I've known James Dalton for over two decades and have watched him transverse the globe - performing concerts, theatrical shows, and reading poetry. It's a marvel to see a guy from Ocean County find himself everywhere from the biggest fringe festivals to performing on Chinese television. And he's never slowed down. In fact, he recently performed at two fringe festivals three thousand miles apart with two different shows in just two weeks! He went from the Gothenburg Fringe Festival to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. New Jersey Stage caught up with him to learn more.
It's hard enough getting work accepted at one fringe festival, what was it like performing one show in Gothenburg, Sweden and another one in Philadelphia -- all within two weeks time?
It was pretty intense to be honest, because they were both new works, but those two weren’t the only ones I did in that two weeks span of time.
Sure, I pitched Vignettes, and it was accepted and I did two performances, but also in Gothenburg, I was able to convince them to let me stage a one off of Asbury Park & Me, and there was a workshop as well that I ran, Harmonica For Beginners.
The really difficult thing was keeping Vignettes and Asbury Park & Me separate from one another if you know what I mean. The other new show, Ginsberg’s Howl As Read By James Dalton was a completely different experience and perspective.
You've been taking part in fringe festivals for a long time. I remember you talking about being part of the cast of Hair at Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Was that the first time you experienced a fringe festival?
This is a great question and actually, my experience in 1998 playing Claude in the musical Hair, while it was a groundbreaking experience for me personally and creatively, it was not my first touch of Fringe Festival shenanigans.
In 1997, while I was studying theater and American poetry etc. at Rutgers University, I followed a girlfriend over to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as she was there as part of Mason Gross’ Shoestring Players directed by Joe Hart. I landed, was broken up with five hours later and had a handful of days just to wander the city and to really dig deep into the festivals offerings.
Let's talk about the two shows you've done recently. What did you do in Gothenburg? And what was the award you won?
When I pitched Vignettes to the Gothenburg Fringe Festival, it was really just a work in progress. This was my fourth solo/storytelling/music show, so delivering a personal narrative in between songs and jokes with the audience has been something I’ve really been developing and each one of those shows all seem to lead me to this new one. Whether I intended it or not, I literally borrowed from each of the previous three shows, and I guess it seemed to work out, like I seem to finally get it right.
They awarded me what they called “Simply the Best” which, while it sounds like the top prize, what it meant was, I did the most with the least. My show is just me, no lighting cues no stage crew, no cast, no real props or staging: just me, my instruments and the audience. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know, but the idea is that my extremely understated show was one of the top shows up against major productions. Full cast major tech situations, etc. Know what I mean?
And in Philly, you read Ginsberg's Howl with the Ginsberg Beat Connection.
Ginsberg's Howl was literally a dream come true. I mentioned Rutgers University above, and yes, I was studying American poetry and theater and all sorts of things and yes, I had an incredible professor that inspired me to study and to write an essay about Howl. So, I’m happy to tell you that I came up with this idea, I schemed this vision over 30 years ago. It’s been in the back of my mind this whole time, reading Ginsberg‘s Howl with a savage group of jazz improvisers, not just accompanying me, but engaging with me as I engage with them. And not just reading it, but interpreting it, performing it. I wasn’t going to memorize it because I didn’t want to get too far from the text, but there are moments that you can whisper, and there are moments that you can laugh, and there are moments that you can shout in that work.
The musicians are actually a group of guys that I’ve been playing with for the last several years in a project called Ripplewood. That’s a project that explores the music of the Grateful Dead, but at some point, I realized that some of these guys were friendly with some of the old Allen Ginsberg crew and even knew the people running his estate. One of them even played with Allen!
Those guys are Abe Speller, Robert Musso, David Dzubinski, and Jair-Rohm Parker Wells.
You seem like the perfect person to read Howl - is there a recording of it? I'd love to hear it.
We didn’t get a good recording of this performance, but we do plan on bringing the show back in a few different circumstances. I’m in talks with someone to bring it to a theater in Long Branch right now and we’re speaking to a radio station that wants to do a live broadcast based in Philadelphia.
What was it like when you first performed at a fringe festival as a solo artist? Does it still bring up the same emotions/excitement? Or has it become just another show to you?
Having visited the fringe festival universe a few times, three times in Edinburgh and then once in New York, I finally was able to get my own solo show together. Back in 2007 I pitched and did a 15 night run of something called Shanghai To Memphis, which was a wild experience. it was going to be stories and songs, but it was going to be a more serious tone, until the night I opened. I had a plan for these 15 nights, and I improvised some quick little joke, not even a joke as soon as I was introduced on my first night and for some reason, the whole audience laughed… it was that moment that I decided to throw out my entire show and starting at the moment of introduction.
Basically, I was going to improvise every night for the next three weeks. I got four stars and great reviews from a few different sources. From that moment of engagement with the audience, that little equipment that got them all laughing, I think that’s the moment my entire performance life changed. Instead of me, trying to present something to an audience, I began my every evolving always exploring conversation with an audience. That has been the basis of the last few shows and that’s really what I’ve focused on for this new one.
You mentioned you did a harmonica workshop in Gothenburg. I know you've done many of these over the years, is it something you enjoy? Do you usually find yourself working with people who have little experience playing harp or more experienced players?
It’s funny about harmonica workshops, if I have an audience of people, then I end up basically making it into some sort of a show. I can’t help myself. It just happens. And that’s how my third show, literally came to be. Harmonica Lesson: The Show! Was birthed for the Reykjavík Fringe Festival and also did Gothenburg back in 2024. I’m literally giving harmonica lessons on stage to people while telling stories and being ridiculous and trying to move them from one place to another. It’s super indulgent :-)
As a Jersey guy, how does Asbury Park & Me play across the world? Do you keep the show the same or change it up each time?
Asbury Park & Me has changed like crazy, from place to place, country to country, audience to audience. We started off a really Jersey-centric music review for the Springsteen fans around the world, slowly evolved into what Vignettes would become:a deeply personal conversation based in truth.
Any advice you could offer to a performer interested in having a show at an international fringe festival?
The first thing I would recommend to any performer looking to do this sort of thing, is to find their niche. Fringe festivals lend themselves to experimentation and basically just going for it. If someone has a classical dance background, and they wanna come up with their own show, use the dance. If someone’s a singer or any other type of specialized skill, no matter how unrelated to theater it could be, find a way to bring it in. Bringing a show to a place like this is the best way to find yourself.
Finally, what are your future plans? Is there a country you haven't had marked in your passport you're hoping to hit one day?
There will always be a country I’d like to get my passport stamped in, but what’s next is a lot actually.
Vineyard is currently in talks with a couple theaters in England and Sweden as well as a couple spaces here Stateside. Having won the award that it did, it was really helping to open up some doors.
Ginsberg's Howl definitely wants to get out of his legs a bit so myself and the Ginsberg Beat Connection are putting our heads together, looking for overseas jazz festivals, and perhaps a handful of universities that may be into it. We might even expand that program into other works by other writers, but who knows, right now I’m just trying to play all these other gigs until I can get those two back up and running :-)
“A JOYFUL, EBULLIENT ANTIDOTE TO REALITY!” — Rolling Stone
Pictured: Ailey II’s Adanna Smalls and Eric J. Vidaña. Photo by Nir Arieli.
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