Katelyn Baker
Well-Known Member
Dan Hoyle's early memories of small towns in Northern California, back in the mid 80s when he was 5, were of traveling with his father Geoff Hoyle and the Pickle Family Circus to Ukiah, Garberville, Arcata.
"The biggest influence the circus had on me was inspiring an interest in travel and adventure," he says, "but what I do now is far from the circus."
Hoyle is an actor, playwright and comedy writer based in New York City whose brand of journalistic theater has been called "riveting, funny and poignant" by the New York Times and "hilarious, moving and very necessary" by Salon. His acclaimed solo shows, all created and premiered at The Marsh in his native San Francisco, have had more than 800 performances throughout the country and overseas.
Mendocino College theater director Reid Edelman invited Hoyle to spend a month in residence at the college to develop and present his new work, Grow, a dark comedy about cannabis, land and the American Dream premiering at the college's Center Theater for one weekend of Aug. 4 through Aug. 6.
Hoyle was Edelman's theater student in the late 1990s at San Francisco's Lick-Wilmerding High School.
"I was his teacher for four years and we did a lot of shows together," says Edelman. "It's a great joy for me to now be learning from him."
Playing the lead in his high school plays, Hoyle went on to study performance and history at Northwestern University; it was there that he began to develop his brand of journalistic theater.
"It was me going out into the world with curiosity and practicing the journalism of hanging out," he says. (Quote borrowed from William Finnegan, winner of the 2106 Pulitzer Prize for his surfing book, Barbarian Days.)
Hoyle spent a year in Nigeria studying oil politics on a Fulbright Scholarship where he hung out with militants in creeks blowing up pipelines; expats in bars; and ambassadors, diplomats and warlords.
"At some point I interview them and what I get is how they live their lives and how they interact with their environment," he says.
From this experience came his third solo show, Tings Dey Happen, that premiered in 2007 at The Marsh, went on to an off Broadway run and returned to Nigeria in 2009 for a five-city tour.
Last month he drove across country on a 10-day trip talking to folks to update The Real Americans, his solo show presently running at The Marsh, originally inspired during a three-month trip around the country in 2010. His recent shorter trip was for an update on the show for the Trump Era.
"Traveling to do research and traveling to perform are two completely different worlds; with one I can hang out and drink beer and with the other I'm an athlete," he says.
Grow is his third play written for a cast of actors; his first was Game On co-authored with Tony Taccone, the artistic director of Berkeley Rep, about global warming and baseball and his second was The Block about his neighborhood in the Bronx.
"I've always thought that Northern California is a very interesting place; it has a combination of hippy and hick culture that is layered over with the marijuana industry. I've been to every corner of the country and there is nowhere like this; it's unique. There are gun shops next door to sarong stores and there's no contradiction; it's all part of it," he says.
For Grow Hoyle drew inspiration from camping trips outside of Covelo and on the Lost Coast near Petrolia where he talked with growers and heard their stories. The play started out as a story about the marijuana industry and rural gentrification, the overlap and what people do to achieve the American dream and the effect it has on the environment.
His writing starts with the voices of those he meets and the inspiration for his characters develop from composites of friends and family members.
"My work is rooted in authentic journalism but flavored with the imagination of the theater. I don't profess to tell people how or what to think but to encourage them to do so critically and with empathy," he says.
Last summer, when the idea for a play about the marijuana industry came to Hoyle, Edelman suggested he had just the venue for this California noir comedy.
To fit the needs of the many enrolled students in the college theater department, Hoyle was happy to supplement his original cast of seven with an old-school, back-to-the-lander who grows enough to allow him to work only part time; a son-of-the soil, ex-logger who starts growing pot because that was what all the hippies were doing in the 1970s; trimmigrants; and a pot princess.
He says rehearsals have been fun and any time there seems to be an inaccuracy in the script, the savvy actors (well acquainted with the local pot culture) chime in with corrections.
"You can't fake the funk here," he quips.
Edelman notes that one of the young playwright's strengths is in getting people to open up and tell their stories; with his journalistic approach he is able to "recreate those experiences on stage."
Hoyle considers connection with people from different walks of life to be one of the more profound points of human experience and taking that material to the stage allows audiences to feel some of what he has personally experienced.
"When you're curious, people will tell you their stories; we all want to be understood. The point of theater is in asking provocative questions, creating situations that are complex, that ask people to rethink what they already know; depicting authentic characters with empathy; and honoring the environment in which the story takes place," he says.
Hoyle is grateful to Edelman and Mendocino College for allowing him to present Grow, his first directing experience, and he encourages everyone to come check out the show.
"We're cooking up something cool," he says, "and it's organic."
