TALK TO YOUR PEOPLE Extends at the Marsh

Due to popular demand, The Marsh has extended Dan Hoyle's Talk To Your People through May 28, 2022. This comic, nuanced, and thought-provoking inquiry into some of the most-talked-about issues of this era has been applauded by critics.

Since debuting his newest work in March 2022, Hoyle has continued to perform for sold out crowds in San Francisco.

Talk To Your People was developed with and directed by Charlie Varon, with lighting design by Jeff Rowlings, directing consultant Erin Gilley, and additional consulting from Mark Kenward and Wayne Harris.

Talk To Your People has been extended through May 28, 2022 with performances at 7:00pm Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia St., San Francisco. For tickets ($25-$35 sliding scale; $50 and $100 reserved) or more information, the public may visit www.themarsh.org.

This new solo show was sparked during month four of the COVID-19 crisis, June 2020, when protests over the death of George Floyd were being held across the country and a pandemic-exhausted, shell-shocked America was confronting issues related to race, privilege, masculinity, and power. Stuck at home in Oakland, Hoyle spoke to a Black theater colleague in New York who suggested that he consider delving into how liberal white folks were dealing with these reckonings. "Go talk to your people," she urged. This seemed impossible at first given COVID, as many people were leading a mostly digital, isolated life at that time. Hoyle began working on this pandemic piece of art, striking up spontaneous conversations with strangers and drawing out people's stories wherever he could in parks, beaches, and backyards. A show began to emerge: a comedy, an inquiry, a meditation on how society got to this moment, and how humanity might move forward. Talk To Your People showcases a portfolio of characters that are unique, funny, and searching - all brought to the stage in Hoyle's signature style. Together, they illuminate and juxtapose a varied slice of white liberal America. The show is punctuated by songs that explore Hoyle's thoughts on these issues, and by video footage shot by Hoyle in Oakland and the Bay Area during the pandemic.

Among the characters brought to vivid life in Talk To Your People are:

• A corporate burned out "hippie jock" dad hanging on the beach, trying to tank from his job so he can go on unemployment and transition out of the wealth accumulation model into social justice work.

• A disillusioned academic concerned about groupthink but even more terrified by the casually toxic white dudes he sees everywhere, trying to carve out a little room to breathe between those silos.

• A working class, biracial kid who finds himself in middle class office life, amused by the assumptions and virtue signaling of his privileged colleagues.

• A '90s neo-hippie whose formative years were spent at youth hostels and campfires vibing with everyone, mourning the lost connections of the new tribalism while questioning how authentic those connections really were.

• An Argentine Marxist techie unsure if he classifies as a person of color, and uncomfortable with the ways his Latinx identity gives him unquestioned authority in the elite tech and private school circles he moves in.

• A rural artist and builder who sees his white town overcompensating for its privilege to the point it almost leads to violence, finding himself canceled by his best friend.

• A former activist now practicing radical honesty as a way of processing his childhood trauma, hoping the country can move forward by living a little more in its emotions.

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