Josefina López, the celebrated Mexican-American award-winning playwright and screenwriter best known for creating and authoring the play and co-authoring the film “Real Women Have Curves,” who was an undocumented 5-year-old immigrant when she migrated with her family from San Luis Potosi, Mexico to the United States in 1974 to settle in Boyle Heights, will be making her Broadway debut on Sunday, April 27.

López was undocumented for 13 years before she received amnesty in 1987, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen in 1995. It was 37 years ago in March 1988, at the age of 18, when López presented some scenes from her play in progress, “Real Women Have Curves” at the INTAR (International Arts Relations) Hispanic Playwrights in Residence Laboratory led by playwright María Irene Fornés in New York City. By June 1988 López presented her first full draft of the play at INTAR.

Like the leading protagonist Ana García in her play and film who wins a journalism fellowship that takes her to New York City, 37 years later, after she created the play, López, who is the model for the character of Ana García, returns to New York. López’s original play and her 2002 Sundance Film Festival audience and Jury Award-winning film of the same name, written with George LaVoo, are the source materials for the new Broadway show, “Real Women Have Curves: The Musical” with opening night set for Sunday, April 27 at the James Earl Jones Theatre in New York City.