The production opened May 2, 2025, during the theater’s centennial season and featured the first all-Latino cast in Omaha Community Playhouse history.
Originally published in May 2025. Updated Oct. 7, 2026.
By Kassidy Arena, Nebraska Public Media News
Monica Mora-Handlos arrived early at the Omaha Community Playhouse on opening night for American Mariachi. Wearing a colorful floral dress that matched the spirit of the production, she attended with her husband and daughter.
Mora-Handlos said one of her daughter’s friends was performing in the show, making the night especially exciting for her. Seeing people who looked like their family represented onstage added another layer of meaning to the experience.
Before the performance, the Omaha Community Playhouse welcomed high school mariachi bands and student folkloric dance groups.
American Mariachi brought a Mexican American story to an Omaha stage
American Mariachi is not a musical but a “play with music,” as director Alex Rodriguez described it. Rodriguez also served as the production’s vocal director.
The story follows Lucha, a young Mexican American woman living in the United States in the 1970s who dreams of forming an all-female mariachi band.
Rodriguez, who was born in Cuba, was then co-artistic director of the Omaha Community Playhouse. Staging a production centered on Latino characters and family experiences carried personal significance for him.
His own path into theater began later than that of many performers. Rodriguez said that during college he rarely encountered roles in which he could see himself. Eventually being cast in a part written specifically for a Latino actor changed the way he viewed his place in theater and reinforced the importance of representation onstage.
He reflected that the experience gave him a sense of what it must feel like for performers who routinely see roles written with them in mind.
Playwright José Cruz Gonzalez (left) and director Alex Rodriguez during opening night of American Mariachi at the Omaha Community Playhouse on Friday, May 2, 2025. Photo: Kassidy Arena/Nebraska Public Media News.
The production also marked a first for American Mariachi
The May 2, 2025, opening was significant beyond the Omaha Community Playhouse. It was also the first time American Mariachi had been staged by a community theater.
Playwright José Cruz Gonzalez, who wrote the play in 2015, traveled from California to attend the opening.
Gonzalez said he had always imagined the play finding a home in community theaters, particularly in places where audiences may have fewer opportunities to see stories reflecting their own experiences.
The bilingual play was written so both English- and Spanish-speaking audiences could follow the story.
Rodriguez said the production also offered an opportunity to welcome audiences who had not previously felt represented at the Playhouse.
For Gonzalez, seeing the work staged at the Omaha institution also showed how an established theater could make room for new voices while continuing to evolve.
The cast learned to play instruments for American Mariachi
DeAnna Williams, then the Omaha Community Playhouse’s director of social impact, said representation onstage could also influence who saw themselves as having a place in theater.
Williams recalled how seeing performers who looked like her when she was growing up influenced her own interest in theater and helped show her that a career in the field was possible.
Casting American Mariachi presented an additional challenge. The actors needed to be Latino, the production relied on volunteer performers and several characters also had to play instruments as part of the story.
Four of the five actresses portraying members of the mariachi group did not know how to play their characters’ instruments when the process began. They started lessons in January to prepare for the May opening.
The first all-Latino cast arrived after 100 years of productions
The opening performance played to a nearly full house.
Rodriguez became the first Latino artistic director at the Omaha Community Playhouse. In 2025, he announced that he would leave the position to move to the Northeast and be closer to family, while expressing interest in returning to Omaha as a guest director.
At the time, Rodriguez pointed to Omaha’s growing Hispanic population and said he hoped the work done during his two years at the Playhouse would continue after his departure.
After 100 years of productions, American Mariachi became the first Omaha Community Playhouse show to feature an all-Latino cast telling a story centered on its own community.
Williams said the theater intended to continue creating opportunities for more playwrights and actors of color while also presenting more work written by women.
Alex Rodriguez returned to Omaha Community Playhouse in 2025
The return Rodriguez anticipated during American Mariachi did happen. Months later, he came back as a guest director for Marisela Treviño Orta’s The River Bride, which ran from Aug. 15 through Sept. 14, 2025.
American Mariachi, meanwhile, closed June 1, 2025, and remains part of the Playhouse’s centennial-season archive.
Omaha Community Playhouse is in its 2026-27 season
The Omaha Community Playhouse has continued with a new slate of productions. As of October 2026, the theater is in its 2026-27 season, which opened in September with Come From Away and includes productions scheduled through June 2027.
The fall lineup includes Evil Dead: The Musical, running Oct. 2 through Nov. 8, followed by two holiday productions: A Christmas Carol, scheduled for Nov. 20 through Dec. 20, and A Charlie Brown Christmas, running Dec. 4 through Dec. 20.
The season continues in 2027 with Dear Evan Hansen, Pride and Prejudice, Into the Woods, Noises Off and The Roommate. Mean Girls is scheduled to close the season with performances from May 28 through June 27, 2027.
The Omaha Community Playhouse 2026-27 season calendar lists the current productions and performance dates.
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