JADE HICKS, JUSTIN HICKS, KENITA MILLER-HICKS

Archive Collective

IN RESIDENCE:December 2 – 22, 2025
Do you remember your dreams upon awakening? Do you write them down, or try to determine their meaning? Grammy Award-winning theatrical family band The HawtPlates’ Dream Feed is an exploration of the dreamscape; probing the boundaries of the unconscious mind in order to expand them. If the realm of dreams has less rigid rules than waking life, is it possible to utilize this space as a laboratory for real world change? In this shared dream sequence and live concept album, through a lush musical vocabulary, The HawtPlates invite audiences to dive deep into the magic possible within the world of dreams. In doing so, audience members will be reminded that it is in their power to imagine a new world – and that doing so is a first step toward creating one.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

The HawtPlates co-create conceptual live works. The performance trio cultivates a unique sound specific to their family by breaking down folk and vernacular musical forms and reconstituting them into sound tonics and “one pots” to address the trauma of being a working-class citizen in the modern world. Their projects include Waterboy and the Mighty World (The Public Theater), the song cycle House or Home: 690 Wishes (The Shed), and the visual EP Songs for Making It Through Alive. Together and individually, these artists have worked at National Black Theatre, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Whitney Museum of American Art, Symphony Space, The Bushwick Starr, Perelman Performing Arts Center, and Park Avenue Armory. The HawtPlates have inspired work by Meshell Ndegeocello, Abigail DeVille, Kaneza Schaal, and Charlotte Brathwaite, and collaborated with Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, Helga Davis, Cauleen Smith, Steffani Jemison, Reggie “Regg Roc” Gray and the D.R.E.A.M. Ring, and Queen Esther and the Harlem Gospel Singers.

Produced by HERE Arts Center, originally commissioned and developed through the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), with co-commissioning support from Under the Radar.

IRT Theater is a grassroots laboratory for independent theater and performance in New York City, providing space and support to a new generation of artists. Tucked away in the old Archive Building in Greenwich Village, IRT’s mission is to build a community of emerging and established artists by creating a home for the development and presentation of new work.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council; A.R.T./New York’s NYC Small Theatres Fund made possible with support from the Howard Gilman Foundation & support for ASL interpretation provided in part through funding from Access A.R.T./New York.

ACCESS: IRT is a fully wheelchair-accessible facility. Please reach out to Kori Rushton if you have any accessibility questions or concerns, krushton@irttheater.org