Chloë Whitehorn
About This Episode:
This week on Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby is joined by Chloë Whitehorn, who is currently based in Kingston, Ontario. Chloë, a former actor, discusses her journey to becoming a prolific writer, focusing on themes of women’s rights and mental health. She talks about how her plays—which include The Pigeon, Blood River, and Fall After Midsummer —are driven by characters and their emotions rather than just issues. Chloë also offers a glimpse into the Kingston theatre scene, her unique writing methods, and her perspective on why Canadian theatre struggles with second productions.
This episode explores:
- How Chloë’s approach to playwriting is rooted in character and emotion, stemming from her acting background.
- The challenge of tackling dark themes and how she judges where to stop when exploring traumatic topics.
- Her writing process, which involves working well with deadlines and puzzling pieces together rather than outlining.
- Why she returned to Canada after living in the US and the cultural differences she observed.
- The atmosphere and supportive community of the Kingston theatre scene compared to Toronto.
- The difficulty Canadian plays face in securing a second production after their premiere.
Guest:
🎭 Chloë Whitehorn
Described as “Dorothy Parker meets Neil Labute meets M. Night Shyamalan”, Chloë Whitehorn is an award winning playwright, actor, and wearer of black dresses. A graduate of Queen’s University’s theatre program, Chloë’s work often challenges societal preconceptions and examines the broken bits of ourselves we all try to hide while injecting humor into difficult topics.
Born in California, Chloë’s hippie-artist mother raised her in a world of circus artists, puppeteers and activists until moving to Canada where she spent her days figure skating, writing short stories, and developing a love of theatre. Some of her plays include: Madness Lies (TK Fringe 2025), The Fall After Midsummer (TK Fringe 2024, Come Play by The Lake One-Act Festival BEST PRODUCTION 2025), Blood River (Theatre Kingston 2023), Dressing Amelia (Bottletree 2024), The Pigeon (Life With More Cowbell’s Top Ten Shows in Toronto of 2018), Love, Virtually (Best of Fringe Toronto 2011), Mourning After the Night Before, Divine Wrecks, and How to Not Die Horribly in a Fire. Productions of her plays have been performed across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Upcoming productions in November include The Fall After Midsummer at the Eastern Ontario Drama League one act festival in Merrickville and Hurricane Tales at the Alumnae Theatre in Toronto. Chloë’s current work-in-progress “Admit Two” will be produced as part of Bottletree Productions’ studio series in 2026.
Connect with Chloë:
🌐 Website: http://www.chloewhitehorn.com
📸 Instagram: @chloewhitehorn
🦋 Bluesky: chloewhitehorn.bsky.social
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Transcript
[Phil Rickaby]
Welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host and producer of this podcast. Stageworthy is Canada’s theatre podcast, and on this show I talk to theatre makers of all kinds, from actors to directors to playwrights and more, some of whom are household names and others I think you should really get to know.
As always, stay to the end of the episode to hear about next week’s guest, but for right now let’s get ready to talk about my guest, Chloë Whitehorn. Chloë Whitehorn is a playwright based in Kingston, Ontario. Former actor, turned playwright, and as I think I mentioned at the end of last episode, a prolific playwright.
So many wonderful plays that Chloë has written. I’m a fan of Chloë’s. I hope that you will be too after this conversation.
Here’s my conversation with Chloë Whitehorn. Well, Chloë Whitehorn, thank you so much for joining me. I have been looking forward to talking to you about theatre and the plays that you write, and a big part of that is because one of your plays still haunts me.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
I know which one that is.
[Phil Rickaby]
I know you know which one it is.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
I think of you every time I’m in shoppers around Christmas time.
[Phil Rickaby]
At Christmas, and you see the little chocolate orange box? The black oranges, yeah. Your play, The Pigeon, and the mileage that I’m sure I’m not the only person who sends you a message at Christmas when they see a chocolate orange box on the shelf traumatized from the ending of that play.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Well, I’m glad I could have an impact that was long-lasting, Phil.
[Phil Rickaby]
You certainly have. For those who are unaware, I’m not going to give away the ending of that play because should you have the opportunity to see it or read it, you absolutely should. But there’s an image at the end of the play that is just somebody with a chocolate orange box, and the implications of that box and everything that’s come before it are just horrific.
And I remember sitting in silence after that play, clapping but not sure. I don’t feel good at the end of this play.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Oh, no. But I feel good every time you send me a message.
[Phil Rickaby]
I know.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Thinking of you opened my stocking, and my mom sent me this.
[Phil Rickaby]
It’s true. Now, that sort of brings us to one of the… As a playwright, I know you’ve mentioned before that early in your writing career, you wrote sort of like a play about falling in love and stuff like that.
And that’s something that you’re really into now. You really want to talk about heavier topics and women’s rights and mental health. And The Pigeon is sort of but not that.
But also, dealing with darker themes, how do you judge how far to push something in when you’re playing with darker themes? How do you decide where to stop?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
That is a great question. I think it’s probably my comfort level. I really go into writing with something that I would want to watch.
I don’t like being spoon-fed things, so I can’t fit through that. I want to assume that the audience has the same level of intelligence and will get things. And I layer stuff.
