EL OTRO OZ is Coming to the Kirk Douglas Theatre This Spring

Center Theatre Group will present the return of TheaterWorksUSA’s production El Otro Oz, a bilingual musical inspired by The Wizard of Oz from March 29 to April 13, 2025 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. El Otro Oz was awarded a Critic’s Pick by The New York Times reviewers. Tickets and information are available at CenterTheatreGroup.org. The show is recommended for everyone ages 6 and up.

This production is part of CTG: FWD which began with theatrical special events, community gatherings, and legacy projects and now expands to include an eclectic offering of plays and musicals at Center Theatre Group venues. In the last two seasons, CTG: FWD also presented TheatreworksUSA’s productions of Dog Man: The Musical, Cat Kid Comic Club: The Musical and El Otro Oz to sold out houses at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

El Otro Oz is a bilingual musical by Mando Alvarado, Tommy Newman, and Jaime Lozano, which returns to the Kirk Douglas Theatre in a reimagined production. Click your heels together tres veces and take a transformative journey with this salsa, merengue, and Mexican folk-infused musical inspired by The Wizard of Oz. As her fifteenth birthday approaches, Dora, a contemporary Latiné teenager, struggles with her family’s ideas about tradition and dreads her impending quinceañera! But, when Dora gets swept away to a strange new land, she learns how to celebrate her unique rhythm and embrace her cultural identity.

Musical Director Jaime Lozano said in El Norte, “La historia se centra en Dora (Dorothy en ‘El Mago de Oz’), una joven mexico-americana que al cumplir 15 años se siente perdida en medio de las dos culturas; rechaza sus raíces mexicanas porque sólo quiere ser estadounidense. A través del viaje que hace Dora buscará descubrir su cultura y empieza a amar realmente lo que es ella y entiende los sacrificios que hizo su madre para darle una mejor vida en Estados Unidos."

“The story focuses on Dora (Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz), a young Mexican-American girl who, upon turning 15, feels lost in the middle of two cultures; She rejects her Mexican roots because she just wants to be American. Through the journey that Dora takes she will seek to discover her culture and begins to really love what she is and understands the sacrifices that her mother made to give her a better life in the United States.”

The TheaterWorksUSA’s production of El Otro Oz has book by Mando Alvarado and Tommy Newman and music and lyrics by Jaime Lozano and Tommy Newman. The orchestrations and arrangements are by Salomon Lerner and Jaime Lozano; scenic design by Frank J. Oliva; costume design by Christopher Vergara; puppet design by Jessica Scott; original choreography by Andrea Guajardo; and original direction by Elena Araoz.