“I’m finally at a point in my career where I’m making the thing that pleases me.”
WHO: Dennis Trainor Jr
WHAT: “Boombox romantic, Lloyd Dobler (Say Anything) returns! Seriously unserious, devoutly disobedient, still refusing to buy, sell or process anything. Now a Zen-punk dissident duct-taping ancient spiritual wisdom to the collapse of the American empire, with deep gratitude and zero credentials, like a sticky note saying: ‘Be kind. Rewind. Revolt’. Join Lloyd in a kinda-sorta guided meditation to survive late-stage effin’ everything… Like a vinyl record spinning in a microwave of manifest destiny, humming: ‘Oh well. Whatever. Never-mind.’ Written and performed by Dennis Trainor Jr. (Manifest Destiny’s Child), directed by Olivier winner Guy Masterson.”
WHERE: Drawing Room at Assembly Rooms (Venue 20)
WHEN: 12:25 (60 min)
MORE: Click Here!
Is this your first time to Edinburgh?
No, this is my second time bringing a solo show to the Fringe. I came in 2023 with Manifest Destiny’s Child, which was one of the great artistic adventures of my life. Scotland very kindly responded with generous audiences, thoughtful conversations, and enough 4- and 5-star reviews to trick me into coming back.
What I love about the Fringe is that it rewards the strange, the urgent, and the deeply specific. A great festival makes room for the thing that maybe shouldn’t work on paper but absolutely has to be done. That’s what brings me back.
What are the big things you’ve learned since 2025 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?
The big lesson I’ve learned is that, yes, I would love great reviews and a small avalanche of five-star ratings—but also, f*ck that.
I’m finally at a point in my career where I’m making the thing that pleases me. I hope it pleases a lot of other people too, obviously, but I wrote the play I wanted to see onstage. Rick Rubin talks about making work for yourself first, because your own creative response is the only thing you can actually control. I can’t control the reviews, the audience, the weather, the ticket sales, or whether someone sitting in the front row decides halfway through that they hate me.
I can control whether I follow my own artistic impulses honestly. And I can honestly say that I’ve done that with this show.
Have I fully absorbed that lesson? Ask me again after the first two-star review.
Tell us about your show.
The Tao of Lloyd is written and performed by me, Dennis Trainor Jr, and directed by Olivier Award winner Guy Masterson, who is also presenting the show through Theatre Tours International.
The play grew out of my podcast of the same name, which combines political satire, guided meditation, Gen X mythology and the Tao Te Ching into a weekly attempt to remain human during late-stage America. The stage show takes that world and pushes it into a darker, funnier, and much more theatrical realm.
Guy and I first worked together on my 2023 Fringe show, Manifest Destiny’s Child, and this feels like picking up a conversation we started there: about power, complicity, American collapse, and how we somehow keep living inside systems we swear we’re resisting.
This is the world premiere. We’ll have preview performances in England before Edinburgh, but Assembly George Street is where the production officially meets the world. After that, the plan is modest: you know… tour it internationally, turn it into a Netflix special, and become successful enough that I can finally stop describing unpaid artistic labour as “development.” The universe may have other plans, of course, in which case I’ll need to change my name to avoid the mountain of credit-card debt I’m accumulating to make this show.
What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?
After everyone comes to see The Tao of Lloyd, here are a few shows that I’m interested in, and, if you’ve read this far, chances are you might be interested in them as well:
I loved Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel when I saw it in 2022, and will most definitely be going back this year for its limited run. It is a fiercely intelligent and deeply funny show that challenges the question of why—or whether—we should still be gathering together to make theatre at all.
An Echo in the Void sounds like a darkly funny AI thriller about memory and identity, and it comes from the producers of BLUE, one of the shows I absolutely loved at the Fringe in 2023.
Don’t You Forget About Me sounds like a sharp, nostalgic identity crisis built around The Breakfast Club—which, as a Gen X theatre person still arguing with the movies that raised me, feels unavoidable.
Baby Everything sounds like a hypochondria-fuelled doomscroll through American collapse—which is exactly what inspired me to write my show, The Tao of Lloyd.
ALOK: Eat Pray Leave looks like a razor-sharp comedy about love, heartbreak, poor decisions and the end times. So, right up my alley/
Boy in a Box sounds like a provocative American solo show about race, history, and the stories a country tells itself to avoid confronting its own culpability.
Also, I’m part of Guy Masterson’s lineup, so yes, I’m going to shamelessly plug the other four shows presented by Guy Masterson: Scaramouche Jones, Call Me Elizabeth, Ludwig: Unfinished Business, and 11½ Angry Men.
LIKE WHAT YOU JUST READ? FOLLOW US ON TWITTER! OR SIGN UP TO OUR MAILING LIST!
INTERESTED IN BEING INTERVIEWED TOO? CLICK HERE!
Get Your Coats On 