Off-Bway Hit 'Tings Dey Happen' Extends Again, thru Dec.22

Culture Project today announced that it will once again extend the New York premiere of Tings Dey Happen, written and performed by Dan Hoyle and developed with and directed by Charlie Varon, through December 22.  The extension is due, in no small part, to the overwhelmingly positive response from both the Nigerian community in New York City and beyond.  The show, which officially opened on August 7, has now become the political theater event of the season and been embraced by critics, journalists and audience members alike.

"In Tings Dey Happen, Dan Hoyle portrays warlords, militants, oil workers, prostitutes and the American Ambassador to Nigeria, among many others.  In this, his third solo show, Hoyle continues to develop his unique form of journalistic theater.  Having spent a year in Nigeria as a Fulbright scholar studying oil politics, he brings to the stage one of the most important geopolitical stories of our time.  Already supplying 10% of American oil, Nigeria and its surrounding Gulf of Guinea region have been targeted as the "new Middle East" of oil security.  However, militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta are blowing up pipelines, warlords are threatening rebellion and oil company employees are being kidnapped with alarming frequency.  The audience meets all the characters in Hoyle's ambitious, comic and disturbing new play," explain press notes.

Tings Dey Happen premiered in December, 2006 at The Marsh performance space in San Francisco and ran for six sold-out months, garnering unanimous rave reviews.  In contrast to his previous shows (Circumnavigator and Florida 2004: The Big Bummer), Hoyle never portrays himself in Tings Dey Happen.  Instead, he allows the characters he met to tell their stories of survival on the West African frontier and the audience to experience the intensity and dynamism of Nigeria as he did.  In the process, we are forced to consider all the hard questions in a new way: should we accept corruption and oppression in deference to the sovereignty of the 'African Way'?  Can the West help Africa, or are all our interventions fated to compound the problem?  And what happens when there's no discernible choice between wrong and right?

Performances are Tuesday - Saturday at 8PM and Sunday at 3PM.  Tickets are priced at $45 and are available by calling 212-352-3101 or visiting www.cultureproject.org.  There are also a limited number of $20 student rush tickets available in person at the box office one hour prior to curtain.  Rush tickets are subject to availability and require a valid student ID.