[♪] >>Coming up, we celebrate the past, present, and future of Latinos on Broadway.

♪ [opening music] ♪ >>Hi, I'm Tinabeth Piña.

>>And I'm Patrick Pacheco.

Welcome to this special CUNY collaboration between Theater: All the Moving Parts — >>And LATiNAS.

Today we celebrate Latinos on Broadway, and the best place to do just that is right here at the Museum of Broadway in New York City, a place that celebrates Broadway's rich history with exhibits featuring behind-the-scenes glimpses of legendary shows.

>>Right now, we're inside an exhibit dedicated to the iconic show “West Side Story,” the first time Latinos took center stage.

We're on a recreated set of Doc's Drugstore, a central location in the musical.

>>And it's the perfect spot to kick off this special because in the next half hour, we're going to spotlight the Latinos who helped make the Broadway stage unforgettable.

>>But “West Side Story” wasn't the first time Latinos appeared on the Big White Way, and we're about to step back and take a deep look at the history behind Latinos on Broadway.

Juan Torres-Falcon has the story.

>>It starts with a shout, mambo, the explosive rhythm that ricocheted through Broadway in 1957 when “West Side Story” introduced millions to Puerto Rican characters and a sound that felt electric and new.

More than sixty years later, the story of Latinos on Broadway is still unfolding, a history marked by breakthroughs, long silences, and defining moments that reshaped the American stage.

Tracking that history is not straightforward.

When does the history of Latinos on Broadway and off really begin?

>>I don't know that we can pinpoint a definitive moment, but if we're talking about Broadway, there's a very early performance.

>>♪ — men make music.

♪ ♪ And play ‘till the night is day.

♪ ♪ Cock-a-doodle Daddy!

♪ Spic and span, spic and Spanish — ♪ >>Desi Arnaz in “Too Many Girls.” In 1939, he played a complete stereotype, a macho, womanizing, Latin-lover athlete.

>>And after Desi came the 1947 win for José Ferrer, the first Latino to win the Tony Award for his performance as Cyrano de Bergerac.

Then ten years later, “West Side Story” had its Broadway debut, placing Puerto Rican characters at the center of an American musical.

Groundbreaking, even though the storytelling came from non-Latino creators.

>>I think also it endures as a cautionary creative tale of what not to do, because none of the creators were Latino.

It was through the white male gaze that the characters were created.

And Chita Rivera and Jaime Sánchez were the only Puerto Ricans in that cast.

>>”Man of La Mancha” brought the Spanish story of Don Quixote to Broadway in 1965.

Again, the creative team and the original stars were not Latino, but there was a Spanish-speaking hero in the Broadway imagination.

And when Raúl Juliá later played Don Quixote, it became an early marker of Latino presence in a major classic.

While Broadway kept Latino writers at arm's length, real change was happening elsewhere in Off-Broadway spaces and across the country.

>>Around the same time on the West Coast, El Teatro Campesino in the mid- ‘60s would eventually bring “Zoot Suit” to Broadway.

>>In 1979, Luis Valdez's “Zoot Suit” became the first Chicano play on Broadway that put Mexican American history on a commercial stage and proved there was an audience for it.

By the 1990s, artists stopped waiting for permission.

After success Off-Broadway, John Leguizamo took Broadway by storm with a string of solo shows.

>>What Leguizamo was doing, or still doing, with solo performance, and what Alina Troyano as Carmelita Tropicana has done, and Marga Gomez, and so many others is carve out a space for themselves.

>>The ‘90s also brought “Kiss of the Spider Woman” starring Chita Rivera in 1993, and the ill-fated “Capeman” in 1998, another musical with a Puerto Rican story center stage.

But again, without Latino writers shaping the narrative, many in the community rejected it, as did the critics.

>>The line in “My Broken Language” that says, “We must be our own librarians because we alone are literate in our own bodies.” >>In the 2000s, Broadway saw Pulitzer Prize-winner “Anna in the Tropics,” about a Cuban American cigar factory in Florida.

“On Your Feet: The Gloria and Emilio Estefan Story.” But the real seismic shift came with Lin Manuel Miranda's Tony Award-winning Best Musical “In the Heights,” about Latino identity in Washington Heights, New York.

>>I know I wrote a little show about home.

Mr.

Sondheim, look, I made a hat!

Where there never was a hat!

It's a Latin hat at that!

>>And after decades of incremental change, Broadway is seeing something different: Latino stories told by Latino artists from the inside out.

Last season, Broadway welcomed “Real Women Have Curves” about Latina factory workers and the struggles they face based on the 2002 film starring America Ferrera, and “Buena Vista Social Club,” the world-famous documentary turned musical.

Two very different stories that are adding new chapters to a history that is still unfolding one show at a time.

