe, whether you're a citizen or not. Yes, we're American citizens, but just the other day, my grandfather, who's 97 years old, went to get his Real ID, and they wouldn't give it to him because he doesn't have his original birth certificate. So now he can't go to Puerto Rico. As a Puerto Rican, I never had to deal with being scared of La Migra, which is what it was before ICE. I didn't have to be scared growing up. When I did the world premiere, I didn't even know what La Migra was. I had no idea, as a 19-year-old girl in Chicago, that there were undocumented people. Maybe that's naive and ridiculous, but Chicago's such a segregated city that there are just things you don't grow up knowing. So yes, the show is timely. It's relevant. But the sad thing is, it's always been timely. It's always been relevant. It's just so in our faces right now. And when people come and see this, they feel seen, they feel heard. It's doing something. It's not just us doing it at the James Earl Jones Theatre and having an all-Latino cast. It's bigger than that. It's like this beautiful kind of movement. One of the things that makes the musical's message so effective, I think, is that is set in a different time. It's not specifically about what's happening now with ICE. So it has an oblique quality, but it still gets something that's true and has been true for most of our lifetimes. Absolutely. And they do it in such a beautiful way—the way that people like to learn, the way that people like to be seen. Nobody likes to be hit over the head with things. So you walk out and go, 'Oh, wait, whoa: It wasn't just about that, it was about this. And it wasn't just about this, it was about that. And I can relate to this part or that part.' That's why I hope it has a long life—because it deserves it.
