Award-winning Refracted Theatre Company is proud to announce the cast and creative team of Dream Hou$e, written by Eliana Pipes and directed by Laura Alcalá Baker, September 12 - October 18, at the Den Theatre, 1331 N Milwaukee Ave. Previews are Friday, Sept. 12 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 13 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 14 at 6 p.m. and Wednesday, Sept. 17 at 7:30 p.m., with a press opening on Thursday, Sept. 18 at 7:30 p.m. The regular performance is Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Tickets go on sale Tuesday, July 29 for $12 (previews) - $40, before handling fees, and may be purchased at RefractedCo.com.
Two sisters are appearing on an HGTV-style reality show to sell their family home, hoping to capitalize on the gentrification in their “changing neighborhood.” As they perform for the camera the show starts to slip into the surreal: one sister grapples with turmoil in the family’s ancestral past and the other learns how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the family’s future. Dream Hou$e, which earned both the Kendeda Award and Steinberg Playwriting Award in 2021, is a crowd-pleasing comedy with a twist that asks: What is the cultural cost of progress in America? And is cashing in always selling out?
The cast of Dream Hou$e includes Jacki Hydock (she/her, Patricia); Elena Victoria Feliz (she/her, Julia); Ashlyn Lozano (she/her,Tessa); Collin Quinn Rice (they/them, The Crew); Melody Murray (she/her, The Crew); Madison Hill (they/them, The Crew); Victoria Angelina Cruz (she/her, Julia U/S); Jessica Little (she/her, Patricia U/S) and Spencer Diaz Tootle (she/her/ella, Tessa U/S).
The creative team includes Eliana Pipes (she/her, playwright); Laura Alcalá Baker (she/they, director); Alix Rhode (she/her, assistant director); Anna Vu (she/her, stage manager); Patrick Starner (he/him, production manager); Becca Venable (she/her, technical director); Lynde Rosario (she/her, dramaturg); Sierra Walker (she/her, lighting designer); Eleanor Kahn (she/her, scenic designer); Kotryna Hilko (she/her, costume designer); Ethan Korvne (he/him, sound designer and composer); John Boesche (he/him, media designer); Molly May (they/them, co-prop designer); Roman Jones (they/them, co-prop designer); Ray Sanchez (he/him, hair and wig designer) and Henrí Mitchelle (she/her, makeup designer).
ABOUT ELIANA PIPES, playwright, Dream Hou$e
Eliana Pipes is a writer, filmmaker and performer. Her plays include Dream Hou$e (world premiere co-production with the Alliance Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre and Baltimore Center Stage), Bite Me (South Coast Repertory Pacific Playwright’s Festival, NNPN National New Play Showcase), Unfuckwithable (Drama League DirectorFest), Cowboy and the Moon (Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, NNPN MFA Playwright's Workshop), Lorena: a Tabloid Epic (New York Theatre Workshop Dartmouth Residency, The Playwright's Realm Scratchpad Series), Stand and Wait (The Fire This Time Festival) and others.
Her writing awards include the Alliance Kendeda Prize, KCACTF Harold & Mimi Steinberg Award and Ken Ludwig Scholarship, Leah Ryan Fund Prize, National Latine Playwright Award, Dr. Floyd Gaffney National Playwriting Prize and a three-time finalist status for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwriting Conference. She holds new play commissions from Two River Theater and South Coast Repertory.
As a filmmaker, she was awarded the Academy Gold Fellowship for Women through the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She was also awarded the inaugural WAVE Grant through Wavelength Productions to support the production of her animated narrative short film “¡Nails!,” which premiered at Outfest LA LGBTQ+ Film Festival and earned her the Outfest x Colin Higgins Foundation Youth Filmmaker Grant. BA Columbia University, MFA Boston University.
ABOUT LAURA ALCALÁ BAKER, director, Dream Hou$e
Laura Alcalá Baker is a Chicago-based director and new play developer specializing in unearthing the missing canon and reimagining the existing one. Her work lives in the intersection of a mixed child, one and both – Mexican American. She has developed and directed new works such as Matthew Paul Olmos' a home what howls (Steppenwolf), Isaac Gomez’s The Leopard Play, or sad songs for lost boys (Steep Theatre), The Way She Spoke (DCASE, GTC), Omer Abbas Salem’s The Secretaries (First Floor Theater), RUST by Nancy García Loza (Goodman/New Stages) and the audio drama BRAVA (Make Believe Association), which is available on all podcasting platforms. Other select works include I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (Denver Center for the Performing Arts), Somewhere Over the Border (City Theatre/People's Light), Anna in the Tropics (Remy Bumppo), Bull (Paramount) and The Pillowman (The Gift Theatre).
ABOUT REFRACTED THEATRE COMPANY
Refracted Theatre Company was started by co-founders Graham Miller and Tova Wolff in 2019 in New York City. At the time of Refracted’s conception, Miller and Wolff observed a fractured nation, polarized and insular in its political/social motivations, a world inhabited by people deeply distrustful of those with whom they did not share ideological overlap. Miller and Wolff ventured to create a theatre company that would challenge their audience’s biases, a space to become a mental and emotional fitness center where audiences could use theatre to grapple with the issues/feelings/forces in their lives. They wanted to inspire healthy discourse and empathic discussions, to encourage people to seek nuance and understanding again.
In Refracted’s first season ever, they were able to produce a Refracted Reading...before everything came to a screeching halt. The pandemic changed the landscape of theatrical engagement in a way Wolff and Miller could never have predicted. But they stuck true to their mission, which seeks not only to provide Refracted content, but also Refracted form. While most theaters shuttered their doors, the co-artistic directors relied on adaptivity and innovation to continue to produce safety driven, live theatrical events that combined audio, immersive and movement theatre. In 2021, Refracted moved from New York to Chicago, where it continues to invite audiences to engage with new forms of storytelling, forms that are sure to upend their expectations.
In the four years since its arrival in Chicago, Refracted has set a new standard for storefront theatre in a city renowned for its theatre scene. In 2023, the company was heralded as a “Rising Star in Storefront Theatre” by NewCity, nominated for the Broadway In Chicago Emerging Theatre Award, had sold out performances, received rave reviews and swept the Joseph Jefferson Awards, winning eight awards for its production of Tambo & Bones by Dave Harris, including Best Production. In 2024, Refracted’s production of Coronation, written by Laura Winters and directed by Tova Wolff, received the most Jeff Non-Equity nominations for a non-musical offering and won three Jeff Non-Equity Awards for lighting Design (Garrett Bell), projection design (Abboye Lawrence) and supporting actor (Jodi Gage). Refracted aims to always remain a home for people seeking to understand the world through a more nuanced, empathic lens. The truth, like a prism, has many sides and in order to see the light, Refracted asks to show the spectrum of colors that comprise it.
Award-winning Refracted Theatre Company is proud to announce the cast and creative team of Dream Hou$e, written by Eliana Pipes and directed by Laura Alcalá Baker, September 12 - October 18, at the Den Theatre, 1331 N Milwaukee Ave. Previews are Friday, Sept. 12 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 13 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 14 at 6 p.m. and Wednesday, Sept. 17 at 7:30 p.m., with a press opening on Thursday, Sept. 18 at 7:30 p.m. The regular performance is Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Tickets go on sale Tuesday, July 29 for $12 (previews) - $40, before handling fees, and may be purchased at RefractedCo.com.
Dream Hou$e is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc, ConcordTheatricals.com.
Dream Hou$e is sponsored by the Feinberg Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council and the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation.
