In 2003, the world premiere of Nuevo California at the San Diego REPertory Theater marked the culmination of an intensive, three-year project that brought together citizens on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border in an effort to imagine their region’s binational future. The International Border Fence, a 14-mile metal wall that divides San Diego and neighboring city Tijuana, served as the project’s springboard for both a cross-border dialogue on critical regional issues as well as the new play’s theme. San Diego REPertory Theater—together with project partners San Diego Dialogue, Centro Cultural Tijuana, and an ensemble of U.S. and Mexican artists—posed a provocative civic question to Mexican and U.S. residents of the border area: “Tear down the fence or fortify it?” Their deliberations and responses gave birth to Nuevo California, a multidisciplinary multilingual theater piece of multiple voices and viewpoints that imagines border life with the fence—and without it.

The making of Nuevo California offers insights about how project partners employed community-based dialogue for the new play’s aesthetic development, and reveals how they grappled to create a theater piece that was both “multipartial” and “good art.” The project’s pairing of San Diego Repertory Theatre and San Diego Dialogue also sheds light on the potential benefits and possible pitfalls in forging effective, mutually beneficial partnerships between arts groups and dialogue-focused organizations. Finally, as one of a handful of Animating Democracy-funded projects that features a cross-cultural dimension, Nuevo California offers a window onto the rewards and challenges of conducting community-based art projects in a transnational context.