But the darkness, I don’t know. I know I’ve written one too many plays about incest, apparently. As an only child with a single mom, it wasn’t something that I got the breadth of exactly how big that was.
I was just like, this is dark. This is like somebody who could love you that deeply, knowing you your whole life. And that would be amazing.
And well, I have kids now. And I’m like, no, no, that’s not amazing. It’s a different kind of love, different kind.
[Phil Rickaby]
It took a while to get there.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
It did. But yeah, I’ve just always been drawn to the darker stuff. We had, at the kitchen dining room table when we’d have dinner for a conversation so that you weren’t just a bunch of people sitting around a table eating and listening to each other chew.
We had a peach jar, like a cookie jar shaped like a peach, that we would all put topics of conversation in. And my mothers were always like, if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? And mine were like, what are your thoughts on abortion?
Because I want to know the insides of people. And that’s what’s fascinating to me.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, for sure. And that, I think, is one of the things that does set your plays apart. I mean, the themes of some of your plays are quite dark.
For example, The Pigeon. There’s dark stuff in that play, but your play isn’t about that dark thing. It’s about the people who inhabit that world.
And while each play might have a theme, it’s not about the theme, it’s about the people. And I’m curious about how you came to that in your writing. Have you always been more about the people, or did you start with themes and work your way towards the people?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
I was always the people, but the issues have changed that those people are dealing with. I came from an acting background. And so when I started writing, it was more about the emotions that a character could go through, or what if they were put in this situation.
So it was always from the character’s point of view. I never wrote from a visual standpoint of, oh, wouldn’t it be cool to see this on stage? It was really, what are they feeling?
And then playing with words and how different words may mean the same thing, but the ones you choose, the way they sound have a different effect on the characters and on the audience. Playing with that became interesting to me. But yeah, I know I start writing about people, and they’re just dealing with things.
Trying to think of an example. So with Blood River, which you have not seen, you should see. I want somebody else to do this so badly.
I moved back to Kingston, Ontario, from the States. I was living down in South Carolina for about six years. And when I was up visiting family, they just overturned Roe v.
Wade. And I was on the train passing through towns going, oh, the real estate, what’s the real estate like here? That’s a cute town.
How can I move back? And so when I came back, the artistic director of Theatre Kingston wanted to commission me to write a play about why I moved back to Canada. And I said, well, okay, but it can’t be about a reason.
It’s got to be about people. And that became the play. It was about women dealing with what happens when their rights are taken away, and how that affects them personally.
So it’s the individual stories rather than the issue that comes through. And I think that’s where I keep continuing with stuff. When I did Fall After Midsummer last year, it’s Titania and Oberon post Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Because you see Midsummer Night’s Dream, and for people who don’t know, Oberon, King of the Fairies, Titania, his wife, and they have an argument. And to punish her, he makes her fall in love with a man with the head of a donkey, just to embarrass her. And I remember thinking, fuck, that’s toxic.
It was so toxic. And why is that okay? And why do we look at these people as, oh, look at this love story.
So I set it post that, and it turned into a revenge play. But it’s about toxic relationships. But it’s about the characters.
[Phil Rickaby]
You said something in there just right at the beginning about being an actor and then sort of becoming a writer later. What brought you to writing over acting?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
I always wrote stories growing up, but I was more into the poetry because I had a problem with plot. And then acting, I was actually in Kingston before I moved to Toronto the second time. And there was a one-act play festival that I’d done a show for previously.
And so I signed up for a slot again and got it and didn’t have a play that I wanted to do. So I figured, okay, well, I guess I have to write one. And so I wrote my first one-woman show and did that and realized then, oh, wait, I really, I prefer the writing to the acting, I think.
I love the rehearsal process. I love being an actor in that and discovering things. I’m not sure.
I’d never really loved the auditioning process and performance. I loved the sound of applause, but performing itself wasn’t what did it for me. It was the discovery and playing with the characters.
And so I found out, well, I can do that with more than one. I can do that with a whole range of characters that I would never as an actor be cast to play, but I can get into their heads as a writer. So that’s when I stopped acting and started writing.
[Phil Rickaby]
I think nobody actually likes auditioning.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
You do, so people who look at it as like, well, it’s a mini performance. I’m like, no, I couldn’t wrap my head around it that way.
[Phil Rickaby]
See, I, for many years, I don’t audition much anymore, but near the end of when I was auditioning, I just, I was like, this is like my job interview and I might do a hundred of these. This audition is just another audition. And once I started to think of that, I never, I didn’t sweat auditions anymore.
But prior to that, I used to go into auditions, like just like, this is the, this is the one, this one, like putting so much pressure on one audition. And especially considering how many auditions were every actor is going to do in their life and just reducing it to just another really kind of helps.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
It’s that, it’s that role that you really, really want though. And then you feel that desperation and they can see that desperation and having sat now on the other side of the table so many times. I mean, I know we want the actors to do well.
We want them to walk in and be exactly what we’re looking for. But, um, when you’re on, on the other side of it, that’s hard to, hard to get over.
[Phil Rickaby]
I know, but I really think that every actor should spend at least one day on the other side of the audition table, like watching auditions and like participating in those pre-auditions. You not only learn, learn, man, you, you learn that they’re rooting for you, which really takes the pressure off. Cause you know, you walk into the room, they want you to succeed.
