Is cashing in always selling out? Theatreworks poses the question in its production of Dream Hou$e by Eliana Pipes: a new play featuring two Latina sisters on an HGTV-style reality show. After their mother passes, Patricia and Julia turn to the fictional show Flip It and List It (with its bubbly host, Tessa) to help sell their childhood home in a now trendy neighborhood. Soon, their mother’s home comes to represent both the cultural legacy of their past, and potential for a future they’ve only dreamed of. If you’ve ever renovated a home or sold a family’s estate home, you can understand how the comedy of Dream Hou$e has a dark edge. The performance also blends magical realism and reality TV tropes into an intimate look at how the homes we live in and the memories they carry shape us all.
“I picture myself sitting in the audience with my own sister and how much fun we would have just watching these two sisters do their sister thing, watching that coded language and how they can kind of rattle each other’s cages really quickly, but also have each other’s backs in a way that only sisters can,” says director GerRee Hinshaw. “I think anyone who’s got a story of family attachment to a home, anyone who understands the ways that these sisters relate to their home, and the way the home then also relates to them — anyone who has any kind of relationship to a place that speaks to them of their family heritage — would really resonate with this show.”
Along with the lauded Hinshaw, the cast of Dream Hou$e is entirely Colorado based. Theater fans will recognize Chelley Canales from Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue. Katie Medved starred in The Good Woman of Setzuan and Much Ado About Nothing, and Laura Chavez is new to Theatreworks.
Dream Hou$e opens at the Ent Center Feb. 1 and runs through Feb. 18. Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday with a 2 p.m. Saturday matinee and a 4 p.m. Sunday matinee. UCCS students are always free, and discounts are available for educators, military and youth tickets.
Director, Designer, and Scholar Chats about the show happen before Thursday performances at 6:45 p.m. And you can hear from the actors during talkbacks after the performance on Sunday, Feb. 11.
Find details and get tickets at entcenterforthearts.org.
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