Dream Feed

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Dreams are fascinating things. Freud wrote a seminal textbook about interpreting them and many people now use ChatGPT to figure out what their dreams mean. Grammy-winning trio The HawtPlates have brought their show Dream Feed to HERE Arts Center as part of the Under the Radar festival and the results are fascinating.

The HawtPlates are a family affair – composer/performer Justin Hicks, his sister, the singer/songwriter Jade Hicks, and his wife the actor/singer Kenita Miller-Hicks. Separately and together they make beautiful music.

The show is hard to describe because it doesn’t have a story per se. Described as an “electro-acoustic vocal work” the show asks “Can we remember our own dreams?” (For the record, I often do. I record them in the voice memo app on my phone and sometimes bring them into my therapist for further discussion. Once an entire novel came to me in a dream; the same thing happened to Stephen King with Misery. His book did better than mine.)

What Dream Feed does is evoke feelings, and images, and hopefully dreams. Most effective are the times when what I assume are actual dreams are recited, in one case through a voice changer, which is both funny and emotional.

The music is mostly singing, but Justin Hicks plays the autoharp, an instrument you don’t get to see too often in the theater (or at all). He’s excellent and it makes me want to get one myself. There’s also drums, but these are fairly quiet and don’t take over the piece. It’s mostly about the vocals, which are terrific. The audience goes bananas for it, clapping along to songs they’ve never heard before and leaping to their feet at the end.

The scenic design by Kent Barret is well utilized – there are pipes hanging from the ceiling in the center that serve as instruments, and there is dirt on the floor underneath them. The set helps the show feel immersive and atmospheric (warning: there is haze).

Towards the end, lighting designer Tuçe Yasak creates a kind of kaleidoscope effect that enhances the piece to great effect. One wishes there were more of this throughout. The lighting serves the sound (the excellent sound design is by Sean Davis; you can hear everything perfectly) throughout the show but it could enhance it more. At the risk of asking for more screens in the theater, this show could maybe use some extra visuals.

Dream Feed is surreal and yet so real, like a vivid dream that you’ll actually remember.

Dream Feed (ext4ened through February 1, 2026)

HERE Arts Center, 145 Sixth Avenue, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit https://www.here.org/shows/dream-feed/

Running time: 75 minutes without an intermission