But the other thing it does is it shows you all the things that, that people do wrong going into an audition.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah. But also, also that it’s not necessarily your, it’s not you. Yeah.
If you don’t get cast, it’s not that you might’ve reminded the director of somebody in their life. They might’ve seen somebody else that they really wanted and they can see them paired up with you and, and realizing that it’s, you might’ve done the best you could do. You might’ve been awesome, but that’s just not what they needed for that role.
[Phil Rickaby]
100%.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Wild to see that.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. And that’s part of the, part of the process that every actor should be part of. I remember being, doing auditions for something and having that very conversation.
This person is amazing, but we already decided we’re going to give this role to this person. Can we see this person with them? No, not.
And it really did come down to that and, and it sucks, but it’s very freeing to know that it’s not you.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
It’s not you. And now I’m, I’m not necessarily just casting. I feel casting is really important with the plays.
I’ve had some interesting experiences with directors where they didn’t see my work the same way I did, but I know if the casting is right, it won’t, it, it’ll still be okay. There was one particular play where I wrote a memory character and the director was like, no, it’s a goat. I’m like, no, but, but, okay, it should be fine.
So yeah, I’m, I’m involved in the casting a lot just because for the first time a show is done, I want it to be done right. But I’ve also now started writing specifically for actors that I know as well.
[Phil Rickaby]
How is writing for actors that you know, different from writing for just like whoever the director is going to choose?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
You expect them to find in casting you like, okay, I wrote this character and I’ve got a very set idea of who this is. And when people walk in, if they do something completely different that surprises you about the character, that is very cool. So there’s something nice in not writing for a specific actor.
When I’m doing, I did fringe here the last two years and knowing that I have actors that have signed up without seeing a single word of the script and said, yes, whatever you write, I will be in that. I love that. But then I can also, I know what the strengths are.
It gives me some latitude to play with that and also challenge people. I had a show two years ago that I knew the actor could do it. It wasn’t, it was completely, it was the Oberon.
It was completely this, you know, alpha asshole, basically. And that is not who the actor is. He’s the sweetest guy, but I was also directing that one.
So knowing he could do it and pushing him and saying, you walk into this room, this is your room. You own it. Don’t, don’t move around.
Don’t fidget. This is the end. Watching him challenge himself to get there was fun as well.
What’s different about writing for, oh, I don’t know. I can see other people in the role. Sometimes when I’m writing it for them, I have to forget who they are as a person to, to just write it.
But being able to hear their voices sometimes helps as well.
[Phil Rickaby]
Do you find that because you know people, you kind of get a sense of what their wheelhouse is and like, oh, they will be really good at this. Like they, this is like, I’m writing this and I can hear how they’re going to do that speech.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yes. Yeah, for sure. Flip side of that is sometimes when you want them to do it differently than how they, their natural instinct is.
I’ve worked with the same actress for the past two shows and, and she was getting into a rhythm with the monologues. And I said, no, no, no, that you’re, you’re doing that last character. This is a different character.
And she said, yes, but it’s the same playwright. You write the same way. I’m like, there’s different punctuation, follow the punctuation and you’ll get there.
It’s fine. But yeah, knowing, knowing that I can give her specifically really long poetic verses and she will make them sound natural. That’s, that’s amazing.
I like that. But yeah, I like, I like working with new people as well. So yeah, you know what it is like though, if you like were in a show and you’ve worked with everybody else before, and then there’s that one person that’s new and you’ve never worked with them and then they disappoint you.
[Phil Rickaby]
That’s, that’s hard. I mean, listen, it’s hard and you can understand why people form performing cliques, right? Once you have like a group of people that you, that you click with, that you, that you know you can work with, like you don’t really want to jeopardize that by bringing in people you don’t know if the group works together and everybody is going to do what they need to do.
The problem is when that kind of thing just becomes like its own bubble.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah. And introducing new energy into it is, is always, always good. And you learn new things about things and you’ll hear things differently and play differently.
And that’s, that’s good. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
It’s always so fraught. I remember doing a show with Keystone theatre years ago, we were doing plays in the style of silent film. We were doing our play, the last man on earth, which we eventually toured, but the initial production had one actor who helped create one of the roles and they were unavailable when we went to do it for fringe.
So now we had to bring in somebody brand new to reinvent the role for themselves. And it’s all, it was like kind of a bit of a, what, what do we do here? What do we do with this new energy and how is that going to work?
And it ended up being great. Uh, but again, going into it, there’s all the, the, the nerves of like, what’s it, what’s it, what is this new energy going to do to this show?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
You don’t want to lose what you’ve created, but at the same time, all the performances that have to adapt. Right.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah. That’s happened when we’ve, we’ve lost an actor in a show, like partway through rehearsals for some reason or another. And, um, and then you bring in somebody different and they do everything differently.
And then everybody is adapting to, cause you can’t just play it the same way.
[Phil Rickaby]
No. Yeah. You mentioned about moving from the States to Kingston to, to being in Kingston and Toronto and all that sort of thing.
You were born in California. I was. I’m curious how you found your way to Canada and what that journey was to take you from there to here, to Kingston, to Toronto, back to the States and then back again.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
When I moved from Berkeley, California to Winnipeg, Manitoba.
