Geoff Hoyle

Geoff Hoyle created the role of Zazu, the hornbill in the original Broadway cast of The Lion King. He has clowned with Cirque du Soleil, Circus Flora and with Bill Irwin and Larry Pisoni in San Francisco’s Pickle Family Circus. He created Spare, the three-legged man as part of a benefit performance for the Pickle Family Circus in 1982. He trained with Marcel Marceau’s teacher, Etienne Decroux and at the Gymnase du Cirque in Paris under Tudor Bono. His original solo shows, including Feast of Fools, The Convict’s Return and The First Hundred Years have been seen in NewYork, San Francisco, Paris, London, the former Soviet Union, and at various regional theatres in the US and England.

He has created comic roles at the Berkeley Rep, (notably Mosca in Volpone and Face in The Alchemist by Ben Jonson as well as Clov in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, Dogberry In Much Ado About Nothing and Berenger in Rhinoceros) American Conservatory Theatre (including Stephano in The Tempest, and Joxer in Juno and the Paycock), Eureka Theatre, American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, (with Dario Fo and Franca Rame), Seattle Rep, Arena Stage and La Jolla Playhouse and has received several NEA mime grants as well as an ArtsLink grant to visit circuses in Latvia and Russia.

For Stanford Summer Theatre in California he played Vladimir in Waiting for Godot and the Old Lady in Eugene Ionesco’s The Chairs. He was recently awarded a TCG/Pew National Theatre Artist Residency Grant to work with the Arizona Theatre Company, to give workshops in mask, clown and mime and translate and perform in the late plays of Georges Feydeau. He is most proud of his three children, Jonah, Daniel and Kailey all of whom have appeared with him, onstage or in the ring.

Geoff is based in the Bay Area of San Francisco and often performs as an actor in theatres in San Franciso and Oakland.

He is represented by Arthur Shafman.

To find out more about his work, visit his page on Arthur Shafman’s website