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Playwright Takes On Marijuana Culture In 'Grow'
Author: Karen Rifken
Contact: (707) 263-5636
Photo Credit: Robyn Beck
Website: Record Bee
"The biggest influence the circus had on me was inspiring an interest in travel and adventure," he says, "but what I do now is far from the circus."
Hoyle is an actor, playwright and comedy writer based in New York City whose brand of journalistic theater has been called "riveting, funny and poignant" by the New York Times and "hilarious, moving and very necessary" by Salon. His acclaimed solo shows, all created and premiered at The Marsh in his native San Francisco, have had more than 800 performances throughout the country and overseas.
Mendocino College theater director Reid Edelman invited Hoyle to spend a month in residence at the college to develop and present his new work, Grow, a dark comedy about cannabis, land and the American Dream premiering at the college's Center Theater for one weekend of Aug. 4 through Aug. 6.
Hoyle was Edelman's theater student in the late 1990s at San Francisco's Lick-Wilmerding High School.
"I was his teacher for four years and we did a lot of shows together," says Edelman. "It's a great joy for me to now be learning from him."
Playing the lead in his high school plays, Hoyle went on to study performance and history at Northwestern University; it was there that he began to develop his brand of journalistic theater.
"It was me going out into the world with curiosity and practicing the journalism of hanging out," he says. (Quote borrowed from William Finnegan, winner of the 2106 Pulitzer Prize for his surfing book, Barbarian Days.)
Hoyle spent a year in Nigeria studying oil politics on a Fulbright Scholarship where he hung out with militants in creeks blowing up pipelines; expats in bars; and ambassadors, diplomats and warlords.
"At some point I interview them and what I get is how they live their lives and how they interact with their environment," he says.
From this experience came his third solo show, Tings Dey Happen, that premiered in 2007 at The Marsh, went on to an off Broadway run and returned to Nigeria in 2009 for a five-city tour.
Last month he drove across country on a 10-day trip talking to folks to update The Real Americans, his solo show presently running at The Marsh, originally inspired during a three-month trip around the country in 2010. His recent shorter trip was for an update on the show for the Trump Era.
"Traveling to do research and traveling to perform are two completely different worlds; with one I can hang out and drink beer and with the other I'm an athlete," he says.
Grow is his third play written for a cast of actors; his first was Game On co-authored with Tony Taccone, the artistic director of Berkeley Rep, about global warming and baseball and his second was The Block about his neighborhood in the Bronx.
"I've always thought that Northern California is a very interesting place; it has a combination of hippy and hick culture that is layered over with the marijuana industry. I've been to every corner of the country and there is nowhere like this; it's unique. There are gun shops next door to sarong stores and there's no contradiction; it's all part of it," he says.
For Grow Hoyle drew inspiration from camping trips outside of Covelo and on the Lost Coast near Petrolia where he talked with growers and heard their stories. The play started out as a story about the marijuana industry and rural gentrification, the overlap and what people do to achieve the American dream and the effect it has on the environment.
His writing starts with the voices of those he meets and the inspiration for his characters develop from composites of friends and family members.
"My work is rooted in authentic journalism but flavored with the imagination of the theater. I don't profess to tell people how or what to think but to encourage them to do so critically and with empathy," he says.
Last summer, when the idea for a play about the marijuana industry came to Hoyle, Edelman suggested he had just the venue for this California noir comedy.
To fit the needs of the many enrolled students in the college theater department, Hoyle was happy to supplement his original cast of seven with an old-school, back-to-the-lander who grows enough to allow him to work only part time; a son-of-the soil, ex-logger who starts growing pot because that was what all the hippies were doing in the 1970s; trimmigrants; and a pot princess.
He says rehearsals have been fun and any time there seems to be an inaccuracy in the script, the savvy actors (well acquainted with the local pot culture) chime in with corrections.
"You can't fake the funk here," he quips.
Edelman notes that one of the young playwright's strengths is in getting people to open up and tell their stories; with his journalistic approach he is able to "recreate those experiences on stage."
Hoyle considers connection with people from different walks of life to be one of the more profound points of human experience and taking that material to the stage allows audiences to feel some of what he has personally experienced.
"When you're curious, people will tell you their stories; we all want to be understood. The point of theater is in asking provocative questions, creating situations that are complex, that ask people to rethink what they already know; depicting authentic characters with empathy; and honoring the environment in which the story takes place," he says.
Hoyle is grateful to Edelman and Mendocino College for allowing him to present Grow, his first directing experience, and he encourages everyone to come check out the show.
"We're cooking up something cool," he says, "and it's organic."
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Playwright Takes On Marijuana Culture In 'Grow'
Author: Karen Rifken
Contact: (707) 263-5636
Photo Credit: Robyn Beck
Website: Record Bee
