Behind the Play: DREAM HOU$E

Thu, Jan 13
Virtual

Thursday, January 13th 2022 // 7pm
Online via zoom meeting (link will be emailed and posted on the day of the event)

ACCESS THE LIVE CONVERSATION ON THURSDAY, JAN 13, AT 7PM HERE

Join us for a special preview event with the cast and creative team of DREAM HOU$E, featuring a conversation with Director Laurie Woolery and Playwright Eliana Pipes and a performance from the cast!  This event is moderated by Amanda Watkins (Producer) with community response provided by Veronica Maldonado-Torres, President of the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GHCC). GHCC's CREAR supports Latino representation in the arts.

In DREAM HOU$E, two Latina sisters go on an HGTV-style reality show to sell their family home, hoping to capitalize on the gentrification in their “changing neighborhood.” As they perform for the camera, one sister grapples with turmoil in the family’s ancestral past while the other learns how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the family’s future. What is the cultural cost of progress in America — and is cashing in always selling out? DREAM HOU$E is the winner of the 2021/22 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition. 

Eliana Pipes is a playwright, performer and filmmaker. Her plays include Dream Hou$e (world premiere co-production at Alliance Theater, Long Wharf Theater, and Baltimore Center Stage), Unf*ckwithable (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), and Stand and Wait (The Fire This Time Festival). She's been awarded the KCACTF Harold & Mimi Steinberg Award and Ken Ludwig Scholarship, Leah Ryan Fund Prize for Emerging Women Writers, National Latinx Playwright Award, Dr. Floyd Gaffney National Playwriting Prize, and a two-time finalist status for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwriting Conference. As a filmmaker, she won 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 animated short film. BA Columbia University, MFA Playwriting Boston University. More at www.elianapipes.com

Laurie Woolery is a director, playwright, citizen artist and community organizer who works in theaters across the country including The Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory, Trinity Repertory, Goodman Theatre, Cornerstone Theater Company, and South Coast Repertory. Projects include the world premiere of Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Manahatta at both Yale Repertory and Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the world premiere musical of As You Like It co-created with Shaina Taub for the Public Theater. In 2020, Laurie produced the documentary Under the Greenwood Tree that tells the story of how the Public Works community banded together amidst the global pandemic and antiracist uprising as well as curating the national community public art installation The Seed Project on the façade of The Public Theater featuring 164 Public Works community members sharing their hopes for the future. Laurie has developed new work with diverse communities ranging from incarcerated women to residents of a Kansas town devastated by a tornado. She creates site-specific work ranging from a working sawmill in Eureka to the banks of the Los Angeles River. Laurie is the Director of Public Works at The Public Theater, a program that seeks to engage the people of New York by making them creators and not just spectators. Working with partner organizations in all 5 boroughs, Public Works invites members of diverse communities to join in the creation of ambitious works of participatory theater. Laurie is the former Associate Artistic Director of Cornerstone Theater Company, Conservatory Director at South Coast Repertory and founding member of The Sol Project. Laurie is a recipient of the Fuller Road Fellowship for Women Directors of Color, 2020 United States Artists recipient and the 2021 American for the Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities. www.lauriewoolery.com

Meet Our Generous Sponsors