Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. If you're looking for some joy on Broadway, look no further than the new musical Real Women Have Curves. I'm talking about both the exuberance of the show and about one of the Tony nominated composers. Joy Huerta is one half of the Grammy winning Mexican pop duo Joy and Jesse.

She paired up with composer and lyricist Benjamin Velez to tackle the musical for this project, which is based on the 1990 play and the beloved 2002 film. She and Benjamin are Tony nominated for best original score. The musical is set in Los Angeles, in the late 1980s, and follows the Garcia family. Ana Garcia is the only documented citizen in her family. She's an aspiring journalist and her dream is to head off to Columbia for college in the fall, but her family has some other ideas.

Her mother, Carmen, insists that she needs to stay at home to help protect the family. Her older sister Estela needs help at the dress factory she runs. Can Ana help her family and still realize her dreams? Real Women Have Curves is running now at the James Earl Jones Theater through October 5th. We are joined now by Tony nominated composers. You like to hear that, Joy, don't you?

Joy Huerta: Yes, I do. I'm just watching you. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez, nice to talk to you as well.

Benjamin Velez: You too.

Joy Huerta: To you too. Thank you for having us.

Alison Stewart: And we're also joined by Tatianna Córdoba, Aline Mayagoitia, and Florencia Cuenca, who are going to perform for us live in the studio. Hello, over there.

Joy Huerta: Hi. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: We're going to hear music right away, but I did want to ask you, where were you when you heard that you won-- well, that you were nominated for the Tony?

Joy Huerta: I love your manifestation. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: I did. I manifested it.

Joy Huerta: Thank you so much. I was at the hotel. I was at the hotel with my family and my wife told me. The nominations are coming out at 8:30 AM, we have two little kids, so of course, we were up very early. I just heard my name and then I heard Benjamin's name. I was in shock for a little bit. Then we spoke briefly after that, and after receiving so many phone calls, I could not stop crying that whole day, because this is my first ever musical.

I live in the pop world with my band, like you said, Jesse and Joy. I know it's music, but it's entirely different from the theater, and the musical theater, especially. It's just been amazing. I've become obsessed with this community in the theater world, and the wonderful people that I've met here. It feels like a warm welcome. I'm manifesting that too.

Alison Stewart: What does the nomination mean for you, Benjamin?

Benjamin Velez: I come from the theater world, so I've been working towards this for 15 years. It's really a dream come true that you hope will happen one day, but you never know. Working with Joy has been the best gift. We called each other right after, and that's when I feel like I had so much pent up emotion from this whole five years of writing this show. It finally came out on that phone call and it was beautiful.

Alison Stewart: Oh, when I went to see the show, I said, "Oh, yes, that's going to get a Tony nomination," right away, as soon as I listened to the whole show and I thought about the whole thing, it made so much sense to me that you were nominated. Congratulations to all of you. Let's hear a song. We're going to hear Flying Away, the big I Want song, in the first act. Tatianna is at the microphone. Tatianna, tell us what's going on with Ana when she sings this number.

Tatianna Córdoba: Hi. Yes. This is Ana's first number in the show. This is sort of your introduction into her and her world, and the journey that you're about to go on. This song is basically her talking about all of the things that have been laid out for her. Does she follow her dreams and go to college? Does she stay and help her family? And is there a way she can do both? This song is her dream and starting to figure out how she can maybe do those things.

Alison Stewart: This is Flying Away.

[MUSIC: Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez - "Flying Away"]

Should've told 'em then and there

Now I made myself a mess

And really what the hell is wrong with me?

Why do I always second-guess?

They gave up so much

So I could have more

And if I don't go

What was all of it for?

Flying away

The wind on my side

Taking a chance on me

Looking ahead for the first time

But could I fly away

Without her on my side?

