For Real Women Have Curves' Aline Mayagoitia, the Road to Broadway Started with Party Tricks and Jennifer Lopez

Age: 30

Hometown: Aline Mayagoitia (uh-LEEN ma-ya-GOY-tya) grew up in Austin, Texas, but spent her first 10 years in Mexico City where much of her family still lives. “I claim both with equal pride.”

Current Role: The actress is making her Broadway debut in Real Women Have Curves at the James Earl Jones Theatre. She plays Itzel, an undocumented worker at Carmen García’s sewing factory.

Credits: Her stage credits include regional productions of In the Heights, Evita, Into the Woods, Kinky Boots, A Crossing: A Dance Musical and Cabaret. Off-Broadway, she performed in Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation at the York Theatre, and played Katherine Howard in the national tour of SIX from 2022 to 2024. Her screen credits include the HBO series Love Life, and she appears in the film adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring Jennifer Lopez and directed by Bill Condon, set for an October release.

Don’t Mess with Texas
Mayagoitia spent her early years in Mexico City either going to set with her father, telenovela star Alberto Mayagoitia, or hanging around the musicals her mother, Lilia Sixtos, was directing. “I was just watching her run rehearsals for Saturday Night Fever, West Side Story and Annie,” she says. She joined the fun on stage in the latter as one of Miss Hannigan’s orphans. Then, she says, “There was a moment in Mexico City where it got pretty unsafe.” Facilitated by her father’s American citizenship, her family decided to move to Austin, Texas where her arts education was able to thrive. “I danced at Ballet Austin and I did every children's theater opportunity possible.” While the arts saturated her with American culture, her identity stayed firmly tied to Mexico. And then there was the U.S.-Mexico border culture that made her feel right at home. “Everyone is a little Mexican in Texas,” she says. “Even the white people are super Mexican.”

Go Blue!
Like so many of the actors scattered across Broadway stages (including her castmate and longtime bestie Mason Reeves), Mayagoitia attended the University of Michigan’s musical theater BFA program—and made the absolute most of it. “In Mexico, college is free,” she says. “For me to look at the Michigan price tag and ask my parents to give me that, it was like, ‘Cool. So I'm going to take twice the credits every semester and take advantage of every beautiful studio and every space.’” While she was there, she tried on every hat: producing, directing, choreographing, makeup, lighting. “Because of the way I was raised, I'm just so aware of how lucky we are to have the resources we do in the U.S. That's just something I never have lost sight of.”

Broadway Divas and Pop Queens
“I did every production of In the Heights in America,” Mayagoitia jokes, recapping her post-graduation resume, which also includes starring turns in regional productions of Evita and Cabaret. In between, she made her New York debut in Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation where she spoofed the divas of Moulin Rouge! (Karen Olivo), Frozen (Caissie Levy) and the most recent Broadway revival of Oklahoma! (Rebecca Naomi Jones). Her college training proved invaluable: “When you go to musical theater school, those are your drunk party tricks.” She promises an impeccable Donna Murphy, and is particularly proud of her Anaïs Mitchell, the folk-singing creator of Hadestown. (That one turned out to be too niche for even her Forbidden Broadway audition.) Then came the tour of SIX—a year-and-a-half-long stint as the Ariana Grande-tinged Tudor Queen Katherine Howard. “Nothing in your degree prepares you for SIX," she says, describing the relentless stamina the show demands. "When you're an undead Power Ranger drag queen, you need to be on."

Her Name Is Aurora
Mayagoitia met her Real Women Have Curves director Sergio Trujillo on the set of Kiss of the Spider Woman. He was choreographing; she was following his steps in the cast of the Jennifer Lopez-led film version of Kander and Ebb's fantastical musical, which is already getting buzz from its Sundance premiere. “It was the best days of my life to be on that set,” she says, relishing her time inside Bill Condon’s directorial vision, not to mention her shared screen time with a radiant JLo. “Watching her dancer self come out while she's also singing live and acting her face off and just being the most gorgeous creature you've ever seen—it’s unreal.” She also gushes over the film’s Valentín, Diego Luna: “As a Mexican person, Diego Luna is one of our best. I was so starstruck to meet him.” And as a bonus, “We were in a room full of the hottest Latino dancers of New York,” she says. “It was the Who’s Who of Latino Broadway.”

Becoming Itzel
“I had a very privileged and seamless immigration story,” Mayagoitia acknowledges, contrasting her own history with her character Itzel, a Guatemalan refugee living in fear of government raids. “My first priority is the people that are Itzel,” she says of her audiences, hoping the people who share Itzel’s story feel the “dignity and care” at her core. The people who are not Itzel, or have never even met an Itzel, are the next frontier. “To put a face to them,” says Mayagoitia. “They can get a glimpse into something that they've never really thought about or personalized.” For her, it’s always personal. “I have so many friends right now that are stuck in legal struggles with their immigration status,” she says, sharing how a traffic stop recently landed a friend of hers from Texas in a detention center. “It's those sorts of things that I just feel very aware of. I bring it on stage with me, for better or worse, every night.”

“If I Were a Bird…”
“I get to say sh*t on stage,” says Mayagoitia with the glee of an unsupervised child. The delicious profanity in an otherwise PG musical comes during her featured number, “If I Were a Bird”—a song that sneaks subversion through the back door. “It sounds like a little jingle,” she says, lyrics initially matching the sweet tone: “If I were a bird / I'd rise above / What feels unfair.” But Itzel’s aspirations are bigger than simple platitudes about flying free. Mayagoitia speaks for both herself and Itzel when she says, “I want to be a bird to sh*t on all the things I don’t like.” A few things that make the laundry list: politicians, touchy boyfriends, misogyny, scapegoating. “Our show is set in 1987, but it feels almost more urgent now. Which is sad,” says Mayagoitia, deflating as the expletive rush dissipates. “But here we are.”