March 6 – June 14
Daryl Roth Theatre – NYC
Written and Performed by Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson
Choreographed by Tony Thomas
Directed by David Mendizabal
In Mexodus off Broadway, a fresh story reveals an untold historic era: when thousands of people escaped slavery by crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico. You know the story of the Underground Railroad that ran north, but Mexodus takes audiences on the path that ran south. Robinson and Quijada embody an escaped slave and a Mexican farmer as they forge a bond that transcends borders, and the performers tell that story with numerous instruments and live-looping technology to build up the show’s musical world in real time. Mexodus reveals a story reclaimed and a legacy repeated.
2026 Lucille Lortel Award nominations announced
Nominees have been announced for the 2026 Lucille Lortel Awards, which honor the best of Off-Broadway theatre each year.
The currently running musical Mexodus, created and performed by Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson at the Daryl Roth Theatre through June 14, leads the pack with nine nominations each, including Outstanding Musical.
Review by Raven Snook for Timeout New York 3/28
Writer-performers Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson can do many things at once, all deftly: They act, sing, rap and play instruments including guitar, harmonica, accordion, trumpet, drums and piano. Their extraordinarily edutaining two-person musical Mexodus is likewise adept at multitasking, balancing the past and the present to illuminate a little-known piece of history: how thousands of enslaved Black people in the 19th century fled to Mexico to escape bondage. Although Mexodus’s tale is fictional, it dramatizes enduring truths about solidarity as a path to freedom…
How they make that music is thrilling to watch, thanks to the “looping system architecture” conceived by sound designer Mikhail Fiksel. Using pedals located all over Riw Rakkulchon’s two-tiered shed set, Quijada and Robinson build each song by recording different elements then looping and layering them live, so the twosome aurally evokes a larger ensemble. They even incorporate the sounds of everyday objects such as scissors, boxes and a call bell into the banger-filled score, a blend of hip-hop, blues and rancheras with clever lyrics performed in English and untranslated Spanish.