Danny Hoch’s new solo show, Taking Over, packed as it is with characters on the “right” and “wrong” side of Williamsburg’s gentrification, is barely long enough to contain the native New Yorker’s righteous rage; our print interview with him didn’t even come close. Herewith, Hoch’s sweet-toothed thoughts on why Williamsburg hipsters are “marshmallows” and Michigan girls are more like pastries.
On whether his characters alienate audience members:
Who says my show was for you? Neighborhood people said, “This is the shit we’re afraid to say, because if we say anything like this, then we’re made to be racists or hostile.” We’re having a white-supremacist moment here, you and I, because when the world revolves around us, then we ask questions like that.
On making a theatrical living in New York:
I would like to do Broadway because I would like to make money in New York City. I would not like to do it because the audience is predominantly tourists … What I left out of my show is that the most celebrated playwright in New York City is from Ohio and writes plays about characters from Ohio in New York. His name is Adam Rapp, and I love him. But what does that say?
On how Michigan girls are like croissants:
You know the old African-American woman on the stoop who wants a croissant [in the show]? That’s my personal experience. Look at me, I look like I could be a white dude from fucking Ohio. But I walk into the fucking café to get a croissant and I’m invisible. I open my mouth and they really don’t talk to me. So, listen, I want the croissant and I want to fuck the girl from Michigan. Because they’re delicious, and it’s delicious to fuck girls from Michigan and almond croissants are delicious. Because we all want to exoticize each other. Why did I put it in the show? Because I had to personalize it.
On Williamsburg’s anti-hipster crime:
These kids are getting jumped. You know what the cops at the Ninth Precinct call the new white kids in Williamsburg? Marshmallows, because they’re soft and white.
Related: “Native Tongues: Danny Hoch” [NYM]