Summer heat and summer sweat

Dragging me down

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

Doing it all

If I can prove her wrong

Maybе my dreams wouldn't have to be small

I'll find a way

To get them on my side

Fly to the edge of it all and rewrite my story

Show that I'm so much more than a face in the crowd

And the fact that I reach is the reason they're proud

Maybe then she would give me her blessing

If I can be brave enough to show I can fly

Flying away

I'll make her see

That I'm going to 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

Alison Stewart: Yay. Well, clap. Let's clap. Let's clap. Yes. That was Tatianna Córdoba performing Flying Away from the new musical Real Women Have Curves. She stars as Ana Garcia. The song was written by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez, who were both Tony nominated for best original score. You've never written for the stage before?

Joy Huerta: No, never for the stage.

Alison Stewart: Why was it something you wanted to try?

Joy Huerta: I was approached by the director and one of the producers in Mexico City, early 2020, and I had the other producers, Barry Weissler, on FaceTime, and they were just so passionate about the project. When they were telling me a little bit about the play, about the movie, and what it could mean, I was just like-- I love challenges, and it just sounded so much fun. The next day, came the pandemic, it was locked down, and I was like, "Okay, I have time. I'll read the play. I'll watch the movie."

I panicked. I was like, "What did I get myself into?" What do you do when the material is solid, and it's like-- It was a different version of it. The play and the movie are so much more different than our show. I was like, "How can you-- What? What are we going to do with this?" They were walking me through the process of how we were going to use that as inspiration to tell our story through the lens of today, basically.

I was like, "Look, I've done music for more than half my life, but I've never done it for theater. Could you please get me some help?" Then Benjamin Velez came into the picture, and he was just such an amazing collaborator. We worked most of the score through Zoom and through FaceTime. We were not in the same place, and it was just like-- Okay. He was very patient.

Alison Stewart: You guys didn't meet each other for the longest time?

Benjamin Velez: No, over a year and a half before we actually got to hug.

Joy Huerta: Yes.

Alison Stewart: What was the process like when you were working remotely?

Benjamin Velez: Well, we joked that it was-- Actually, there were a lot of pros, because we both write music and lyrics, we each want to be constantly humming melodic ideas. That's not the easiest if you're in the same room.

Joy Huerta: Exactly.

Benjamin Velez: I play piano and Joy plays guitar. What we would do is, we would record voice memos on our phones and then text them, email them back and forth, and then we would both be fooling around, and thanks to Zoom, we could mute each other, and when one of us had an idea, we could be like, "Ah, I have something. Can I show you?"

Joy Huerta: We would literally sometimes just keep each other company, because he couldn't hear me, I couldn't hear him. That allowed us to really develop certain ideas on our own, to bring together. I don't know if you've ever been involved in any musical thing, but if you start hearing someone humming a melody, you feel like you can jam to it, and you can maybe start vibing with that, and that turns into something.

It's a great thing, but in this case, what it allowed us to do is develop each sound that we were working on, and then be like, "Oh, I love this, but maybe this could work better with that other song that we were writing for this other moment." It was something that we loved. Then, whenever we were in the same room a couple of years after that, we'd be like, "I'm going to go outside. I'm going to step outside for a second and be right back."

Benjamin Velez: Also, I think because Joy worked so closely with her brother, she was just so generous as a collaborator. When we were sending each other voice memos back and forth, a lot of it is, "Oh, let's use your idea, or let's use your--" It felt very natural, the ebb and flow of that.

Alison Stewart: What was about your pop sensibilities that worked for you in this situation?

Joy Huerta: Well, unlike theater, whenever you want to tell a story through a song, you're telling the whole story in three minutes. Here, it's different. You have many songs to tell one story, and you're telling different sides of it. I think, in a way, for me, it was like, "Oh, my gosh, I have so much time to say so many things, so let's just expand this idea or turn it into something else."

I feel like, also, it helped us, in a way, really capture certain themes into certain songs, and really wrap them up with things that we wanted to say. You can definitely feel-- Maybe this is a question-- I don't know if for you it felt like every song was resolved, but at the same time, they all had to do something within. They were all intertwined. I feel like, to me, that's something that felt like a pro instead of a con, from my world.