[Phil Rickaby]
That’s a change. That’s a change.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah. Yeah. I, I volunteered to shovel snow cause I thought it would be light and fluffy.
Yeah. I had no, no say in that. I was entirely my mom.
She, uh, she got married. So we moved to Winnipeg and, and then I just, I basically became Canadian like through and through and being up here. I remember thinking about this recently too, that being up here, it’s easy to think, Oh, the U S and Canada is very similar.
It’s the same sort of thing. But then when I went back, I moved back down in 2016 cause my husband got a job down there and I moved from Toronto, downtown Toronto to Rock Hill, South Carolina, which the entire state of South Carolina has half the population of Toronto just to start with. And then I’m in like one of those towns does really cute Christmasville thing downtown where they, they block off their two downtown streets and, um, and fill it with Christmasy things in, you know, in the South where there’s no snow and it’s not cold.
So, I mean, there’s, there’s cute aspects to that, but the culture shock of no, the South isn’t portrayed like that in movies and TVs just as exaggeration. That is actually what people are like. And I realized very easily that I was in Toronto.
I was in this little bubble. I thought I’m not naive, I’m worldly, whatever, but I was in my little art artist filled bubble of other lefty artsy people and, and then plopped down into, you know, suburban small town, the South. And it was, it was a culture shock on so many levels.
And that was before the election in 2016. So.
[Phil Rickaby]
Having come from California to Winnipeg, embracing Canadian-ness and then going back to the States for a while, you might be well suited to, I’m not going to ask you what it means to be Canadian because that is the, that is the, that is the unanswerable question that everyone in Canada always wants an answer to that nobody could find the answer to. But in terms of like the differences, the difference between the, like being American and Canadian, do you have a sense of, aside from like Tim Hortons and coffee and all that, and hockey and all that bullshit, do you have a sense of what the difference is?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
I think in Canada, we really like to let people be who they are. You come from wherever you come from, and you bring that culture and your beliefs and everything to, to life here. And it just sort of adds to it.
Whereas in the States, you’re expected to sort of become like the Borg. I don’t know. You are one, one of a number and, and you go along with the masses and assimilate, I guess.
Yeah. There is something to be said for, so when we decided to move back, I have people who are like, Oh, you should have maybe stayed down there and like protested and fought the system. And how are you supposed to make change from like, how does leaving help?
And I mean, that is an option. You can do that. But also I have kids and at a certain age, the parents are not the influence that they listen to anymore.
I’ve still got a lot of influence because they’re only nine and 11. But but the people around them throughout the day at school, their classmates, their friends, that becomes more of their influencing factor. And I prefer my kids to grow up in an environment where I am viewed as a person who has just as many rights as anybody else and, you know, not less rights than that of a corpse.
So that was important to me.
[Phil Rickaby]
So was it, it wasn’t a difficult choice for you coming back?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Not at all. No, we basically said we’re moving back. And if you need to find a new job, find a new job, I can write anywhere, but I wanted to be here.
So yeah, we actually did look at like all across Canada. We had real estate agents looking in, in every single province. Basically, I put a bid in on a house in New Brunswick.
I know nobody in New Brunswick, but I was that that much. We are going back to Canada.
[Phil Rickaby]
So do you remember where the house in New Brunswick was?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
It was down by the water. It’s not narrow. It doesn’t narrow it down at all.
No, but it was this gorgeous house that like had been wildly redone by an interior decorator in a Victorian maximalist style, which is my style. And they weren’t painting everything beige to sell the house. I wouldn’t have had to do anything to it as opposed to, you know, I moved to a suburban house here in Kingston where everything was beige and I did have to paint everything.
Turns out the electricity would have been like a huge bill though. I remember looking at that after.
[Phil Rickaby]
I’m pretty sure like if you’re not in a city, it can really get pretty expensive. It’s huge. Yeah.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
On the on the topic of assimilation and the difference that that difference I’ve heard recently, people say this on like occasionally I’ll be like on Reddit and somebody be like, I’ve moved to Canada, blah, blah, blah. And every response is, I’m glad you’re here. Welcome to Canada.
And my favorite Canadians are born all over the world. It just takes some of them a while to come home.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Oh, that’s really good. I really like that.
[Phil Rickaby]
And I think I do think that that is that is one of the things that that that I agree. That’s that’s a major part of of Canada is is welcoming the difference. In all the cultures.
Let’s get back. Let’s get back to writing. Let’s get back to right.
Because I don’t I don’t want to I don’t want to I don’t want to think about America, strangely.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
No, I know. I know. It’s so hard these days.
[Phil Rickaby]
In terms of your writing, I was looking at your New Play Exchange page, and there’s a lot of plays there. And I was looking at your website. There’s a lot of plays there.
You are, I would dare to use the word, a prolific writer. Do you have a do you have a method or is it just focus?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Oh, it’s not even that. Oh, my God, I wish I wish I had a method. I wish I had focus.
I do really well with deadlines, which is why I actually put in for the fringe the last two years, because I had a whole year where I just didn’t write anything. And I thought, well, if I if I get a spot in the fringe, then I have to write something. So that is exactly what happened.
Yeah, no, I do really well with deadlines. I don’t outline I don’t plan. I sort of been more of a like a jigsaw puzzle writer, where I write little bits and pieces of things and then puzzle them all together at the end and realize that my own conscious nicely put in this detail over here that links up with that detail over there.
