A single Latina mother, applying for a U.S. passport, gets caught in an immigration court nightmare spurred by a years-old misdemeanor for pot possession. That’s the driving action in Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars, a world premiere by local playwright Sandra Delgado, who also heads the cast.

As relevant as that story line feels today, the drama takes place in 2015. “You know, people love Obama, but in some communities, he became known as the ‘deporter in chief,’ ” says Delgado, the daughter of Colombian immigrants. She’s been developing the script for seven years and had dabbled with setting it during the first Trump term, but “I felt that would take over, because so many of us are so quick to blame Trump for everything. This problem isn’t about Obama, either. We’ve always had a broken immigration system.” Trump did influence the play in one regard: After his 2024 reelection, TimeLine Theatre fast-tracked the production.

Stars is Delgado’s second full-length play, following 2017’s La Havana Madrid, inspired by a long-gone ’60s nightclub in Lake View, a few blocks from where she grew up. Its success — with multiple revivals, including one at the Goodman and two in California — fueled Delgado’s intention to tell more underexposed stories. An actor before becoming a playwright, she relishes playing Clara, the Stars protagonist who finds little protection in being a legal permanent resident. “The news puts so much emphasis on undocumented people, but there’s this hazy middle area,” Delgado says.

In Stars, she challenges preconceptions of the immigrant experience. “La Havana Madrid planted a seed in me for why I write,” Delgado says. “It isn’t just, ‘Let’s sit in the dark and have fun watching this story.’ There’s a higher purpose to my work: to educate, empower, and activate people.”

TimeLine’s Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars runs October 8 to November 9 at Lookingglass Theatre.