“A captivating adventure into the chaos of the current political climate, offered with a unique combination of humor and heartache by Boston actor Dennis Trainor, Jr.”
-Terry Byrne, Boston Globe Stages columnist

Following the critically acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe run of Manifest Destiny’s Child in 2023, Dennis Trainor, Jr. returns to the festival with THE TAO OF LLOYD, a new solo show directed by Olivier Award winner Guy Masterson. The show makes its worldwide premiere at the Assembly George Street Drawing Room for the month of August.

Darkly comic, politically charged, and spiritually unruly, THE TAO OF LLOYD reimagines Lloyd Dobler - the boombox romantic from Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything - as a middle-aged zen-punk dissident trying to stay human while the American empire unravels in real time. Part political satire, part theatrical meditation, part cultural exorcism, the show follows Lloyd as he attempts to duct-tape ancient spiritual wisdom to modern collapse with deep gratitude, zero credentials, and just enough dark humor to keep from screaming into the void.

Written and performed by Trainor, THE TAO OF LLOYD marks a new collaboration between Trainor and Masterson, who previously worked together on Manifest Destiny’s Child. The show draws on the sensibility of his ongoing creative work around the character while expanding it into a live theatrical experience: one part monologue, one part breakdown, one part guided meditation for surviving late-stage everything. THE TAO OF LLOYD asks what it means to remain awake, humane, and spiritually intact in a culture that rewards distraction, numbness, and obedience.

BIOS

DENNIS TRAINOR, JR. (Writer & Performer) is a writer, actor, and multi-media storyteller. As an actor, he has extensive acting credits in Boston and New York, including Loyd in Job and Henry Wilcox in the regional premiere of Mathew Lopez's The Inheritance at SpeakEasy Stage in Boston. Other stage roles: Let The Right One In; The Merchant of Venice; Straight White Men; In the Next Room; The Goat, or Who is Sylvia; Picasso at the Lapin Agile; The Pain and the Itch; The Rainmaker; November; The Seagull; Waiting for Godot; The Winter’s Tale; Cellophane; The Black Hole; Loose Ends, Julius Caesar; Macbeth; Plug. As a playwright, his previous plays include Plug and I Coulda Been A Kennedy. As a filmmaker, his on-the-ground documentary on the Occupy movement, American Autumn: an Occudoc garnered critical acclaim. He was the creator, host, and producer of two nationally syndicated T.V. programs: “Acronym T.V.” and “The Resistance Report.” He was a founding co-Artistic Director of the New York-based Rude Mechanicals Theater Company. Dennis is on the Boston Conservatory at Berklee faculty, where he teaches acting in the B.F.A program. He holds an M.F.A. in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater and is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild and Actors' Equity Association.

GUY MASTERSON (Director & Presenter) is a UCLA & LAMDA trained actor, director, writer and theatre producer of 40 years. A 32-year veteran of the Edinburgh Fringe, where his company, Theatre Tours International, has presented over 150 predominantly new works and associated with several of its biggest hits since 1994 including 12 Angry Men (2003); One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (2004) with Christian Slater and The Odd Couple (2005) with Bill Bailey. He produced & directed the Olivier Award winning Morecambe (2009), The Shark Is Broken (2019) which transferred to the West End in 2021 and then Broadway in 2023. He also performed 11 solo works, most notably Under Milk Wood, Animal Farm, Shylock and A Christmas Carol in over 5000 performances globally since 1991. He received The Stage Best Actor Award at Ed Fringe 2001 for Fern Hill & Other Dylan Thomas and has received a further 4 nominations for his solo work. He has also directed many other award-winning solos including Justin Butcher’s Scaramouche Jones, Rebecca Vaughan’s Austen’s Women, Pip Utton’s Adolf and Peter Tate’s Picasso: Le Monstre Sacré all of which continue to tour after many years. He is married to Brigitta for 27 years, and father to Indigo and Tallulah.