Alison Stewart: My guests are Tony nominees Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez. They wrote the music and lyrics for the new Broadway musical Real Women Have Curves, which has been nominated for best original score. I do want to step out of this and put on my news hat for a moment. I just got word. White smoke is pouring out of the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling a new pope has been elected to lead the Catholic Church.

NPR will be covering this closely, so stay with us all day for the latest and the absolute news at 1:00 PM. I did want to point that out. Back to the show. I put on my musical hat now. The characters are from all over Latin America, not just Mexico. How did you want to incorporate the global Latin sound?

Benjamin Velez: That's a great question. I think that that was the joy of this, was that this is a factory full of women who, maybe the world sees them as a monolith of undocumented workers in America, but we wanted each and every one of them to feel like a distinct human with their own story and their own reasons for coming here. I think one of the joys of the original story is that Ana is witnessing just them be themselves in their routines, and their hopes, their fears, how they get through the day with comedy.

Little by little, she realizes that her preconceived notions of who they were are different. We tried to bring in influences from all different genres, different countries, but also fuse them with what they would be hearing on the radio now or in the 1980s, what they would have been hearing, and then also bring in styles from today. We really wanted it to feel contemporary, but also specific to each character. We had a lot of fun building out those unique, different sounds.

Alison Stewart: All right, Aline, come on down. We're about to play the song If I Were a Bird, which is a certain way in the show, that we can't necessarily do here on public radio.

Joy Huerta: We need to do a radio version, a radio edit.

Aline Mayagoitia: The radio edit.

Alison Stewart: All right, Tell us a little bit about your character in the show.

Aline Mayagoitia: I play Itzel, who is a 19 year old from Guatemala. She's the newest arrival to Estela's factory. She is undocumented, and the hardships that she faces because of that situation, which, as we know, is a very impossible legal system that a lot of people face, leads her to have this amazing sense of humor. In this song, basically, a really scary moment happens in the show, then the girls just go upstairs to the roof, to blow off some steam.

If you want to hear the full version, you got to come to Broadway and see Real Women Have Curves.

Joy Huerta: Not the radio edit. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: This is Tatianna Córdoba and Aline Mayagoitia with If I Were a Bird, from Real Women Have Curves.

[MUSIC: Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez - "If I Were a Bird"]

When you look at birds, they're

Funny little creatures

But once they're in the sky

They look so mighty

Riding on the wind, all borders disappear

And up there in the sky they have no fear

If I were a bird, I'd rise above

What feels unfair

Up in the sky, the world seems small

Do what I want, go anywhere

Because I am free

Sing like a bird, I sound my call

So far beyond, then gracefully

Out of reach

From La Migra, politicians, and boys

Who just wanna... You know

If I were a bird, I'd shh on that

There's a Mayan bird

We call it the Quetzal

Colorful and bright

A symbol of freedom

It's hardly ever seen

Because if it's captured

It would rather starve to death

Than take another breath

And I won’t let no cage capture me

If I were a bird, I'd rise above

What I don’t like

Up in the sky, I'm in control

Land where I want, the world is mine

Mine to explore

Sing like a bird, free my soul

So far beyond, then gracefully

Taking a shh

La Migra, touchy boyfriends,

Air pollution, too much ruffles,

Bossy mothers, smelly feet,

Ironing and gaddalina,

Yes, if I were a bird,

If you were a bird,

If I were a bird,

If I were a bird,

If I were a bird, I'd shh on that.

Alison Stewart: We'll have more from Real Women Have Curves after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests are Tony nominees Joy Huerta and Benjamin Vales. They wrote the music and lyrics for the new Broadway musical Real Women Have Curves. They've been nominated for best original score. Benjamin, you have actors here, Aline, Tatianna, Florencia, you write songs for these characters when the actors take them on and bring them a whole new life. What song really changed for you once it hit the stage?

