Danny Hoch takes over

It's been 10 years since Danny Hoch jolted the Bay Area theater scene with Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop, his dynamic solo show at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.Since then, he has worked diligently to make hip-hop theater more than just a passing phase. He founded the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival, now in its eighth year of presenting a new generation of theater artists in the Bay Area, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Hoch's native New York.While Hoch has gone on to create other solo shows -- Pot Melting, Some People -- he has also dabbled in movies. You've seen his tough-guy mug in American Splendor, Blackhawk Down, War of the Worlds and the recent We Own the Night, among others.The last year was particularly busy for the 37-year-old theater artist. He directed Representa, written by and starring Paul Flores, as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival. He wrote and directed his first multicharacter play, Til the Break of Dawn, last September, and he's been developing his latest solo show, Taking Over, now having its world premiere at Berkeley Rep.``The last few years I've been trying to do some different things,'' Hoch says from Berkeley on his way to rehearsal. ``It's been a while since I had a new solo show. Had to get talked into it. I did solo shows for such a long time and took them on the road. And it's just you. It's lonely, honestly, a lonely experience.''But now Hoch is back and working with Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone to put the finishing touches on Taking Over, which Hoch workshopped last fall in Minnesota and Washington, D.C.``The work I've done the last few years has been fruitful in many ways,'' he says. ``Now that I'm back on stage, I'm getting my old chops back.''The new show has been simmering, he says, for 20 years and is based on Hoch's Brooklyn neighborhood, which has been undergoing a whole lot of changes. Some would call it gentrification.Hoch says it's more akin to colonialization. He has a whole, complex theory about how the rich fleeing cities for the suburbs then clamoring to get back into the cities is akin to a Medieval feudal society.``Why neighborhoods become more expensive and why people from all over the country flock into cities, not for economic reasons but for luxury reasons and for creative and artistic reasons, is complicated and heavy,'' Hoch says. ``One of the things I like to say is gentrification is an excuse not to say the word `colonialization.' People think that once a place has been colonized, it can't be colonized again. But it can -- again and again. That's what's happening.''At readings of the play, whether in Berkeley or in the nation's capital, audiences are responding and sticking around for the post-show discussion.``Last March in Berkeley, I couldn't leave the theater because people kept telling me about this happening in Oakland and San Francisco and parts of Berkeley. There's a major economic and demographic shift happening, and it's creating movement and displacement -- it affects everybody.''The topic is so relevant, in fact, that Hoch says he's only telling part of the story.``It became clear as I was making the show, which is all true, that there's so much I may have to do Part 2 and Part 3.''Here are some random Hoch thoughts on his art and his life.On directing his multi-character play Till the Break of Dawn: "Since I wasn't performing in it, I thought it would be less work. Ha! It was 50,000 times the work because I was writing and directing, which was not my intention in the first place. Don't know if I'll do that again soon. It was not a mistake, but it was just an incredible amount of work and demand on my mental capacity. Then I thought, `Now I can go do a solo show. That'll be easy.' Now I'm finding it's 50,000 times the amount of work of writing and directing. I have a new appreciation for directors and the alleviation of all the pressure not to have to think about certain things."On working with director Tony Taccone: "He's really, really smart and sharp. We yell at each other. We're just New Yorkers. Yelling is just conversation. We're old-school New Yorkers."On the final result of Til the Break of Dawn: I think I did OK as a director and pretty good as a playwright. Could have done better in both. I'm really hard on myself. I also think that I achieved something pretty amazing. That was proven by the reaction of the incredible audiences that came to the show. Again, I managed to bring a young, diverse audience into a theater that was completely moved and really inspired by the play."On the evolution of hip-hop theater: "Hip-hop is such a loaded word, loaded with the wrong cultural references because of mainstream commercial culture. A lot of times, hip-hop theater is perceived by regional or nonprofit or for-profit theater world as a novelty. Or as music. People expect breakdancers to come out. It's unfortunate because what's happening in the meantime is that this entire dialogue, this language and canon from the hip-hop generation is being ignored. My fear is that the stories of the hip-hop generation -- forget the breakdancers and rappers -- is not going to be popular until 500 years from now. That's unfortunate because these stories are immediate and urgent and necessary. When the stories are embraced, they're embraced as a novelty or a one-shot deal, not as a movement, a genre or a generational niche or aesthetic. They fill the color slot for the season. Or this is the show to write the grant to get the young audience in. It's that black and white. It really is."On the necessity of researching a play: "No research. I don't like to read. I carry around a stack of articles, but I didn't read all of them. They reinforce what I'm already doing."On mounting another solo show 10 years after the highly successful Jails, Hospitals & Hip-hop: "Am I 10 years smarter? I'd like to think so. My effectiveness at distilling monologues is a lot faster. It takes less time for me to think about how to distill the many ideas I have for a character into a monologue, which is a good thing. On the downside, it takes a lot longer to memorize the script. And yeah, it's physically demanding. I don't remember it being this physically demanding in rehearsal. I remember it in performance and in an eight-show week. But not before the show opens. I'm exhausted."Hoch's Taking Over continues through Feb. 10 on Berkeley Rep's Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $33 to $69. Call 510-647-2949 or visit www.berkeleyrep.org.Here's Hoch reading his 9/11 poem "Corner Talk" on "Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam" on HBO. Language is R-rated, so watch or don't at your discretion.Here's another "Def Poetry Jam" clip, with Hoch defining what hip-hop is (or isn't) in the poem PSA.