Hipp Unplugged: A Staged Reading Series

Mission Statement

To provide a space for new voices (playwrights and directors) to explore stories we are not able to produce on our mainstage; to present challenging works, both in subject matter and structure; to provide a space for our company of actors and directors to take chances.

Hipp Unplugged: A Staged Reading Series aims to bring Gainesville more theater that is challenging, gives voice to underserved playwrights, and provides our company and artistic community a place to come together and grow.  With the Hipp Unplugged, you can be among the first to experience new works from promising artists in our intimate Cinema Stage.  There will be a talkback after every performance with the director and cast to discuss the works performed.
"The Hipp Unplugged reading series is a chance for the Hippodrome to explore stories we haven’t been able to put on our Mainstage, We can take chances and explore topics that are more challenging."
Stephanie Lynge
Artistic Director

Past Performances include:

Salem

by Sam Walsh

Monday, December 4, 2023 at 7 pm

Set between January and September 1692 in a barn on the Marlboro family farm in Salem Village, Massachusetts, sixteen year old Tryphena longs for something more in life than housework and chores. Her sensitive older brother Cuddy is disgusted by the growing religious extremism within Salem Town and makes plans to escape to Harvard Divinity School in the fall. Dorcas, a young girl who is living with the Marlboros, is so happy to be here – but trauma from her past threatens to catch up to her at any moment. As the temperature in town rises, these three young people must grapple with the dangerous realities of being themselves in a world of unforgiving social structure.

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White Rabbit Red Rabbit

by Nassim Soleimanpour and produced by Aurora Nova

Peformed by Stephanie Lynge

Monday, March 13, 2023 at 7 pm

With no rehearsals, no director, one actor, and a script waiting in a sealed envelope on stage, the internationally acclaimed White Rabbit Red Rabbit, by Iranian writer Nassim Soleimanpour, is an audacious theatrical experiment and a potent reminder of the transgressive and transformative power of theatre.

Forbidden to leave his native Iran, Soleimanpour wrote a play which travelled the world in his place. The audience joins the actor on a journey into the unknown; stumbling upon the personal and profound, the limits of liberty, and ultimately where theatre can take you.

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Dry Land

by Ruby Rae Spiegel

Directed by Michelle Bellaver

February 6, 2023

Ester is a swimmer trying to stay afloat. Amy is curled up on the locker room floor. DRY LAND is a play about abortion, female friendship, and resiliency, and what happens in one high school locker room after everybody’s left.

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Bootycandy

by Robert O'Hara

Directed by Elaina Walton

September 12, 2022

Robert O’Hara’s semi-biographical subversive comedy exploded onto the New York theatre-scene with a critically lauded production at Playwrights Horizons. Bootycandy tells the story of Sutter, who is on an outrageous odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms, and even nursing homes. O’Hara weaves together scenes, sermons, sketches, and daring meta-theatrics to create a kaleidoscope that interconnects to portray growing up gay and black. Robert O’Hara’s uproarious satire crashes headlong into the murky terrain of pain and pleasure and… BOOTYCANDY.

The Effect

by Lucy Prebble

Directed by Erica Barnes

March 1, 2021

The Effect is a clinical romance. Two young volunteers, Tristan and Connie, agree to take part in a clinical drug trial. Succumbing to the gravitational pull of attraction and love, however, Tristan and Connie manage to throw the trial off-course, much to the frustration of the clinicians involved. This funny, moving and perhaps surprisingly human play explores questions of sanity, neurology and the limits of medicine, alongside ideas of fate, loyalty and the inevitability of physical attraction.

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Thanksgiving Play

by Larissa Fasthorse

Directed by Nichole Hamilton

November 23, 2020

Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in Larissa FastHorse’s wickedly funny satire, as a troupe of terminally “woke” teaching artists scrambles to create a pageant that somehow manages to celebrate both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month.

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Those Two are Definitely Getting Murdered

by Kaitlyn McClincy

Directed by J Molier

November 23, 2020

Stephanie, a tenacious investigative journalist, and Mark, a mysterious private investigator, find themselves embroiled in a deadly game of cat and mouse. As they dig deeper into a seemingly routine assignment, they unwittingly stumble upon a dark and far-reaching conspiracy that places them squarely in the crosshairs of danger. With their lives hanging in the balance, Stephanie and Mark must navigate a treacherous web of deceit, betrayal, and relentless pursuit to unravel the truth and survive against all odds.

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Is God Is

by Aleshea Harris

Directed by Steven Butler

October 19, 2020

Is God Is is a modern myth about twin sisters who sojourn from the Dirty South to the California desert to exact righteous revenge. Winner of the 2016 Relentless Award, Aleshea Harris collides the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the Spaghetti Western, and Afropunk in this darkly funny and unapologetic world premiere.