Benjamin Velez: Whew. So much of [unintelligible 00:17:58] as a writer is that partnership with the actor, so a lot of them did. It's funny you asked that because I feel like Daydream, our third song, changed the most, just because Florencia is such a one of a kind performer, and we really wanted to lean into her Mexican heritage. She's a Mexican immigrant herself and she has this voice that's just incredible for mariachi style.

We wanted to infuse that into the character's song, but we didn't know who our Estela was going to be. I was mentioning to Joy during the break that all three of the songs we're showing today are actually I Want songs for our characters, which is rare to have that many I Want songs, but because this is such a slice of life story where you're getting to know people, we really wanted to find ways to get inside their heads.

Alison Stewart: Yes, that was interesting because there are different ways that we get introduced to every character. Each character has a song that sets them up. How did you want to introduce us to the characters?

Joy Huerta: First of all, we wanted to do it sonically and we wanted everyone to have a different sound. The women in the factory have a particular sound when they're singing all together. Ana has her own sound since she was born and raised in the US, so she has more of a pop contemporary sound. Estela was brought in when she was little, so she still has that Mexican pop and she has this American sound, because she's also been been living here for quite some time.

The mother, she has a mariachi flair, but we were weaving everything through a pop sound that would sound contemporary. Right now, that you were mentioning the thing of the I Want songs, I think I love the-- Ana and Itzel, I see them as a coin, because they are living different lives depending on where they were born. Ana singing she hopes she can fly, because it's a possibility for her, where Itzel can only dream that if she could be a bird, what her life could be about.

We were trying to bring some of these images and weave them into the story, hoping that maybe people could catch on on those-- What's the word? I forgot it in English, but basically, yes, the metaphor of it, and no spoiler, but in the end, if she does or doesn't get to fly away, like we were trying to point that out. It was just depending on-- Some people just get lucky for where they were born. Going back to your question, it was a matter of sound for us.

In the storytelling, it was a matter of finding what that character was going to be in the book and then finding out what their sound was in person. Once we had the actors, it was just wonderful to be like, "Oh, my gosh, this is going to play so good to their strengths."

Benjamin Velez: I would say with Justina Machado, who's also Tony nominated, our best supporting actress, she just brings this incredible sense of command of the stage and comedy chops. We went through a couple versions of what Carmen's song is, because she has this song now called De Nada, where she's-

Joy Huerta: You're welcome.

Benjamin Velez: -guilting her daughter into, "No, you have to stay, because we crossed the desert to bring you here, so you could be born here." [crosstalk]

Joy Huerta: We sacrificed so much for you. You're welcome.

Benjamin Velez: We made a lot of tweaks to that song once we saw it in Justina's body and her voice, to really lean into-- She has this really charming way of putting on the guilt and leaning into the charm. Also, the content of it is tough to hear as a kid.

Alison Stewart: It's a very timely show, given all the undocumented people, everything that they're going through in this country. Even though this came out 20, 25 years ago, there's a terrifying scene where the characters-- they have to hide from immigration. A character is deported. What has it been like for you to be part of a show that's speaking so directly to this moment?

Joy Huerta: Well, we started writing it five years ago, which makes it even crazier, because Lisa Loomer, one of the writers, she specifically wanted it to take place in 1987 so we could highlight all the differences, but we just never imagined that maybe some things were actually going to be better in 1987 than what they are today. I am Mexican American myself. I was born and raised in Mexico City. I think I forgot to say that when you asked me at the very beginning. I think that's one of the things that I was very passionate about.

The fact that I got to tell another part of my story and see part of my culture in one of the most-- if not the most important stage in theater in the world. To be able to tell the story of these undocumented people in a way that it's like-- they're not defined as immigrants. They are people. We're humanizing their stories. We are dignifying them with-- telling how they live, because yes, it's a constant fear, but they don't let that stop them.

