Brittany: We were so sad to hear about you losing the Hypnodrome space. The work you do is so unique and truly San Francisco.

Russell: I arrived in San Francisco in ‘89 and I remember in my first year here meeting people and saying “you’re the kind of person I came to San Francisco to meet”. Those experiences got me thinking; How do I become the kind of person that people came to San Francisco to meet? How do I make the kind of art people come to San Francisco to see? I think Thrillpeddlers has been a reflection of that without a doubt.

B: From hearing the story of how you got the Hypnodrome space originally, it sounds like a little bit of Bay Area love and luck went into starting the space. Can you tell us a little more about that?

R: Yeah, the space was offered to my husband within 5 minutes of meeting the gentleman that owned it. In the spring of 2004, my husband Jim Toczyl, was working the first day of his new mail route in Los Gatos. He was wearing a Thrillpeddlers “Sissies Stay Home” T-shirt under his open USPS shirt and struck up a conversation with one of the homeowners on his route about our theatre and the daunting prospect, even then, of renting a theater space in San Francisco. Right on the spot he volunteered; “We have building in San Francisco where you could do a show.” As it turned out, the space did make a perfect theatre. While the offer was just for 2 years originally, we’ve been able to stay for 13. I’ve gotten 11 years beyond what they offered so I’m happy with that.

B: Any ideas of where Thrillpeddlers will go next?

R: I believe that there are rental houses in town that would suit Thrillpeddlers well, and I believe that there are a few companies where a co-production might be a possibility in the future. We’re still assessing our options. As I watch rehearsals for Amazon Apocalypse (the final show slated for the Hypnodrome) I realize how – wow, well I might as well say it – smutty and rarefied our aesthetic might be and how it might not play to every subscription based company in the Bay Area.

B: Tell us a little bit about Amazon Apocalypse?

R: We’ve just added 3 more shows to the run. It will be a semi staged concert version of the show we had originally planned to produce in full in April. The show is set in Brazil over the period of about 100 years. The premise is that there is a prophecy that if the devil could come to earth, and enter the body of a human being, and put himself in a position to cum 7 times, there will be a thousand years on earth without conflict. So the show takes us to all kinds of locations in Brazil, through all kinds of periods in history, as the devil is entering the body of everything from an Italian opera singer, to an abortion doctor, to a children’s television superstar. It’s a nod to Brazilian sexuality, but also to the fragility of the rain-forest and the importance of that environment to the health of the earth. So it has both the touchy-feely and really raunchy going on simultaneously. This is a chance for our audience to get behind the work and hopefully see it to fruition at another venue eventually. This is also a great opportunity to workshop the piece.

B: The Hypnodrome is such a cool space, your sets and costumes are awesome. I heard you’re doing a rummage sale as you close down the space. Do you have any particular pieces that you are excited to see go to a new home?

R: Yes, there is very little that we are hanging on to, but I will confess to you now that we have made a decision to hold on to the guillotine, which is probably the one high ticket item that people have been inquiring about. Other than that, there is a lot of theatrical decor and fashion and special effects to be picked up. There are some severed heads that are particularly beautiful, and there are certainly some outlandish costumes from Cockette shows. Even ones that were designed and built by actual Cockettes. We have acquired a lot of things, much of it through the generosity and the altruism of others, so passing those things back out into the world at an affordable price is adding to the flow of karma that we have enjoyed for so long.

B: Aside from coming to the shows and to the rummage sale, is there anything else that people can do to help support Thrillpeddlers?

R: There is!. By buying tickets to our final shows, and of course donating to us through our website. Also, just by signing up for our newsletter, so we can keep in touch. In the future risking going to a new venue, that you haven’t been before, because we are there will make a big difference. Generally we need our community to keep holding the torch for this multi-generational freak theater company that doesn’t exist anywhere else.

The Hypnodrome closes at the end of February, so be sure to check out one of the Thrillpeddlers’ final shows on their home stage before they go. Amazon Apocalypse will be presented as a semi-staged concert for 7 nights February 8th-11th and 15th-17th at 8:00pm at the Hypnodrome (tickets $35 GA, $40 front row, shock boxes or Turkish Lounge). Thrillpeddlers are also hosting two Valentine’s Day benefit concerts and variety shows entitled Farewell to The Hypnodrome on  Tues. Feb. 14, 2017 – 7:00 pm & 9:00 pm (it appears those concerts are sold out at time of publishing). Finally don’t forget to stop by in the final days to fill your requite costume bins at the Hypnodrome Rummage Sale Feb. 25th & 26th, Noon – 5:00 pm. More information and tickets can be found on the Thrillpeddlers website, where you can also donate and sign up to find out what’s next for the company.