For CUNY TV, this is Juan Torres-Falcon.

[♪] [♪] >>As we just saw, “Buena Vista Social Club” has added to the rich history of Latinos on Broadway.

The Tony Award-winning show features the company of musicians, dancers, and actors from across the Cuban diaspora.

>>That's right.

We're about to take a closer look at how this musical, sung entirely in Spanish, became a milestone for Latino storytelling on Broadway.

>>There is a music studio in Old Havana.

Right now, you and I are a thousand miles away.

But a sound like this, it tends to travel.

>>Last season, Buena Vista Social Club” opened on Broadway to critical acclaim.

At a time when new musicals struggled, “Buena Vista” thrived, playing to packed audiences and honored with Tony Awards, a show for Latinos about Latinos.

The story resonates so deeply because of what it evokes.

>>I was surprisingly overwhelmed with emotion the first time I saw it.

I think what it reached that was very touching to me was this idea of who are we where we're from?

Who are we when we leave that behind?

>>Ramírez is referring to the dilemma of the Cuban diaspora.

It is articulated in the musical when Compay Segundo says there were two types of Cubans, those who stayed and those who left.

One who stayed was Omara Portuondo, while her sister, Haydee, they fled to safety in Miami.

>>Omara wound up being the one — whose name I currently remember.

And now we look at her and think, wow, you're so strong for staying behind and for preserving this culture.

>>Honoring the artists who forged and preserved that culture in the 1940s and ‘50s is a gift to the cast members chosen to recreate them.

Da'von T. Moody plays the young Compay Segundo, the legendary singer and guitarist in this musical, which toggles between the 1950s and 1990s.

>>Oh, I want to be a part of that so bad, and then having it come back around and being fortunate enough to be asked to be a part of the project, I was over the moon.

And for so many Afro-Latinos, I'm sure, there's not too many projects like this.

>>Ashley De La Rosa, who plays Haydee Portuondo, recognizes the golden opportunity for Latinos to express and explore their heritage.

>>I got to discover a lot of things about my AfroLatinidad, and I also got to really cultivate and nourish a lot of aspects of my AfroLatinidad.

>>The success of “Buena Vista Social Club” is all the more impressive given its unprecedented reach to non-Spanish speaking audiences even though the songs remain in Spanish.

>>I really think it's the power of the music being so moving and inspiring and something that, even if you don't understand the language or it's not something that you grew up with, it makes you want to move, it makes you feel something.

>>The responsibility of creating the awesome wall of sound belongs to the band, many of whom also play characters in the show.

[♪] >>Leonardo Reyna plays young Rubén González, one of the most beloved figures in Buena Vista Social Club's history.

The challenge, says Reyna, is to recapture the singular essence of the artist.

>>While there has been a paucity of Latino-themed musicals on Broadway, there is hope that the success of “Buena Vista Social Club” will change that.

>>I think that the seeds have been planted already and are currently germinating.

Our show was the little show that could, and now we're the little show that did.

We're the second-most Tony awarded show of the season.

And then, this is also the first time that two Latino shows were on Broadway at the same time.

But it's an Afro-Latino show, and the first show, all of the music is in Spanish, and also the first show where now we get to be people like us.

Every show before, “West Side Story,” “In the Heights,” was kind of like, you have to push the barrier sometimes in order for the next thing to come in.

>>I think people are able to see the success of it in all different forms, not just financially, but how it brings people together.

And I think it will cause other people to take the chance, take the risk, and maybe not see it so much as a risk in the future.

[♪] >>“Buena Vista Social Club” has been quite the Latino-centered show was on the Big White Way at the same time as “Buena Vista.” >>Despite great reviews, “Real Women Have Curves” opened and closed after only seventy-three performances.

Isabel Ortiz explores the possible reasons why.

>>♪ Hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin' hustlin' — ♪ >>From an East Los Angeles garment factory to the bright lights of Broadway.

“Real Women Have Curves” premiered in 2025, a Latina led musical celebrating joy, sisterhood, and the women behind the scenes.

Led by director and Tony Award-winning choreographer Sergio Trujillo, the show arrived in a season where another Latin-centered musical, “Buena Vista Social Club,” also opened, raising the question, can Broadway make room for both?

>>I think last season we had our record 14-15 original Broadway musicals, and I'm not sure that Broadway can function with that many new original musicals.

I think part of what's happening in this country with immigration is a lack of understanding about who we are as a culture.

Was the marketing, the right marketing?

Did they have people that understood what we were presenting?

>>The cast of “Real Women Have Curves” took their final bow after just seventy-three performances.

Despite strong reviews, their curtain fell sooner than many had hoped.

No one saw the show's rise and its challenges more closely than Florencia Cuenca, who stepped into the role of Estela every night.