And ha ha, I meant to do that the whole time. And I smart. But yeah, no, I I deadlines.
That’s that’s the answer.
[Phil Rickaby]
Deadlines are hugely helpful. I wrote my solo play for eight years where I was like, I’m going to write this thing forever if I don’t get if I don’t have a deadline, if I don’t have a fringe festival or something, I will write this play forever.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Well, because nothing I think we’re slight perfectionists in that we want everything to be as good as it can be. But like you could rework something forever if you don’t have to let it go at any point.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I mean, every time I go back to a play, it’s there’s oh, no, I just I want to add this. I’m going to change this.
I’m going to do this. And it is really easy to do to like every time I revisit something to be like, I’m just going to do a bit more.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
But when you have a tight deadline, you’re like, no, it’s got it. It’s right. I had out of my head onto the page done.
And then at a at a reading, you could be like, oh, let’s change this a little bit more throughout rehearsal. But mostly when I write, I don’t I don’t do it’s all one file, too. I can’t even every time I start a new project, I’m like, how did I do this last time?
I can’t go back and see like phases of it. It’s just one big file. And and I struggle all over again.
[Phil Rickaby]
I find it interesting because I when I’m writing, I never everything is written in its own way. Like I don’t know how I’m going to write the next play. I only know how I wrote how I’m writing this one or how I wrote the one before.
And none of the things I did on the last one or on this one may work on the next one. It’s a constant it’s constant discovery. But and sometimes when I’m smart, I remember to make copies of the old versions, but it’s that is smart.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
I wish I wish I did that because then you can see the progress.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
And that gives you hope for the new one that you’re working on. You’re like, oh, no, I’ve been here before.
[Phil Rickaby]
Go back to the old, the very first version and say, see, this started like this and now it’s good.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah. Yeah. It became something.
So this thing I’m working on now will become something I’m I’m in that stage right now with what I’m writing. I promised it to a theatre for February, so they obviously need to read it before they announce their their season. And I’ve got a reading set up for the end of the month because I needed that deadline.
Well, I have to have something for people to read, so I must get it done. But I’m in the but why stage this is happening. And I like what they’re saying.
Why? Why is it important? And my friend reminded me, well, that’s exactly what it was like with last play.
[Phil Rickaby]
Right.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
And the one before that, I go, OK, many people around you to remind you of that.
[Phil Rickaby]
Sometimes you just need something like this is this is part of the process.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah. Is that admit to it is I had this idea of a dilapidated old circus that 10 years ago you would have described it as having seen better days, like the tent, the costumes, the people. And that’s that’s I randomly started with the circus.
That’s that’s my idea for this. And I was like, it’s a murder mystery. But why?
What makes it important? Why? Why?
What’s it going to change about the world? Because that’s that’s new for me in the last bunch of years that I really like writing things that I’ve always liked writing things that make people think I don’t care if people like it so much as they leave talking about it. But if it can also change somebody’s mind or improve the world, because life is, you know, art is a reflection of life, but life is a reflection of the art as well.
So if we’re making things that help people move forward or become better, then I feel like as an artist, I’m not just creating entertainment. I’m also, you know, contributing to the world, contributing to society somehow.
[Phil Rickaby]
I sometimes think that that as we are, as we are writing, if we if we allow the characters to be uncensored, they’re going to say something and then you’re going to discover, oh, that’s what this person’s about. Let them go.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
It’s it’s true. I discovered my aerialist doesn’t have a startle response. And and I look that up, I’m like, what does that mean?
Oh, it means she could be a psychopath. Oh, OK. Interesting.
I didn’t realize that about her.
[Phil Rickaby]
So now you mentioned that you started with the idea of the circus. You had an image of it. You write about people.
But do you just do the plays often start with like an image or an idea and the people grow out of that? Or how does how do they form? Or is it different all the time?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
It’s different each time. I know with Divine Rex, I started with the scene of the two of them wrapped in a sheet of just this like this moment of after. And that was the it’s my Oedipus Rex adaptation that I set in the high school.
So it’s the high school student and his teacher who actually, you know, Oedipus follows Oedipus. So, you know, Oedipus, you know who she actually is. And that was it was a couple of lines that that scene actually repeats three times in the play with different meaning each time.
Exactly the same words, but different meaning based on what you’ve seen of the rest of what’s going on. So with that, it was that with Madness Lies, I wanted to write about Hamlet. Hamlet is the ultimate revenge story.
But when you remember Ophelia, you know, you think, what do you remember about her? She went crazy. Well, they have the same story.
Their fathers were both murdered. They both sort of go a little unhinged and then they both die. But because he’s a man, it’s a revenge story.
So I was like, well, what if Hamlet was a woman? And that led me to the whole mental health crisis and how women are historically medicated or institutionalized to deal with their trauma and said, oh, I found a fun fact. It’s it’s fun when like society brings things to you when you’re writing things.
You’re like, oh, this is what I’m writing about. That’s convenient. Somebody did a study and they had the same they handed the same files to doctors that they had all the same symptoms.
They presented exactly the same. One was a woman, one was a man, that sort of thing. And the women were predominantly given a borderline personality disorder diagnosis.
