“Takes All Kinds”—An American Public Affairs Discussion and Demonstration of Journalistic Theatre

Actor and playwright Dan Hoyle and his director, celebrated director/actor Aldo Billingslea, provide an inside look at the creation of their widely acclaimed new solo performance piece “Takes All Kinds.”

Dan’s blog reminds the viewer that  ”I’ll be disappearing into these different characters and stories and you’ll be glad to journey there with me. They’ve been traveling with me these last couple years. I think they’ll stay with you too.”

With “Takes All Kinds,” Hoyle and Billingslea use journalistic theater and embodied storytelling to portray powerful, funny and complex people caught in the social and political currents roiling our society. They create portraits of everyday Americans through moving and funny true stories of American democracy: school board showdowns in Florida, grassroots organizers in Atlanta, barber shops in Las Vegas, deprogrammers of violent extremists in Missouri and more.

In this mostly offstage oriented “talk-back” presentation, listeners and observers will have an opportunity to explore with Hoyle and Billingslea how thousands of hours go into a little over an hour show. The artists’ view reveals (somewhat) the amazing mystery of live transformative theatrical narrative that has everyone laughing and pin-drop listening with the next moment. And always has the audience talking as they depart.

Yes—it’s about politics, but could experiencing public affairs embodied theatre journalism bring people something they needed more than they realized?  

“Stunning…something almost supernatural happens,” according to the  San Francisco Chronicle. Currently based at the Marsh Theatre, “Takes All Kinds” has toured elsewhere in California plus New York City, Charleston and Chicago, and will be heading to Idaho, Florida and more in 2026.

About the Speakers

Oakland-based Dan Hoyle is an actor and writer whose immersion research theater work has been hailed as "riveting, funny and poignant" (The New York Times) and "hilarious, moving and very necessary" (Salon). His solo shows, all originated at The Marsh in San Francisco, have played across the country at The Public Theater, Culture Project, Baltimore Center Stage, Berkeley Rep, Cleveland Playhouse, Mosaic Theater Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage, Playmakers Rep, Painted Bride, Pure Theater and abroad in India, Ireland, Wales, Mexico, Canada and Nigeria.

Hoyle received a double degree in performance studies and history from Northwestern University. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Nigeria in 2005–2006, artist-in-residence at Columbia University, Trinity College, Dublin, Santa Clara University, and is an acting and story coach at the Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project.

Aldo Billingslea (director) is a professor of theater at Santa Clara University (SCU). SCU’s associate provost for diversity and inclusion, and served as the vice president of the 100 Black Men of Silicon Valley; he's a board member of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, theatre program director for The222.org in Healdsburg, California.
As an academic, he is a professor of American theatre from the Black perspective, acting styles, Shakespeare, and seminars on August Wilson. Billingslea is a lifelong professional actor featured in more than two dozen Shakespeare plays, productions of August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and Fences, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, and Lorraine Hansberry’s The Sign in Sydney Bernstein’s Window. He also worked at the American Conservatory Theater, the Aurora Theater, California Shakespeare Theater, Lorraine Hansberry Theater, and the Marin Shakespeare Theater.

Michael Socrates Moran earned his B.F.A. from Boston University and his M.F.A. from UC San Diego. He is the executive artistic director of Oakland Theater Project. An award-winning director of more than 40 productions, he's been described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a visionary” and Oakland Theater Project, founded in 2012, as “one of the most exciting theatre companies in the Bay Area." Michael is a continuing lecturer at UC Berkeley, has taught at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, delivered a TEDx talk in 2019, and is recipient of the 2020 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award. He writes about the role of theatre today on his Substack, "The Seeing Place."