A new play featuring the voices of students in the California-Mexico Dreamers Study Abroad Program, DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) students and community members, Dreamers: Aquí y Allá will kick off California Repertory Company (Cal Rep)’s spring season.

The play opens Friday, February 16 at the Cal State Long Beach (CSULB) Studio Theater and represents the stories of 800,000 Dreamers whose lives were jolted by the cancellation of DACA.

“Dreamers: Aquí y Allá represents the best of what we do at Cal Rep. Cal Rep focuses on stories by and for Californians – and this piece is exactly that,” Artistic Director Jeff Janisheski said in a statement. “The majority of Dreamers are living in California; and over a 1,000 Dreamers are on campus. This piece aims to tell their story.”

Cal Rep, part of the CSULB Theatre Arts Department, is putting on the new play as part of its Devising Democracy series, “a four-year-long commitment to developing and producing devised work that grapples with the political, social and economic issues of our time,” according to the release.

Co-directed by Head of Voice and Speech in the Cal State Long Beach (CSULB) Theatre Arts Department Andrea Caban and MFA Acting Pedagogy student Julie Granata-Hunicutt, Dreamers is a collaboration with California-Mexico Studies Center (CMSC), a nonprofit organization founded by CSULB professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos that gives Dreamers the chance to study abroad and visit their birthplace in Mexico.

“We have heard from lawmakers on both sides of this issue, time and time again, on the fate of the Dreamers; but these Dreamers are so much more than an issue. I thought it was time to hear from the Dreamers directly,” said Caban said in a statement.

Cast members joined the organization on their 2017 trip to Mexico, while hundreds of hours of interviews conducted by CSULB Theatre Arts Students are integrated into the production. At the heart of the play are the stories of Americans found suddenly vulnerable to expulsion, job loss and deportation, according to the release.

Dreamers: Aquí y Allá runs through February 25. To purchase tickets, visit the website here.

The Studio Theater is located at 7th Street and East Campus Drive.