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Facing Our Truth: 10 minutes Plays on Trayvon Martin, Race, and Privilege

Written by A. Rey Pamatmat, Dan O'Brien, Dominique Morisseau, Mona Mansour, Winter Miller, Marcus Gardley, Tala Manassah, Quetzal Flores

Directed by Ryan George

August 4, 2020

Written by a diverse group of playwrights in response to the killing of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of George Zimmerman, these short plays revolve around racial biases, stereotypes, heartbreak, loss and enlightenment.

  • Night Vision by Dominique Morisseau
  • Some Other Kid by A. Rey Pamatmat
  • Colored by Winter Miller
  • Ballad of George Zimmerman- Text by Dan O’Brien / Music by Quetzal Flores
  • Dressing by Mona Mansour/Tala Manassah
  • No More Monsters Here by Marcus Gardley

26 Pebbles

by Eric Ulloa

Directed by Gregg Jones

March 2-3, 2020

On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed twenty-six innocent souls before taking his own life. These twenty-six innocent deaths, like pebbles thrown into a pond, created ripples and vibrations that were felt far beyond the initial rings. This is the story of those vibrations.

Similar in style to The Laramie Project, playwright Eric Ulloa conducted interviews with members of the community in Newtown and crafted them into an exploration of gun violence and a small town shaken by a horrific event.

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To Be

by Candace Clift

Directed by Ariel Reich

February 10-11, 2020

What happens when you wake up to a life that has turned upside down and nothing is what it once was? To Be is one woman’s humorous, sometimes wrenching, reckoning with breast cancer, mortality and Hamlet. It is a journey of hope and desire that wrestles bravely with life’s most important question. 

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Fireflies

by Donja R. Love

Directed by Ariel Reich

January 13-14, 2020

What happens when you wake up to a life that has turned upside down and nothing is what it once was? To Be is one woman’s humorous, sometimes wrenching, reckoning with breast cancer, mortality and Hamlet. It is a journey of hope and desire that wrestles bravely with life’s most important question. 

The Walmart Book of The Dead

by Lucy Biederman and adapted by Laura Shatkus

Directed by Laura Shatkus

December 19-20, 2019

As for who reads this book
And who follows its spells
I know your name
You will not die after your death
In Walmart
You will not perish forever
For I know your name

So begins this darkly comic incantation on the gods and scourges of the 21st century. The Walmart Book of the Dead was inspired by the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, funerary texts with accompanying illustrations containing spells to preserve the spirit of the deceased in the afterlife. In Lucy Biederman’s version, shoplifters, grifters, drifters, and hustlers, desirous children, greeters, would-be Marxists, wolves, and circuit court judges wander Walmart unknowingly consigned to their afterlives.

“This BOOK is for the dark hours, the seam that ties the end of the evening to sunrise, when the bad, wrong things people do in and around Walmart are a hospital infection, red Rit dye in a load of whites, a gun in a classroom: by the time the problem is identified, it’s already ruined everything.”

Witch

by Jen Silverman

Directed by Nick Bubliz

November 2019

A charming devil arrives in the quiet village of Edmonton to bargain for the souls of its residents in exchange for their darkest wishes. Elizabeth should be his easiest target, having been labeled a “witch” and cast out by the town, but her soul is not so readily bought. As the devil returns to convince her – and then returns again – unexpected passions flare, alliances are formed, and the village is forever changed. An inventive retelling of a Jacobean drama, this sharp, subversive fable debates how much our souls are worth when hope is hard to come by.

The Report

by Charlie Mitchell

Directed by Charlie Mitchell

October 2019

Based on real events in 1958/9, it shows how the lives of students and professors are forever changed when a state senator decides to root out homosexuality from a Florida university.

White

by James Ijames

Directed by Ryan George

September 2019

Gus is an artist. Vanessa is an actress. Gus wants to be presented in a major exhibition for artists of color, so he hires Vanessa to perform as Balkonaé Townsend, a brash and political artist that will fit the museum’s desire for “new voices.” Everything is great, until Balkonaé takes over and Gus has to deal with the mess he’s made. This plays spins out of control as it explores issues of race, gender, sexuality, and art. 

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The Brothers Size

By Tarell Alvin McCraney

Directed by Ryan George

2017

In the Louisiana bayou, Ogun Size is the hardworking and steady brother to the younger Oshoosi. Ogun worries constantly about his brother, who’s fresh out of prison and restless. When Elegba, Oshoosi’s old prison-mate arrives with a gift, their relationship is thrown out of balance. Influenced by the rich culture of the Yoruba people of West Africa, this contemporary tale begins in ritual and evolves into a tough and tender drama of what it means to brother and be brothered. Combining flights of poetry, music and dance, The Brothers Size explores the tenuousness of freedom and the need to belong.