>>The show did end up closing on June 29, despite strong audience response.

Why do you think that is?

>>The Broadway business, they don't know how to market — do marketing for Latine shows.

They were saying it's about joy and fun and dreams.

And I was like, yeah, but also to have all that, you need to have the dark side too.

And they were scared about talking about that "darker" side of the play and the musical.

>>The musical balances joy with harsh realities.

Ana, the only US-born child in her immigrant family, works long hours in the family garment factory while chasing her dreams of college in New York City, carrying the weight of her ambitions and the fear that ICE could upend everything.

>>There was a very specific moment where the factory next door gets raided.

This was one of those moments where silence was a powerful thing, and the women were crying, our women were crying.

And the audience was just leaning forward, and I could feel the tension in the audience, it was palpable.

>>Stepping into the role of Estela wasn't just another part for Florencia.

It was personal.

As the first Mexican immigrant to originate a lead role on Broadway, she brought her own journey straight to the stage.

>>When I started auditioning, I was like, oh God, I'm so different.

I have an accent, my body type, my skin color.

So I was like, okay, I have two options.

One, I go back to Mexico, or two, I stay here and I start telling my own stories in my own way, and I start to create a box that I do fit in.

I saw that they were doing the musical and I was like, oh, I am Estela, I am the person you need.

♪ Making my daydreams last.

>>For Sergio, the show was a chance to honor the woman whose work shaped his own journey.

>>My mother was a seamstress.

I am from Columbia.

I remember my mom going to work, making so many sacrifices so that I could have the life that I had.

It was really important to find a piece through which I could really say something, something in which I could inspire and empower the Latino community.

>>♪ Real women have curves.

♪ Hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin'.

♪ ♪ Hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin'.

♪ ♪ Keeping all the balls in the air; Don't let 'em ♪ ♪ drop, 'cause, ay, caramba.

>>For many Latino performers and creators, the bright lights of Broadway shine with possibility.

Right now, we're inside an exhibit called “The Making of a Broadway Show,” where you can see how a production comes together behind the scenes while performers wait for their moment in the spotlight.

>>That's right, but sometimes that spotlight is found Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway.

These spaces have long offered community, opportunity, and creative freedom that the Great White Way hasn't always made room for.

We're about to learn why so many Latino artists have found success beyond Broadway, and how that tradition continues today.

>>I thought that when I came back to New York after college, that I was going to be able to do Shakespeare and play Hedda Gabler and do all of the classics, and right away I was limited.

But working at the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, there were no limits.

>>That artistic freedom to create without compromise is exactly what the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater and its founder, Míriam Colón, offered Latino actors and playwrights Off-Broadway when she launched it back in 1967.

It was one of the first bilingual theater companies in the country that developed hundreds of Latino artists.

>>This theater is the realization of a dream.

The role of a theater is supposed to be the cultivation of those creators, of those playwrights that are going to observe the situation of the Latinos right here in this country and develop the ability to create a drama that can touch your heart.

>>It was really special because, first of all, I didn't really know that it existed.

That first year, I did the play there, we went around into the community and performed.

I saw, wow, we really have our own community, and we have our own playwrights and our own directors and a community of actors.

>>That sense of community grew out of deliberate city investment.

In the late ‘60s, then-mayor John Lindsay's arts funding supported Colón's Puerto Rican Traveling Theater and helped bring cultural resources into underrepresented neighborhoods.

>>At that time, there was very little to no representation of Latinos on Broadway.

The contract that Míriam had at the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater on West 47th Street, which was just one block away from those Broadway theaters, and that really made you feel like you were about this close.

>>She brought her vision to action, and she created a platform that, at that moment, was very, very limited for many of us.

And then she was a really good collaborator and had good friendships with the other directors that were emerging and the other theaters that were emerging all together.

>>Those other theaters include El Repertorio Español, INTAR, and Pregones, to name a few.

Together, they form the backbone of Latino performance in New York City.

Pregones eventually partnered with Colón's Puerto Rican Traveling Theater in 2013.

>>She began to feel the weight of her age and the future and said, you know, maybe we should think about doing things together.

We began doing things together, it was very organic.

When you have people who are creating the environment, producing the environment, financing the project, if they are in sync with what's available in our field, I think that the results are very beneficial to our community, to our theater community.

>>And that's the very reason why Latinos have found more success off Broadway than on.

>>Hopefully the theaters have the opportunity to experiment and to take risks.

The commercial theater, the commercial venues of Broadway, it's harder for them to experiment and feel safe.

>>And many Broadway hits actually start Off-Broadway.

>>”In the Heights” had its first reading at El Repertorio Español.

>>The Public Theater, they created “A Chorus Line” and “Hamilton,” and that sealed the deal because once you create a show like that, it runs on Broadway forever.