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Tyler Patrick Hennessy, a young Walnut Creek native, is living the stage-kid dream and is currently on the road playing the roles of Jack and Michael in Finding Neverland. When Drama Talk & Drinks learned that we had some local talent on the tour, we wanted to sit down with Tyler to learn a little more about him and the show (so we could legitimately say we knew him before he was a famous).

DT&D: Tyler, How did you first get involved in theater?

Tyler: My three older sisters all did theater first, and it looked like a lot of fun, so I wanted to try it. That’s how I originally got involved.

DT&D: Why should people come see this show, Finding Neverland? 

T: I think people should come and see the show because it’s a lot of fun, they get to have time to be a kid again.

DT&D: What’s it like to be on tour?

T: It’s really fun. I like all the people in the cast. They’re so nice.

DT&D: What’s the most exciting part of the tour?

T: I had never really been past Arizona before, so when I got to go to New York for the auditions, and then to rehearsals in Buffalo, that was really exciting. I love performing. It’s really fun to do the play in front of different audiences and see their reactions. I’m excited to perform in LA, and in San Francisco for my friends and family.

DT&D: Before you were cast in this tour you primarily did shows in the Bay Area, what are some of your favorite places you’ve performed?

T: I had a lot of fun when I was in Ragtime at Stage 1 Theater [ed. in Newark, California] I also have been in shows at the Lesher Center for the Arts [ed.in Walnut Creek] which I really liked.

DT&D: Do you have a favorite thing to do in SF or the Bay Area when you’re not in a play?

T: I like watching Giants games with my dad. Buster Posey is my favorite.

If you want to check out this soon-to-be Bay Area celebrity, Finding Neverland opens at SHN’s Orpheum Theater on January 18th and runs through February 12th. Tickets are available on their website and range from $55-$125, or if you want to try your luck, they have a limited number of $40 rush tickets available for each night of the show – rush instructions here. Stay tuned for our DT&D review of the show coming soon!

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A press release came across our inbox about a new-to-us theater company called Theatre Madcap that was doing a “deliberately diverse” production of True West. Even though we knew we couldn’t make the show to review it, we were intrigued. So we asked the Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Eric Reid, to coffee to tell us about his company and his show.

Katie: Tell us about Theatre Madcap.

Eric: We started it, my wife and I that is, about 2 and a half years ago. We started it really because as a black actor I’m frustrated that I can’t find a lot of roles for myself, or If I’m auditioning for something it’s always “ethnicity ambiguous” roles, nothing really for black folks or persons of color at all. So I thought if it’s going to be hard to be in theater, I might as well do it myself and struggle for moi.

Brittany: What have you been working on so far?

E: We’re big fans of the circus community and burlesque community, so we produced the Sex Bomb Cabaret which was a one-off, and we did a couple of runs of that. We produced some stuff for Burning Man, then we decided to start our full season this year. I was thinking how do I get plays? So I developed a stage reading series called Staged. All the plays had to have opportunity for casting people of color, specifically looking for lead roles for people of color. The directors I chose were either women, a person of color or someone from the LGBTQ community. We selected 10 plays and staged them over 10 weeks and we talked about diversity for 10 weeks straight.

K: What did you learn?

E: People say we live in a post-racial society, which I don’t believe, but I’m optimistic because the term exists. If we can come up with that thought it means we have a desire to get to that. So I said all right, let’s reverse engineer it then, let’s actually define what that means. What does a post-racial society actually look like? And are we actually in it? And if we’re not, how far away are we from it? Out of that playwriting series we selected Hedge that was written by a local playwright, Robin Lynn Rodriguez, and we are putting her show up in February.

B: Is the focus just playwrights that are of color, or is it also local playwrights?

E: It’s all local writers. The writers don’t have to be persons of color but the characters do. That was the big thing. I was on a panel about how to get your plays produced at Berkeley Rep. There was a room full of playwrights and everyone of them expressed “I can’t write for persons of color.” I thought “WOW, You don’t know persons of color then,” because you write what you know. I think the overall sentiment is that they want to come from a place of truth, and they want to write black characters but they feel like they can’t. They have in their heads a certain stereotype and they don’t feel comfortable writing that. So I encouraged all the writers to realize people of color are just like you. They have a different skin tone, and their life circumstances may be different. So get to know their circumstances, and that will help you develop a character. They need to erase the “I need to be this kind of person in order to write this kind of person” and eliminate that excuse.

