‘Dream Hou$e’ @ Kitchen Dog Theater
Show photos by Matt Mrozek
—Martha Heimberg
Terrified of dealing with a pushy, manipulating realtor? You ain’t seen nothin’.
Kitchen Dog Theater’s second show of their 35th season is the regional premiere of Dream Hou$e by Los Angeles-based playwright Eliana Pipes. The production, directed by KDT co-artistic director Christopher Carlos, is also the second performance in their striking new state-of-the-art theater on Algiers Street in the Warehouse Arts District, ten years after leaving the MAC on McKinney.
As the dollar sign in the title indicates, this timely show is about money as well as dreams and the housing market. At the outset we meet two Latina sisters who’ve met up after several years; they’ve decided to “declutter” their old family home and sell it on a reality TV show designed to follow sellers through every nostalgic sigh and dreamy outburst about how they’ll spend the money once its sold.
Brisk, tightly strung Patricia (Francine Gonzalez) is the older and wiser sister who put her career as an accountant on hold while she single-handedly cared for their dying mother through a long illness. She has dutifully set up the TV show deal to maximize the selling price of their inheritance. Younger sister Julia (Bethany Mejorado) is laid-back and sunny, shows up very pregnant, and talks happily about how she loves teaching social studies to young children, a perfect job for an expecting mom because she learns so much from them — and has plenty of time to meditate. While Patricia tosses knick-knacks in a box, Julia waxes on about how their great-great grandfather built this heritage home with his own hands, and maybe they oughta think twice before selling it — on or off camera.
Enter Tessa (leggy redhead Lily Gast in toothy smile mode), the reality show hostess with the mostest audacity. This realtor salivates and fluffs her hair like a hungry animal when she sights an aging house “with good bones” in a “red hot location.” Like hell, maybe?
Tessa explains in short order that the TV show’s prop and camera crew will be taking the family home down to the joists and giving it a high-dollar makeover so’s to get the asking price to a couple million, minimum. “Just pretend that the cameras aren’t there. But never forget the cameras are there,” she tells the sisters cryptically. Also, they need “to look likable.” How surreal is that?
Of course, if nobody buys it on the show, the girls have to pony up the bucks for the work. There’s a pseudo-Faustian premise if I ever heard one. Will they sell the soul of this wonderful old house to this relentlessly cheerful realtor? “I don’t trust her,” says Julia. Duh.
The plot gets twisted (and maybe a bit out of shape when hammering on the stucco reveals a cache of old papers and keepsakes) but that’s not all. There’s something else oozing through; in these old houses you can never tell what’s under that last layer of paint.
The charm of the show is in the growing relationship between the two sisters, as each thinks of what dreams might be realized with the money from the house sale. Patricia’s given up so much. Why shouldn’t she have a nice car and maybe a country cub membership? And, down the line, Julia needs to think of college for this fetus in her belly. But at what cost?
Turns out realtor Tessa might want more from the sisters than the house, and the almighty dollar theme gets hammered even harder than the wall that bleeds some kind of gook. Hang on, what’s that in Tessa’s hand? Something funny’s going on, and it seems the stakes — and the tools — may have changed in this deal.
Set designer Clare Floyd DeVries has built a handsome mission-style interior with arched doorways, a stained wood mantelpiece, and plenty of room for the hearty crew to hoist ladders and haul off sofas and paintings and other stuff. Kudos to Sarah Duc, Lauren Hearn and James Stroman; I’d definitely hire them to pack up my house any day. Lisa Miller’s nuanced lighting design shifts to a warm yellow when Julia is looking at an old family portrait, and to an icy white when the reality show cameras flash into action.
Dream Hou$e runs one hour and 45 minutes without intermission — check it out to see if Tessa gets her price.
WHEN: April 9-May 3, 2026
WHERE: 4774 Algiers Street, Dallas
WEB: kitchendogtheater.org
