I’m Taking The Tao of Lloyd to Edinburgh. Help Me Get It There.

This Tao of Lloyd is officially making the leap from podcast I started last June to live performance at the Edinburgh Fringe this August. The Edinburgh Fringe is the largest arts festival in the world, where new work can find an international stage.

This GoFundMe helps with covering costs connected to:

That’s where you come in: I’m asking for your help to take this to the next level.

Every contribution, at any level, makes a real difference.

ABOUT THE SHOW: written and performed by Dennis Trainor Jr., The Tao of Lloyd reimagines Lloyd Dobler (yes, that Lloyd... the Gen X icon played by John Cusack in Say Anything) as a middle-aged zen punk dissident offering sorta kinda meditations to help us survive late stage everything. Think Ram Das meets Rage Against the Machine on a turntable spinning in a microwave of manifest destiny.

I’m serving as a co-producer alongside Olivier Award winner Guy Masterson, whose three+ decades of work at the Edinburgh Fringe include producing and directing major international hits: 12 Angry Men; One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest with Christian Slater. He produced & directed the Olivier Award winning Morecambe, 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.

So while The Tao of Lloyd may be gloriously strange, I’m lucky enough to be making it alongside someone who actually knows how to navigate the beautiful chaos of Edinburgh, and help shepard the production to a life after the Fringe.

“In 2023, we presented Dennis Trainor Jr’s Manifest Destiny’s Child at Assembly, where it enjoyed terrific critical acclaim. Since then, I’ve followed his superb work on The Tao of Lloyd, which reimagines John Cusack’s lovelorn character from the cult film ‘Say Anything’ as middle-aged—yet still not entirely grown up. What Dennis has created here is something rare: a voice that cuts through the obfuscation and says what we are all thinking about these extraordinary times but can’t quite articulate. It’s blisteringly on point, verbally adroit, and ravagingly caustic. We’re thrilled to bring Lloyd Dobler to the stage in this world premiere.” — GUY MASTERSON

“Working with Guy again feels like picking up a conversation we started with Manifest Destiny’s Child—about power, complicity, and how we somehow keep living inside systems we swear we’re resisting. The Tao of Lloyd grows directly out of that. Lloyd isn’t a departure for me—he is, like me, a middle-aged zen-punk dissident duct-taping ancient spiritual wisdom to the collapse of the American empire… and hoping that holds.” — DENNIS TRAINOR JR

About the Edinburgh Fringe Festival: The largest arts festival in the world — part theater festival, part artistic lottery ticket, part beautiful nervous breakdown. Every August, thousands of performers descend on Edinburgh.

The Fringe can be a launching pad for work that changes careers — and occasionally changes the conversation. Some of shows launched there and exploded outward into the culture include:

Fleabag.

Baby Reindeer.

Nanette.

Urinetown: The Musical

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

,,,and, yes, also true—no small number of shows that play to an audience of two people, one of whom leaves halfway through to “use the restroom” and is later spotted three blocks away eating chips and avoiding eye contact.

That’s Fringe too.

And you know what? There’s something weirdly beautiful about that.

But I've had success at the Fringe myself.

In 2023, my first solo show, Manifest Destiny's Child, pulled down scores of 4 and 5 star reviews.

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR ‘MANIFEST DESTINY’S CHILD’

“When both real-life politics and the dramatisations of them are often defined by spin, it is a refreshingly self-aware and honest perspective.” - THE SCOTSMAN ★★★★

“West Wing without the rose-coloured glasses.” - BRITISH THEATRE GUIDE ★★★★★

“Under the direction of Broadway heavyweight David Esbjornson, Trainor puts fire in the belly of politics and makes this a compelling, entertaining hour.” - UK THEATRE NETWORK ★★★★★

“The writing is rich with imagery. His relentless commitment to doing something that matters makes the show a joy to watch, and entirely inspiring.” - ENTERTAINMENT NOW ★★★★

“Trainor combines humor with serious socio-political points to great effect.” - THE WEE REVIEW ★★★★

ONE4REVIEW ★★★★★ BROADWAY BABY ★★★★ REVIEWS HUB ★★★★

THE FRINGE REVIEW – OUTSTANDING SHOW ★★★★

And now, I'd like to build on that success, and level it up even further with this new show, The Tao of Lloyd.

Please consider a donation in support of this production.

Thank you,

Dennis

Here is a trailer:

Here is a trailer:

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 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; Waiting for Godot; The Winter’s Tale; Mac Wellman's Cellophane; and many more. As a playwright, his previous plays include Manifest Destiny's Child, 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. programmes: 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.