The Actors
Elena Estér - Patricia
Linda Maria Girón - Julia
Libby Oberlin - Tessa
Sundiata Ayinde - Television Crew
Mylo Cardona - Television Crew
Daniel Eslick - Television Crew
Louel Señores - Television Crew
The Creative Team
Carlos Aceves - Set Designer/Video Co-Designer
Mylo Cardona - Assistant Stage Manager
Chelsea Gregory - Choreography and Movement
Karina Gutiérrez - Director
Heather Kelly-Laws - Stage Manager
Devon LaBelle - Props Designer
Angela Marino - Dramaturg
Claudio Andres Silva Restrepo - Lighting Designer/Video Co-Designer
Alice Ruiz - Costume Designer
Chris Sauceda - Sound Designer
Zoë Swenson-Graham - Fight Choreographer
The Sponsors
Season Sponsors
Anonymous
Craig & Kathy Moody
Don Kaufman & Carol Amyx
Chard Nelson & Jan Berman
Show Sponsors
Pepi Ross
Dream Hou$e is generously supported by a grant from the Zellerbach Family Foundation
Watch the trailer
Either click on the above photo to watch the trailer, or head over to YouTube!
About the Play
Dream Hou$e Playwright Eliana Pipes was inspired by her own upbringing to explore the themes of family legacy, and what a connection to the land means. “I was born and raised in a changing Los Angeles, in a little pocket of the city that was really gentrifying as I grew up. When I was 13, we sold our house, and my family moved. Our house had tripled in value, and that move really changed my family’s financial future for the better. But, it also meant that my family was participating in that process of gentrification. That move constituted a cultural loss.”
Director Karina Gutiérrez is a nine-year resident of Oakland who’s witnessed firsthand the cultural upheaval in Fruitvale and San Francisco’s Mission District. “Aside from gentrification, there’s this idea of upward mobility. What does that look like? For second and third generation Latinx community folk in particular, there’s this concept of selling out, to be a vendido,” says Gutiérrez. “It brings up the question of what you give up, the price that it takes to establish roots in a place: What took five generations to build, can be sold in one generation. There’s always an opportunity cost there.”
Dream Hou$e takes place while the sisters are selling their house on a popular reality television series, a scenario Eliana Pipes devised in response to her feelings around commodifying her own life experiences for white audiences. “Because the majority of subscribing theatre audiences are white, as an artist of color, I sometimes felt as though I was being asked to sell my cultural pain for money. I wanted that money, I wanted the recognition and the status. I wanted to be in those spaces. And I was grappling with gaze: Who’s watching who and who’s buying what and for what price? Those factors together really pushed the play forward.”
Eliana Pipes’ play Dream Hou$e had its world premiere in a Spring 2022 co-production with the Alliance Theater, Long Wharf Theater, and Baltimore Center Stage. Broadway World says of the debut, “All the elements combine to captivate the audience while giving us plenty to think about, during the play and long after…not one to miss.”
Watch an Interview with Playwright Eliana Pipes & Director Karina Gutiérrez
Either click on the above photo to watch the trailer, or head over to YouTube!
About Eliana Pipes
Eliana Pipes is a queer, Black/white/Puerto Rican artist based in her home town of Los Angeles. Eliana’s plays include DREAM HOU$E (world premiere co-production with the Alliance Theater, Long Wharf Theater, 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 (The Playwright's Realm Scratchpad Series, UCSB LaunchPad), Stand and Wait (The Fire This Time Festival) and more. As a filmmaker she was awarded the Academy Gold Fellowship for Women through the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the inaugural WAVE Grant through Wavelength Productions to support the production of her upcoming animated short film ¡Nails!. As a screenwriter she recently completed a romantic comedy feature screenplay for Foton Pictures and Naim Media Group.
About Karina Gutiérrez
Karina Gutiérrez (she/her) is a Bay Area-based actor, director, dramaturg, and scholar. She has previously directed projects for Bay Area Children’s Theatre, Crowded Fire Theatre, The Playwright’s Foundation, and Stanford University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of History, Historiography, and Performance Studies at Santa Clara University. Like her artistic practice, her scholarly work concentrates on the intersection of politics and performance, social justice, with a focus on new Latinx works.
What is Gentrification?
Among all low-income households in the Bay Area, 31% live in gentrifying neighborhoods and 9% live in neighborhoods at risk of gentrifying. Almost half of low-income households of color in the Bay Area live in neighborhoods that are gentrifying or are at risk of gentrification. During housing booms like the one we’re experiencing now, market rents rise fastest in low-income neighborhoods that are in proximity to richer neighborhoods. Many low-income communities of color, which have historically suffered economic neglect and disinvestment, are now at risk for rapidly rising rents due to gentrification. While Richmond and Mountain View recently won rent control measures, three-quarters of Bay Area renter households remain unprotected, and existing controls do not limit rent increases between tenancies or cover newer homes. Learn more.