B: So why True West?

E: We selected True West as our first full length production because I loved it. When I read it, like 15 years ago, it was the first play I read where I felt, wow that’s me. I could really understand the characters’ circumstances and what their needs were. So when I became old enough to play Lee I thought, well now is the time to tackle this piece of work. And the themes are universal, such as unfulfilled childhood need, sibling rivalry, addiction, isolation. Those kind of family things that are universal, it doesn’t matter what nationality you are.

K: Have you ever auditioned for True West before?

E: No, and I wouldn’t audition for it. This is why, I would walk in, and they take me, now they have to cast another black man to play my brother. That’s a tall order right there. Oh and mom, you would have to change mom. So basically you’re required to have an all black cast. I’m not into auditioning just for practice.

K: What’s the challenge of wanting full casts of people of color?

E: From the company side there aren’t a lot of black people left in San Francisco. The census report from 1980 the city was 19% black, by 2000 it was 12% and now it’s under 6%. If there was a reduction of any species on Earth that went at that rate it would be extinction, a crisis, and that’s what we have here. All that trickles down to, whenever I go to audition, every other black person I know is there for that role. So now you are stuck in certain roles. If you want to do an all black cast of something, you can’t because those actors are already booked up. So it really limits the breadth and width of persons of color in theater. It’s a tough thing to swallow. There’s a lot of talent, but there isn’t a place for them to express themselves.

K: What does that mean for the audience?

E: It means persons of color don’t get to see themselves represented onstage and be inspired by that. It also means there aren’t role models. If you don’t see yourself in a career, you never think “that’s something I want to do”, or even something I can do. So that’s the challenge. Then it affects the writing. If I was a writer in San Francisco, why would I write roles for persons of color if there’s no one to play the part? Unless you’re telling a story that’s specifically about people of color like a historical figure, or slavery, it’s just easier to not write for people of color. Just to write a regular person, I would think well this play is never going to get produced.

B: Do you think having people of color in the lead roles of True West changes the message of the show?

E: No, because Sam Shepard was writing was about that family dynamic. We are tapping into the idea that theater is made to share connections. If people see themselves on stage through a person of color, then a connection is made. They don’t feel as separate from persons of color, which I think is becoming a big problem in the country again. We don’t feel like we can relate to each other anymore. That inspires me to work even harder to find the truth of this character, so that people can see themselves in it no matter who they are, and we can create that empathy.

K: Can you tell us more about your space the Inner Mission?

E: Sure, It was the old Cell Space that had been there for about 17 years. We took it over 2 years ago. It’s a multi-purpose venue in a large 20,000 square feet warehouse. It has an art gallery, a metal shop, a wood shop, and a large performance space. There are 12 artist’s suites where people rent and do paintings and sculptures and a 5 bedroom apartment, that’s a live and work space. It’s served the community for many years. Unfortunately last year it was bought and it’s going to go away. Next year they have plans to demolish it.

B: What are they going to do with it?

E: Some developers bought it and they are going to put up housing . . . it’s so hard to say. Here is the effect of vulture capitalism. I have space and the ability to put up my own work which enriches the community. We also had a very good business. But the owner of the building was offered a ridiculous amount of money, so it was peace-out. They bought a big piece of property that had a real business in it. I don’t know the percentage of African American owned businesses in the Mission, but with a stroke of a pen the owner reduced it. We’ve taken a major step back as far as minority voices go. The Mission is this vibrant cultural hub and it’s getting white washed like you couldn’t believe. As a person of color, to watch it happen, and then have it happen to you, it’s hard not to become hopeless. So that’s the history of the space. It could have been something really wonderful.

B: Are you looking for a new space?

E: I mean, we’re looking, but it’s like shopping in Beverly Hills. I’ve lived in the Mission for 14 years, I live here and want to work here. That’s my passion. I want to raise my kids here, like every other generation did before us. So I don’t know if I’m being stubborn or ignorant or unrealistic, but . . . I’m still looking.

B: Anything else you would like to add?

E: Our motto is deliberately diverse theater. The word deliberate means on purpose we go out and seek diversity. Diversity is not a verb it’s a noun. It’s a state of being, it already exists, it’s whether or not you embrace it or recognize it or not. It’s not something you achieve, it already is. We deliberately accentuate the fact that we are diverse and that what we put on stage is an accurate reflection is what society is.

Theater MadCap’s True West opens Friday, November 7, 2014, at Inner Mission SF (2050 Bryant St., San Francisco), and runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 7pm, through November 30th. Tickets start at $20 and can be purchased here.