Tipi On The Hill

05/17/2026

Out now…

Time Has Told

05/08/2026

The next episode of Tipi on the Hill is now available.
"Gabriele and I enacted our roles in this script almost unconsciously – method actors only sometimes stepping out of character into the “real-world” roles demanded by our day jobs. The line between fiction and reality blurred."

Summoning Big Squirrel

05/04/2026

“I unfold the paper. Nothing on the white page but two typewritten addresses. Our Brooklyn apartment address and the Queen’s address of my warehouse job at Pacific Studios. I think of Gabriele. She’s alone in the warehouse now. My hands are trembling as I fold the paper up again and hand it back to Red.”
Episode 33 is out now!!

Handing Over the Paper

04/26/2026

Red looked distressed by what I said. He went to take a drag on his cigarette but instead tossed it into the fire pit. He leaned forward toward me, resting his forearms on his knees, grasping his hands together. His voice was low, almost a whisper.

“I need you to answer me honestly. Who are you working for? Tell me the truth. I don’t want you and Gabriele to get hurt.”

Check out Episode 32 here https://nickfracaro.substack.com/p/mickey-d

04/18/2026

Excited to announce that, after a 4-year hiatus, Nick Fracaro's autofiction, "Tipi on the Hill" is back with Episode 31. Subscribe to his Substack for this and other life writings: nickfracaro.substack.com
Expect weekly episodes every Friday, along with parallel meta-memoir essays, that examine the writing process.

12/01/2025

This is an astonishing must-read!
"Some archaeologists say it's on par with Stonehenge, but its struggle for recognition spanned decades, ending only recently with validation as the state's only World Heritage Site.
To Lepper, who spent almost 40 years studying them, the earthworks themselves speak volumes about their builders, who lived roughly 1,500 years before Galileo.
They were geometers, mathematicians. They were astronomers. They were geniuses. I mean, they were soil scientists. They knew what soils to use to build enduring earthworks."

On Native American Heritage Day, we examine a long-overlooked marvel of ancient engineering that had been tucked away beneath a golf course in Ohio. It is a place some archaeologists say is on par with Stonehenge. But its struggle for recognition spanned decades, ending only recently with validation...

12/02/2024

We got the most amazing news this morning...
Nicholas Martin, archivist of NYU's Fales Library -- which was interested in The Hill story since the pre-COVID days -- finally came by this morning and went through all of Thieves Theatre's documents (1980-2007), including the RAT Conference 1994-2004.
They're going to catalogue and archive all of it (a several year process); not just The Hill, but the entire Thieves Theatre history until we changed our name to International Culture Lab.
A huge honor!

11/30/2023

It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

They've got cars big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more

Sinatra was swinging
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner
Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing Galway Bay
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas Day

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slt on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed

You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy fa**ot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing Galway Bay
And the bells are ringing out
For Christmas Day

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you

The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing Galway Bay
And the bells are ringing out
For Christmas Day

10/09/2023

https://bit.ly/3FtNEKV
We wanted to also share this trailer for a new documentary in the works. Reservation Redemption, it is very relevant today, Indigenous Peoples' Day. The Native Culture is so important in our world. Why did our country try to destroy it?

09/28/2023

Proud of our final weekly episode! Thanks so much to all who tuned in to this labor of love that means so much to us. We’ll be back on occasion so subscribe to your favorite platform at thievestheatre.org.

The end of the story. The story that never ends. Nick and Gabriele narrate their final days on The Hill, leading up to the day it was finally razed, and tell...