The men were diagnosed with PTSD. But like exactly the same thing. It’s just the gender was different.
And that that just spiraled into, oh, how was it dealt with in Victorian times and how are we still dealing with it? We’re not dealing with the actual trauma. We’re dealing with the symptoms.
And sorry, I have gone off on a complete tangent. No, no, no.
[Phil Rickaby]
Listen, I think that that is one of the things that that that that writers do, because we’re ingesting so many facts. My girlfriend is always remarking. I will say, oh, did you know this?
Like we talked about something and I’ll be like, here’s a fact about that. And I will say, so how do you know all of this? I was like, I was in a play or is writing a play or is thinking about a play.
And I was reading this and that like just like you pack so many random things into your brain.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
And they all come out at different times. And you might be asked to write something about one thing. And that’s not what it turns into.
Yeah, I had love virtually back at the Toronto Fringe. I think it was 2011 because it was pre kids. I had been asked to write a play about online dating.
And I had meetings with the producer and I kept bringing her pages. And it was about, you know, this barista serving her woman biscotti at the at the coffee shop. And it was their their building relationship intention.
And she’s like, but where’s the online dating? I said, oh, I’ll get there. I’ll get there.
I was fascinated by this budding romance that was never going to become anything. And and that was the basis of that play, even though it was supposed it was eventually about online dating.
[Phil Rickaby]
But how did you massage that back to online dating?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Well, see, he died. And so her was, this was in combination with a producer who wanted to do something with music as well. So she was a musician.
And her her producer, the character’s producer was trying to coax her back into working again. And maybe she just needed to get over this guy and date other people. And hence the online dating happened.
[Phil Rickaby]
But got it. Yeah, got it. Yeah.
Yeah. It’s interesting the way that plays sometimes want to go.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Not the way we always expect.
[Phil Rickaby]
No, no. And sometimes sometimes you can let them go. And sometimes you have to try to because you’ve been holding back to pull them back to where they’re expected to go.
If you’re commissioned to write a thing, you have to deliver that thing.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah. Or you just have to change their mind about what it is they wanted first.
[Phil Rickaby]
You’re living in Kingston right now. It’s not your first time living in Kingston. It keeps pulling.
It does keep pulling you back. The home of the tragically him will do that to people. The the you’ve lived in in big cities, in small towns in the States, and Kingston, which is a city.
I don’t think it’s not a small city. It’s a it’s a city. What do you what do you like about Kingston and its theatre scene?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Oh, I love the theatre scene here. It’s everybody knows everyone. And I know you can say that in Toronto because there’s all the six degrees of separation.
Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody. But like literally, you know, everybody in in the theatre scene here, you’ve either worked with them or auditioned with them or been at a party with them or something. When I moved back here, I thought, Oh, how do I get reintroduced to the theatre community?
And I actually, I actually acted in a who was actually on stage again, for the first time in like 14 years, just because it was a small piece in a huge ensemble piece, I thought this out, I’ll be reintroduced everybody. And half of the people here were still the people that I knew from before. There were new people that were great.
There were people from Toronto that I know, when I was in Toronto that have since moved to Kingston. So it’s it’s a little petri dish of all of the theatre scenes everywhere.
[Phil Rickaby]
But but in in in smaller form, do you do you find that the smaller form gives you more freedom? As far as like creating plays, or or how? How is aside from like, the number of people and a number of theatre companies?
How does theatre in Kingston differ from say, theatre in Toronto?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
I mean, I have the freedom to write for for theatres here as well as elsewhere. So there’s, you know, I can write here and it can go anywhere. But but there’s more encouragement and support here.
I know the the reviewers because there’s a few now, they’re more familiar with my work. It was so cool that I reviewed a couple of reviews came out this summer. And it was like in typical Whitehorn fashion.
Like what? That’s a thing? Oh, that’s wild.
But because they had seen enough of my stuff, that that they could, sorry, something just turned on. Okay, that they they could remark on stuff or or know that it’s layered. And if you don’t get it right away, you just have to think one one of the reviewers of her, who now writes for Intermission magazine, she she was like, I saw the play and I knew I have to like dissect each line two or three times to get through it like an onion, there’s layers and and to get it that way.
Which was that that part’s nice. Also having having theatres that know me and want to do my work is so nice. It’s that elusive second production that is hard to get anywhere else.
And I think theatre in Toronto is it’s huge. And you make your connections, but there’s still very limited options for actually getting your work put on that is not you. Yeah, right.
If you’re not huge and doing Yeah, well, I don’t think anybody Toronto is writing the Mervis shows. But the the littler theatres, it’s still a lot of self production. Whereas here, I can say, Hey, I have this play.
Or they can say, Hey, Chloë, I have a spot in my season. I want something. Can you write me something?
And and that has been that has been really nice and supportive. It’s made me write more, I think.
[Phil Rickaby]
Well, I mean, if you have the opportunity to have stuff performed, like, it’s going to encourage you to write more, you said something about the elusive second production. And I don’t think that is unique to Kingston, because I really think that we have a problem in Canada, in Canada, in Canadian theatre, about getting a show a second production. It’s like, you know, in the States, a show will be a hit, like a straight play will be a hit somewhere, and other theatres will want to do it shows from the UK will get done in North America.
