In Brian Quijada’s Somewhere over the Border, Dorothy becomes Reina and the yellow brick road begins in El Salvador. The musical draws on the playwright’s mother’s immigration in the 1970s. Reina gathers companions and moves north while holding on to the child she left behind. Oz is a recognizable map for the audience, but the cost of this journey cannot be filed under fantasy. The question is what the familiar story lets a theater show without pretending that a border crossing ends when the traveler reaches a gate.
Teatro Vista produced the work in Chicago in its 2021–22 season. People’s Light later staged it in Pennsylvania in 2024, with Laura Alcalá Baker directing and Michael Meketa Sanchez as music director. Mosaic Theater’s Washington, DC, production began September 10, 2026, and is scheduled through October 18. Those dates make this a work still moving among audiences, not a single premiere preserved in a press clipping. Each company has to decide how its own city meets a Central American story.
The score names cumbia, mariachi, boleros, rock, and hip-hop across its production descriptions. That range can sound like a playlist of cultural labels if treated carelessly. Onstage musicians and a credited music director make the transitions part of a performed journey. Reina crosses places, alliances, and sonic worlds; no one rhythm must stand in for all of Latin America. The musical’s geography is especially valuable because U.S. discussions of migration often compress distinct countries into a single border image.
At People’s Light, the company listed a Reina understudy and offered Spanish-language access for selected performances. At Mosaic, the schedule includes intergenerational matinees and events with immigrant-rights and local arts partners. These choices do not become evidence that every patron felt included. They do show that a production’s public life extends past its synopsis. Mosaic announced a post-show conversation with the AMICA Center for Immigrant Rights about the present conditions facing immigrants. A theater can ask who can attend, what language helps them enter, and what local conversations follow the curtain.
Oz gives Reina companions and obstacles; Quijada gives her a son whose future is part of every decision. The fantasy frame can make room for humor and music without making the risk of separation vanish. That tension is the work’s most specific challenge to its audience. It invites the pleasure of a familiar quest, then asks us to remember that the woman at its center has obligations the original Dorothy never carried.