Meet Tatianna Córdoba, the rising star of 'Real Women Have Curves' on Broadway
This interview is part of our New York Talent Guide series, which spotlights rising and undersung Broadway stars whom theatregoers shouldn't miss on stage.
Tatianna Córdoba is ready to take the spotlight. The star of the new Broadway musical Real Women Have Curves, adapted from Josefina López's 1990 play and the 2002 film starring a young America Ferrera, is one of many cast members making her Broadway debut when the show starts up at the James Earl Jones Theatre on April 1.
Raised in California's Bay Area ("510, baby!") by a musician and a dancer, Córdoba has always been steeped in the arts. She's spent most of her professional career on the East Coast, a fact her Real Women Have Curves character, Ana Garcia, would envy. Ana is an 18-year-old Mexican American figuring out how to both please her family, who want her to work for their dress factory in L.A., and pursue her own dream to study journalism at NYC's Columbia University.
As it happens, Córdoba envies aspects of her character, too. "Ana is what I wish I was at 18," she said. "She's so headstrong and confident."
Ana learns those virtues in part from the fellow women in her family and at the factory: Latin American immigrants who teach her to appreciate where she came from just as much as where she's going. Likewise, Córdoba said being part of Real Women Have Curves, which incorporates Latin music (in songs by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez) and dance (from director/choreographer Sergio Trujillo), has strengthened her connection to her own heritage.
"I grew up around the Latin music world and scene," Córdoba said. "Getting to do that here really feels like home."
Get to know Córdoba, who chatted with New York Theatre Guide about her artistic upbringing, her own history with Real Women Have Curves, and what she hopes audiences take away from the musical and its vibrant characters.
Get Real Women Have Curves tickets now.
Congratulations on your Broadway debut.
I still haven't quite processed it. It's gonna take me a minute to fully process it because we've been knee-deep in rehearsals and just jumping in. But I'm really, really excited. Our show is full of Broadway debuts, so we're all going through it together and all have the same amount of excitement.
How did you get into theatre?
My dad's a musician and a singer. My mom was a dancer, so having music and dance always in my life, musical theatre just ended up being the perfect marriage of them both.
I went to a performing arts middle school and high school, Oakland School for the Arts [...] and then I went to college at Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music. I went back home for a year; I worked as a bridal consultant, so a crazy turn of events. Then I saved up for the big move to the Big Apple, and I've been pounding the pavement ever since.
Your life sounds a bit like Ana's — she's a California girl who works in a dress factory.
I didn't even think of that! Thank you for putting two and two together for me. Oh my gosh!
What did draw you to Ana's story?
[She] is much more concerned about how people see her brain than how people see her body. She's overtly confident in how she looks, and it's not really something she feels even the need to talk about because she is very accepting of who she is.
I'm very much that now at my age, but I'm really excited to get to be the 18-year-old I wish I was back then.
How familiar were you with the source material?
I actually used a monologue from the original play by Josefina López as my college audition monologue. It was one of the very, very few Latin woman monologues that I could use — that I wanted to use — for college. I have the play at home, and I never touched it again. It's been like an echo in the back of my head.
Then I heard they were doing a musical, and I was like, "Oh, that's so cool. I can't wait to see where that goes," never thinking I would get to be a part of it.
Were you also familiar with the film? Many people know America Ferrera's performance as Ana; what do you bring to the character?
The film was truly groundbreaking in so many ways, and America Ferrera has always been an inspiration to me as a Latina in theatre. I think what’s going to be so cool about bringing Real Women Have Curves to Broadway is that it is a familiar story to people but a totally new way of telling it — and through music!
One thing about the character Ana is that she is always herself and isn’t ashamed about who she is. I think in order to play her and do her justice you have to do the same as the actor. I am bringing 120% of myself into this role and breathing a new life into the character, through my own experience and personal attachment to the story.
What makes Real Women Have Curves still resonate 20+ years later?
It's crazy and a little disheartening that it's still so relevant today, surrounding the topics of immigration and women's rights and women's bodies and being a brown or Black woman. Unfortunately, those are still topics that we're [...] still trying to fight for.
It's important that this show exists, and I don't think there's been anything like it so far. I'm really excited for people to to come see it and be sat down and forced to be faced with the realities of what we're dealing with.
What do you hope people see in these characters?
I hope people take away how beautiful and strong and wonderful immigrants are, and the Latin community, and the intersectionalities of all of those things — whether you're an immigrant and a mom, or you're undocumented and you're a sister or a wife, or you're the first citizen in your family, like Ana. All of those beautiful colors are amazing and important to see on stage.
What's it like to perform the Latin music and dance styles in the show?
It's so much fun. Like I said, my dad was a Latin musician and a salsa singer, so I grew up around that.
It also just feels like such a celebration, all of us getting to dance salsa or sing in Spanish. It really makes us feel more connected to our culture, and to get to do it in front of audiences is really exciting.
Ana wants to move to NYC. What spots would you tell her to check out?
She would love the New York Public Library. She would die. She would love to go get a sandwich from Milano Market [on the] west side and then post up at Central Park with one of the books she rented from the New York Public Library. That would be her perfect afternoon, honestly, without anybody else: headphones in, book reading.
Have you ever had a theatre experience as an audience member that really moved you?
The first time I saw Hamilton, after the opening number. Just seeing a bunch of Black and brown performers standing there, fully lit, and watching them receive that applause, that was breathtaking to me. I had never seen that before on stage. I was 16 or 17 at the time, and that was when I was really considering doing musical theatre for real. That was the decision right there.
Get Real Women Have Curves tickets now.
This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
Top image credit: Tatianna Córdoba. (Photo courtesy of production)
In-article image credit: Córdoba (center) and the cast of Real Women Have Curves in rehearsal. (Photo by Michaelah Reynolds)
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