>>Plus, Off-Broadway doesn't only serve as a pipeline for Broadway, but also for what's next in the world of television and film.

>>All of the theater writers and theater actors become your film and television actors.

The theater is the training ground, it's where we're able to tell our stories and develop our talents in a safe and nurturing space.

>>I believe the future of Latinos on Broadway is pretty bright.

I think that we know that it's no longer impossible.

We're part of a movement that is making sure that those doors open not only on stage, but on the creative side, on the production side.

It's landing where it needs the land, but there is a ways to go.

We still have quite a bit of work to do.

[♪] >>Broadway's tomorrow is being built today.

And for many young Latinos, it starts with a program where budding performers learn to sing, act, and dance toward center stage.

>>As we celebrate Latinos on Broadway, we have to look at its future.

Correspondent Anny Ruiz Huayamabe found two organizations that are helping young performers build the skills they'll need to shine on the stage.

>>This is how Broadway's next generation of Latino artists at R.Evolución Latina is getting ready to take the stage.

>>R.Evolución Latina has been around for eighteen years.

It started when I got into “In the Heights,” because I realized that we could represent our Latino community in so many more ways.

>>Luis Salgaldo, a Puerto Rican director and choreographer with a Broadway background, created R.Evolución Latina to give young artists the training and confidence to grow on and off the stage.

>>In the business, you are finding a comfort zone space where you can exercise your training, and you're doing that to then go audition and expose yourself and be ready for when they say no.

Because we train them to think, I dare to go beyond.

Beyond what?

And sometimes the beyond what is beyond the no that you might receive in the industry.

That's one side.

The other side is spiritual.

It's human.

It's community based, right?

It's the idea that we're not only training people to become artists, we're training people to be a better person of our society.

>>Latinos have reshaped the Broadway landscape, bringing fresh stories, energy, and perspectives.

>>I was actually on a Broadway stage last year for “Red Bucket Follies” in the New Amsterdam Theatre, thanks to R.Evolución Latina.

>>How was that experience?

>>It was amazing, it was insane.

It was like a dream come true.

>>After taking classes at R.Evolución Latina, students have the tools to book a Broadway show.

Each rehearsal builds skills and discipline.

R.Evolución Latina trains adults throughout the year and opens its doors to children in the summer.

>>We start the year with adult educational programs.

We provide them with two to three weeks of free training: Shakespeare, acting, singing, dancing, Suzuki, all the values possible.

>>And while R.Evolución Latina is cultivating new voices, another organization is also bringing the arts directly into the classroom.

>>♪ Who likes to see a little kid cry?

♪ >>Inside Broadway is a children's theater company, New York City based, and we've been around since 1982.

We currently have about 120 schools that we work with.

About 100,000 children participate in our programs.

We have Build A Musical, we do Shakespeare, dance, cultural folk tales and dance with our students.

>>From script reading to singing, acting, and dancing, the students immerse themselves in every part of a production.

>>It's important that they know that that's there, that that's a resource, giving them the chance to perform.

So, by going into these schools and having programs that they can be a part of, it gives them that platform.

>>They're preparing not just for the shows, but for a career in theater, like fifteen-year-old Sienna Calderon.

Sienna's passion reflects what these programs are all about, helping kids imagine themselves on a Broadway stage.

>>It's really nice to see these people throughout the years help me get to where I am.

Without them, I would've never discovered my interest in what I love doing, like musical theater, singing, acting, dancing.

And yeah, there are people that are always helping me and always there for me and give me big opportunities like this.

>>Do you really want to be a Broadway star?

>>I do.

In October, I saw two musicals.

I saw “The Great Gatsby” and I saw “Operation Mincemeat.” I saw them so close and up in person.

There was an orchestra, and I was looking at it, and there's just so many things I want to be a part of, and that's one of them.

The people, the cast, the family, the costumes, the set, the songs, they're just, they're really interesting and fascinating, and nobody really gets to get opportunities like that or even a job like that.

It's just amazing.

Together, these programs show that Broadway's next generation is already taking shape, learning, growing, and bringing new energy to the stage.

For CUNY TV, I'm Anny Ruiz Huayamabe.

>>Wow, those young and inspiring performers remind us that talent can come from anywhere, it just needs a door to open.

>>And as we think about who gets to step through those doors, remember this: the future of Broadway shines brightest when Latino artists are part of the spotlight.

Their stories, voices, and visions will continue shaping American theater in powerful ways.

>>That is so true.

The heart of Broadway will definitely grow stronger when more cultures take center stage.

I'm Tinabeth Piña.

>>And I'm Patrick Pacheco.

We'll see you next time.

♪ [closing music] ♪ ♪