But in Canada, we do a show once and then we kind of throw it on the pile of Canadian plays and forget about it. And it’s one of the things that I think prevents our theatre from being great and and and sort of exploding. Because nobody in Canada wants to do a show that’s not a premiere.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah, no, they all want they all want to have been their hand on it to begin with. They want to say we were part of creating this, which is great. And we are very good at supporting first productions of things and generating work.
There’s a word for that, and then it’s escaped me. But yeah, we’re good at pushing for that first thing and supporting that. But once it’s written, it’s it’s done.
Yeah. And yeah. And unless you can get it.
Unless you can get it put up somewhere else. I know I’ve got a few things that have gone to the States and had productions there, which is nice, because then I’m hoping well, if it gets done a couple times there, then maybe in Canada, they might look back and go, Oh, this thing, maybe we’ll try that again.
[Phil Rickaby]
There have been a couple of times when Kim’s convenience has been done by a company that’s not soul pepper, or for something like that, after the initial production in fringe, or recently, Michael Ross Alberts play the Huns was done from friend 2019, I think was done at the Halifax fringe this past year. But those are both extremely rare things where somebody else that’s not the original producer did the play. And I don’t I don’t know the why of it.
It’s one of the things that I would love to delve into to figure out like why and how can we fix it.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
But I have a thought. I think it might be because we tend to write I’m generalizing here, but darker, more serious work. And that in itself is hard to get put up.
Because mass audiences prefer musicals and comedies. I should actually ask Sofia Fabulae is in Kingston as well. And she wrote a farce.
I’ve forgotten what it’s called. But it takes place in a funeral home. And it is hysterical.
And I’m not a comedy person. I like I like my dark, tragic plays. But I saw I saw it done at 1000 Islands Playhouse.
And I’ve also seen that it is at several other theatres across Canada. And it’s been very successful. So I should ask her what her what her secret is.
[Phil Rickaby]
I do think that the idea of like doing plays like plays that are darker or more serious. That seems to be what a lot of the theatres that are doing like the development work like Terragon Factory, Pass Marai and some of the other theatres in Canada are doing. And that seems to be what they’re seeking grants for.
I’ve I’ve complained forever the fact that like, in amongst all of those serious plays, nobody’s programming like a popcorn play like a farce, just to like be like, hey, you know, we could do both. You can have a good time and then come back and see a serious thing, you know? Well, we like to spill our guts out on stage.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
And I think and that is what what gets the funding to dissect the human experience. And that’s usually darker, not necessarily straight comedic.
[Phil Rickaby]
So I know I know it’s but I do think that sometimes like we can we could do that with comedy as well.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
But oh, for sure. And I think it’s harder with comedy and you feel it more when it when you laugh at something like that.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
I don’t know why it’s not the go to for the people to think, hey, let’s let’s do this. Let’s entertain through the dark winter.
[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, we should. I mean, we have cold winters, as you learned in your first winter here in Canada when you thought that you wanted to shovel the snow. It’s not it’s not like that.
But I think it’s the same reason why our publishing industry doesn’t touch genre. Like there’s no sci fi publishers. There’s no fantasy, all literary fiction.
It’s all literary. And we just don’t do that here, which I think is to the detriment of many different forms of art.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
I’ve actually started trying to write novels. I started during the pandemic when all the theatres closed. And I thought, oh, well, crap.
You need a different creative outlet. As it’s such a different medium. I’m used to writing just the dialogue and minimal stage directions, because I feel like, you know, all theatre artists bring their own talent.
And it’s a collaborative effort. So here’s your dialogue, but you guys figure out the rest of it. And when you’re writing a book, it’s Oh, she said she sits on the bench under a tree and the light from the tree, you have to describe the light and the bench and how she’s sitting and what she’s thinking.
And that’s all the stuff that I’m not used to writing. So it’s been a struggle.
[Phil Rickaby]
It is a struggle. It’s all of that, like, oh, I would expect I would have an actor come up with these, like, how is she like, what’s her inner thoughts and things like that? That’s the actor’s job.
I write.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah, exactly. I’m, I’m stepping on people’s toes.
[Phil Rickaby]
If I Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely a different a different experience to, to try to write all of that. I’ve tried it. And I run into the exact same thing where I’m like, I need to describe more.
God, how much do I need to describe? Like everything.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
And then you go down like a Google pathway of, well, okay, I need a word that does this. Oh, what’s that mean? And then, oh, interesting.
And then you’ve done all this research, and you’re still like 50 words.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. And I find it I write, like, as I’m writing prose for like a short story or something like that. It takes me longer than writing a play.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah, it’s because we’re used to dialogue. We talk to people every day. We don’t necessarily narrate our inner thoughts.
I mean, you know, not all of us.
[Phil Rickaby]
Now, we’re just sort of like starting to draw to a to a close here. And, you know, you’ve you’ve been you’ve done a show at the frames this past summer in Kingston, you you have the fall after midnight coming up in Merrickville.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah, we took the fall after midsummer after the fringe. We put it in the One Act Play Festival here. And it won Best Production.
So now it’s going on to the Eastern Ontario Drama League in Merrickville. I have a show at NIF at the New Ideas Festival alumni in November as well. It’s actually a comedic sort of fluffy light piece.
