“Real Women Have Curves,” an immigration-themed musical about a young woman whose academic aspirations conflict with her mother’s desire for her to stay close to home and to help out at the family’s small business, announced on Tuesday that it would close on June 29 after struggling to find an audience on Broadway.
Based on Josefina López’s 1990 play and a 2002 film, the musical began previews April 1 and opened April 27 at the James Earl Jones Theater. At the time of its closing, it will have played 31 previews and 73 regular performances.
The musical is set in 1987 in an East Los Angeles dressmaking shop owned and operated by Latina women, some of whom are undocumented immigrants; it has echoes of events currently unfolding in Los Angeles, where immigration raids have prompted protests.
“Real Women Have Curves” was nominated for two Tony Awards, for best original score (by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez) and for best featured performance by an actress (Justina Machado), but won neither. It is the second show to post a closing notice after going home empty-handed from the June 8 awards ceremony, following “Smash.”
Reviews for “Real Women Have Curves” were mostly positive. In The New York Times, the critic Laura Collins-Hughes called it “a bouncy, crowd-pleasing comedy about female empowerment, self-acceptance and chasing one’s ambitions.” She added, “It is also a tale of immigrant life in this country, and the dread woven into the fabric of daily existence for undocumented people and those closest to them.”
“Real Women Have Curves” has had difficulty selling tickets throughout its run. It has been grossing about $400,000 most weeks, which is well below today’s running costs for a large-scale Broadway musical. The producers, in a last-ditch effort to boost ticket sales, picked up the costs for the cast to perform a song on the Tony Awards broadcast (not a given, since the show was not nominated for best musical), but that did not lead to a sufficient uptick to save the show.
The musical was capitalized for up to $16.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That money — the amount it cost to finance the show’s development — has not been recouped.
“Real Women Have Curves” features a book by Lisa Loomer with Nell Benjamin; it is directed and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo. Produced by Barry and Fran Weissler and Jack Noseworthy, the show had an initial production that opened in 2023 at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass.
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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