THIS SEASON:

Pipe Dreams Studio Theatre offers a sandbox experience for artists to challenge themselves and grow from hands-on experience. It is a safe space to make mistakes, experiment, and redesign our own perceptions of “what theatre is”. This student-run venture allows us, as an ensemble, to create our own work, and share it. Pipe Dreams is about digging deep as the young artists we are, finding ourselves and our community, and presenting our vulnerable passions to an audience. Our artistic choices should reflect our mission statement of play, experimentation, and exploration through: Variety in opportunities, mediums, and subject matter, Challenge for Learning, and Collaboration.

The 2025-2026 season consists of three mainstage works: Grain In the Blood by Rob Drummond, How To Destroy An American Girl Doll by Jan Rosenberg, Overtones by Alice Gertsenberg, and Holy Chicken Sandwich by Kira Rockwell.

This season is about community and self placement. Moreover in our national climate, the line between right and wrong further greys, compliating the freedom we use to define ourselves. Even when you do find yourself, and you manage to express what’s inside you, do you hold onto the systems that created you? Pipe Dreams will traverse the meanings of identities through new and classical works. We will visit scottish yards, grow through childhood friendships, gossip at little tea parties, and stake our tents in fast food parking lots. We are committed to our mission and vision statements, our relationship with SOTAD and the greater-Decatur community, and challenging ourselves with rich new forms of art.

Mainstage:

Grain In The Blood

Located: Pipe Dreams Studio Theatre
Written by: Rob Drummond
Directed by: Max Cline

Isaac returns to his family home with a chance to atone for the terrible mistake that claimed his childhood. Autumn is a little girl whose time is running out. With three sleeps left before her birthday, she can only hope for a miracle, or an unexpected act of selflessness. Set against the eerie backdrop of an isolated rural community and steeped in the folklore of the harvest, Grain in the Blood is a noir-ish thriller exploring a timely moral dilemma: how much are we prepared to sacrifice for the greater good?

How to Destroy An American Girl Doll

Located: Pipe Dreams Studio Theatre
Written by: Jan Rosenberg
Directed by: Victoria Scrimer

Best friends, Gen and Vee share everything—including an eating disorder. Through adolescence, high school, college, and early adulthood this dark comedy follows Gen and Vee’s relationship as they navigate romance, sex, social anxiety, and addiction. Like their beloved American Girl dolls, Gen and Vee must face tragedy and overcome the hardships of growing up at the dawn of a new era. But as they learn, surviving girlhood in the twenty-first is no game and happy endings aren’t guaranteed. How to Destroy an American Girl Doll is presented in agreement with the playwright, Jan Rosenburg. 

Overtones

Located: Pipe Dreams Studio Theatre
Written by: Alice Gertsenberg
Directed by: Logan West

A two-character drama, Overtones shows two women as they appear to each other, and their inner selves as they really are. Harriet and Margaret are two refined ladies, but Hettie and Maggie are their thoughts and emotions come to life. As cool and serene as Harriet and Margaret may appear, Hettie and Maggie are just as volatile, troubled and passionate. A play where human nature as it appears to the world and as it is becomes dramatized psychology.

Events:

Pizza Party

Fall Auditions

Dr. Voynich And Her Children - A Staged Reading

This Giving Tuesday (Dec. 3rd) and the 12 days to follow, PD is fundraising! (Dec. 10th-14th)

Holiday Jam

Spring Auditions

Drag Show

Faculty Showcase

Night of New Works

A Cabaret: The Musicals Millikin Can’t Do