Tings Dey Happen

In Tings Dey Happen, Dan Hoyle continues to develop his unique form of journalistic theater. After spending a year as a Fulbright scholar studying oil politics in Nigeria, he now brings to the stage one of the most important geopolitical stories of our time.

Already supplying 10% of American oil, Nigeria and the surrounding Gulf of Guinea region has been targeted as the “new Middle East” of oil security. But militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta are blowing up pipelines, warlords are threatening outright rebellion, and oil company workers are being kidnapped. The audience meets all these characters in Hoyle’s ambitious, comic and disturbing new play.

In contrast to his previous shows, Hoyle never portrays himself in Tings Dey Happen. Instead, he allows the characters he met to tell their stories of survival on the West African oil frontier, and the audience to experience the intensity and dynamism of Nigeria as he did. In the process, the audience is forced to consider all the hard questions in a new way: Should we accept corruption and oppression in deference to the sovereignty of the ‘African Way’? Can the West help Africa, or are all our interventions fated to compound the problem? And what happens when there’s no choice between wrong and right, only between wrong and wrong?

Performance Schedule:

December 14, 2006 to January 6, 2007
Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8:00pm

January 11 – January 27
Thursday & Friday at 8:00pm; Saturday at 5:00pm