Chloe Johnston is a writer, director, and teacher in Chicago and an Associate Professor of Theater at Lake Forest College. Her original plays and performances have been called “powerful” by the New York Times, "lively and affecting" by the Chicago Tribune, "inspired" by the Chicago Sun-Times , and "moving, engaging, thought-provoking" by Time Out Chicago. Her solo work has been featured in the Chicago Tribune. With Coya Paz Brownrigg, she is the co-author of Ensemble-Made Chicago: A Guide to Devised Theater, published by Northwestern University Press.
Chloe has been an ensemble member of The Neo-Futurists since 2001, writing and performing in their late-night cult show, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, in Chicago, New York, Washington D.C. and around the country. As a performer, director, teacher, and dramaturg she has worked with theatres throughout Chicago, including Steppenwolf, The Goodman, Lookingglass, About Face, Curious Theatre and CollaborAction. She was the dramaturg for the world premiere production of E. Patrick Johnson’s Sweet Tea. She has served as assistant director to Tony Award-winning director Mary Zimmerman and renowned playwright and actress Regina Taylor. Chloe is also a founding member of The Laboratory for the Development of Substitute Materials, a performance collective that blends literature, science, and architecture. She is co-author of 44 Plays for 44 Presidents, published by Playscripts Inc., which has been performed around the world and co-author of 46 Plays for America’s First Ladies, which premiered in 2020 and is production around the country. She was recently a Co-MISSION Fellow at Links Hall in Chicago, where she developed an original performance about artificial intelligence and natural language processing.
Chloe earned an AB in Art History from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. Her articles have been published in Liminalities, Theatre Topics, Performance Research, Theatre Journal and TDR, and she has presented her work at conferences including Performance Studies International, American Studies Association, National Communications Association, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the American Society for Theatre Research. She is a faculty fellow of Humanities 2020 at Lake Forest College, a partnership initiative funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which works to enhance and advance humanities education through engagement with the issue of racism in the Chicagoland area. She has been invited to give talks and conduct workshops at the Washington University of St. Louis, Seattle University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Franklin and Marshall College, Northwestern University, and the University at Buffalo. She has designed and taught classes at Northwestern, the University of Chicago, and Lake Forest College, in addition to teaching solo-performance workshops around the country.
You can email Chloe at chloefsjohnstonATgmail.com