Skylight Theatre Company proudly presents the World premiere of Hide & Hide, written by Roger Q. Mason and directed by Jessica Hanna. Previews begin May 9, 10, and 14, with opening night on Thursday, May 15. The production runs through Sunday, June 29, 2025, at Skylight Theatre. This new work marks the playwright’s return to Skylight Theatre Company following the success and critical acclaim of their 2022 production, Lavender Men. Hide & Hide is the second in Mason’s Califas Trilogy. It is a Homeric critique of the American Dream told through Billy (played by Ben Larson), a queer rent-boy from Texas fleeing a Christian sex conversion camp, and Constanza (played by Amielynn Abellera, The Pitt), a Filipina immigrant with a soon-to-expire visa, who together form a sham marriage to pursue their version of that dream in seedy 1980 Los Angeles.
“Hide & Hide excavates the myth of the American Dream, how it motivates, corrodes, and ignites people to do the unspeakable in the name of freedom,” shares the playwright and creator, Roger Q. Mason. “The piece is based in 1980, the year my mother immigrated to the United States from the Philippines. In times like these, she—and our family at large—wonder, ‘Was the plane ride even worth the journey?’ I think so, but we have to fight for the freedom promised in the dream.”
Hide & Hide is the second production in Mason’s Califas Trilogy, a trio of genre-busting plays about land, power, and dreams in California. Exploring the beauty and underbelly of ambition in America’s West, the trilogy begins with California Story—produced by Outside In Theatre with direction by Michael Alvarez—which explores the devastating cost of ambition through the journey of Pio Pico, California’s last Mexican governor, who sacrifices family, identity, and integrity to stake his claim in the American dream during California’s journey to statehood in the 1800s. Hide & Hide—produced by Skylight Theatre Company—is a Homeric critique of the American Dream told via a Filipina immigrant and a Texan rent boy whose lives collide while searching for the freedom dreamed up on movie screens, billboards, and our minds. The trilogy concludes with Juana Maria—a staged reading co-produced between Outside In Theatre, Skylight Theatre Company, and The Roots & Wings Project with direction by Alvarez—which tells the tragic story of an indigenous woman who, after decades of living in isolation, is “rescued” by an American sailor. Brought to the Santa Barbara Mission, she spends seven weeks as an exotic curiosity, but the sudden exposure to rich food, fleeting fame, and Western excess, ultimately leads to her death. More information about Califas Trilogy can be found here: https://www.califastrilogy.com.
Paper Phoenix ink 