It’s not it’s not dark and tumultuous. It takes place during a hurricane. It’s called Hurricane Tales.
It’s in the last week of the of the festival. And and I just today found out that there’s a theatre company down in Maryland that is going to do Dressing Amelia. Nice.
So, hey, it’s getting a second production. There you go. Sadly, we couldn’t do it in Canada.
Nope. Nope. Had to be down near Washington, D.C. My husband said, oh, is that going to get you a travel band? I said, no, it’s it’s Dressing Amelia. It’s one of the lighter. Well, it’s not light.
About bipolar parents, whatever. But yeah, it’s not it’s not as political. So I’m pretty OK.
[Phil Rickaby]
You mentioned the work that you’re you are you’re you’re currently working on and the themes of that and you’re trying to work towards the February production. As you’re working through it, what is your favorite thing currently about it?
[Chloë Whitehorn]
I get to write another character that uses vocabulary in a different way than I do. I lose words all the time when I’m talking. I’ll know exactly what I want to say.
I know there’s a word for it. I generally know what letter it starts with, but it’s completely escaped my mind. And there is a word for that as well.
I don’t remember what it is, having that tip of the tongue syndrome. But but this character uses the I fugacious. I didn’t know the word fugacious.
And it it came out of his mouth. And I thought, well, that’s something it’s memorable, like some sort of core memory. It’s interesting, right?
And it’s forgettable, something that’s unforgettable as opposed to words. So just playing with the language, I guess, is what I really enjoy. Yeah.
But while I wonder about the why of the play, I keep coming up with other things. I have a deep love for Danny McIver. He is actually one of his plays is what got me into theatre.
I was a film major at Queens. And I saw Never, not Never So Alone, it was Seabob Run. And I believed every single second of that performance.
It was just one of those benches ripped out from a car on an empty stage that was actually classroom, not even a theatre theatre. And and I believe I bought into every second. And that’s when I realized that theatre could be real.
And that that was my thing. So there’s a Never So Alone take that I want to do that is women and about how my generation of women sort of were conditioned to be competitive with one another, as opposed to now the younger generation is all supportive of each other. And that’s fabulous.
But we still have these tendrils of competitiveness stuck to us from our upbringing. So my mind wanders to that. And I’m like, No, right.
Admit to write that one. Not this other one.
[Phil Rickaby]
That, for me as a writer, has been one of my biggest challenges in the entire history of writing, because when the play I’m writing gets hard, I’m bombarded with new ideas. Yeah, somebody think, oh, that’s easier to write than this one. And for the longest time, I would go to that one and start writing that one, leaving the old one behind.
And then the same thing would happen. And so more ideas. And then now I make an agreement that while I’m writing something, if I get those new ideas, I just put them in a folder and I could come back later and see if it’s still a good idea.
But I’m only allowed to write it down. And that’s all I can do.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
You have to work on the thing you’re working on. Yeah. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah. That’s hard, though.
[Phil Rickaby]
So hard. So hard. And, you know, Danny McIver, I saw a production of Seabob Run in a warehouse in Kitchener many years ago.
And you’re right. It is very immediate and very spellbinding play. Danny McIver is the reason why I ever wanted to write a solo play.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
See, look at this. He has just he’s birthed so many authors and writers. 100 percent.
[Phil Rickaby]
It was it was Wild Abandoned, but also House. That was like just those as solo plays were made me want to write solo plays. And that’s before I ever saw one.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Wow.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Well, because they jump off the page, too. It’s not just because because it is one person talking, you can totally visualize it entirely. You don’t necessarily need to see it.
Whereas, you know, other plays, it’s you can read it. It doesn’t have the same impact.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That’s why I think sometimes I mean, they did this with Harry Potter and the Golden, whatever the playing. And when that came out, Indigo was was advertising it like it’s a new novel. Without.
Without taking into account that people are going to purchase this hardcover, find out it’s a play and realize that reading a play is entirely different than reading a novel and is an entirely different skill set.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Yeah, because it’s lacking all those descriptive all those about how she’s sitting on the bench with the tree.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Chloë, it is a pleasure to talk to you. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you.
I’ve wanted to talk to you on the podcast for a very long time. So thank you for joining me. I really appreciate it.
[Chloë Whitehorn]
Thank you for having me. I had a great time.
[Phil Rickaby]
Thank you for listening to this episode of Stageworthy. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Before we get to next week’s guest, let’s get a little housekeeping out of the way.
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I have to pay for editing software. I have to pay for hosting both website and for the audio files. I’m also paying for image software to create the images that I create each week as well as a whole lot of other things that just need to be covered.
And I’m not even paying for my time for making this podcast, whether it’s searching out guests or doing the interviews or editing or anything else that I do related to the podcast. We’re just covering those costs. So if you want to help me make this podcast, go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. All of the patron levels are really affordable and at Canadian dollars. So please become a backer. People who become patrons get early access to episodes and get to participate in conversations about the podcast.
So hopefully if you want to help me make this show, become a patron, go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. I would be forever grateful. Next week, we’re going to be talking to Michael Kras.
Michael is a playwright and director, as well as one of Canada’s busiest directors of magic and illusion. And you can hear about those by tuning in next week when you can hear me talk to Michael Kras.