I know we named the show Real Women Have Curves, but a part of me, it's like-- Oh, my gosh. It could have been also been named Make It Work, because that's what they're doing throughout the whole show. They're making everything work every step of the way. They're doing it with a smile, they're doing it with humor, no matter how much the world tries to shrink them. It's just a beautiful story about a generation of women, mothers, daughters, friends, sisterhood.

It's fun to watch them in action because you really forget about all the noise that surrounds us, and you really get to see human stories. You relate so much that you're like, "Oh, my gosh, what a crazy world that we live on, that we have to label everything instead of just going through it like some people do, like these women, with such grace."

Alison Stewart: We're going to end things on Daydream, but we should talk about dreams, because it's a big part of this story. People's dreams. What are your dreams? Can you achieve your dreams? Who was somebody who helped you achieve your dreams, Benjamin?

Benjamin Velez: Oh, man. That's a great question. I did music my whole life, but I went to a math and science school for high school, and I had teachers there that-- I would still play piano during school assemblies. They gave me time away from class to work on those things. I had this one teacher, Dr. Khalil. She taught a solar energy class, but she loved that I played music, and she always encouraged me me to do it on the side.

If I didn't have that kind of encouragement, of course, also from my family and my mother, but when people see something is special for you and they encourage you to do it, it really helps. Speaking of the Daydream song, not everyone has the ability to dream as big. I went to a school where there were kids that were undocumented, and I didn't know until it was time to apply for college, that they couldn't have the same opportunities.

That was just heartbreaking because you spend your whole life thinking, "Well, we can all dream of the same things," and some people can't. We really want to try to put that into the song that Estela sings.

Alison Stewart: Who helped you pursue your dreams?

Joy Huerta: Well, initially, I have to say, maybe my parents. I was discovered, literally, by my record label when I was only 18, and I feel like that was early on in the process of my life. I just feel like, ultimately, it's been my wife. I have two day jobs, and it's so, so time consuming. I wouldn't be able to even-- I was so scared about this challenge. I was about to say no. She was like, "You can do this. Of course you can do this." She's my rock. She's my everything. She helps me dream bigger every single day.

Alison Stewart: All right, we've got Florencia Cuenca at the microphone. You play Ana's older sister, Estela. She's running the factory. Joy's going to go over and sing with you in a minute. What's going on with Estela when we hear this song?

Florencia Cuenca: She is literally daydreaming. The world as we know stops, and we go into Estela's mind and just look at her, at her heart.

Alison Stewart: This is Daydream with Florencia Cuenca and Joy Huerta.

[MUSIC: Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez - "Daydream"]

Was I ever a child? I don't know

Never had a chance not to worry

Other kids they could take it slow

But I had to grow up in a hurry

One mistake

Now life's on hold

But my mind runs on

And I think of all the things that I could be

Possibilities far as the eye can see

I can see

Freedom in the California sun

Imagining I could be anyone

Anyone

Watch me board a plane

Drive a car

Finally face a cop without worry

Charge your credit card, show ID

Plan a future that isn't so blurry

In my head

I am free

So my mind runs up

And I think of all the things that I could be

Things that I could be

Possibilities far as the eye can see

Fashion week Paris in the screen, on the screen.

Just imagine it, I could be anything, anything,

Not being chased by the past.

Letting my fears melt away,

Making my daydreams last.

Indigo velvet and cream chiffon

Cinnamon silk and [unintelligible 00:27:37]

Painting a lace covered wonderland,

One that I know I met, far

So I think of all the things that I could be

Possibilities far as the I can see

I can see

Freedom in the California sun

Imagining I could be anyone

Anyone

Not being chased by the past.

Letting my fears melt away

Making my daydreams last

Last

Alison Stewart: Real Women Have Curves is playing at the James Earl Jones Theater. My guests have been Tony nominees Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez, as well as Tatianna Córdoba, Aline Mayagoitia, and Florencia Cuenca. Thank you so much for being with us.

Benjamin Velez: Thank you for having us. [crosstalk]

Joy Huerta: Thank you for having us.

Benjamin Velez: What a treat.