Hope can be a radical act. Especially when the world keeps insisting on fear.

“Somewhere Over the Border,” now playing at Cygnet Theatre through March 15, wraps that hope in music, metaphor, and a road-trip structure that feels at first like a fable—and then steadily reveals the cost beneath the fairy tale. The result is a production that is charming and colorful on its surface, but anchored by performances strong enough to carry its deeper weight.

Salvadoran American playwright and composer Brian Quijada based the musical on his mother Reina’s real-life immigration journey from El Salvador in 1978. Framed through the lens of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the show tracks Dorothy’s beats with their own Latin twist. Reina gathers fellow travelers, an education-seeking farmer (Luis Sherlinee), a heart-weary innkeeper (Edward Padilla), and a courage-lacking nun (Luzma Ortiz), as she makes her way toward the promise of the emerald green card in California. She is making this journey to earn money and provide a better life for her son, Fernando (Dhani Solorio), whom she has left with her mother, Julia (Crissy Guerrero).

Crissy Guerrero, Vanessa Orozco
Photo Credit: Karli Cadel Photography

Directed by Carlos Mendoza, the first act plays like a buoyant, candy-colored adventure. It’s theatrical and playful, full of humor and rhythm, propelled by the Narrator (Fernando Vega), who stitches the story together with fast-paced, rap-infused storytelling. The tone is inviting, almost storybook in its optimism, and you can feel the audience relax into the familiar structure.

That tonal flip into the second act is the show’s emotional sneak attack. The first act invites you in with color and metaphor; the second reminds you what those metaphors cost in real life.

Anchoring it all is Vanessa Orozco as Reina. Orozco is a vocal powerhouse, but more importantly, she grounds the piece in lived-in determination. Her Reina is hopeful without being naïve, desperate without losing dignity. When the tone shifts from whimsical quest to the stark terror of the border crossing, Orozco carries that pivot physically and vocally. An intense border-crossing sequence is an extraordinarily effective blend of performance, lighting, and direction, which has the audience holding its breath along with her. It’s one of the production’s most affecting moments.

Edward Padilla, Luis Sherlinee, Vanessa Orozco, Luzma Ortiz
Photo Credit: Karli Cadel Photography

The entire cast is also very strong, with Ortiz bringing laughs as the fearful nun with big dreams, Sherlinee with a sweet optimism of what a university education can bring, Padillas as a gruff but loving father missing his family, and Vegas as the narrator who keeps the story and these characters moving along. Guerrero, as Reina’s mother, is especially impactful, showing her duality, being strong for her family, but also revealing her vulnerabilities and fear for them.

The premise of the show, in adapting this yellow brick road parallel, does smooth some of the edges and the journey's danger. There’s a “let’s go on an adventure” sheen that risks softening the brutal stakes of what crossing a border actually entails. But perhaps that framing is strategic. In a world that often seems ready to vilify or erase anyone seeking entry, the fairytale structure becomes a Trojan horse. It invites audiences in gently before asking them to sit with something far more sobering.

“Somewhere Over the Border” resists becoming a political treatise. In its final moments, director Carlos Mendoza adds a meaningful touch: incorporating images of the performers’ own families into the piece. A move to highlight that this is something more personal: that behind every headline is a family, behind every policy a person, and behind every border a story.