by Kevin Russell Poole, photos by Kevin Russell Poole
After a brief holiday-induced intermission, we’re back with another interview! To kick off the new year, I sat down via Zoom with Chloé to learn a bit more about the woman behind the Rap-Sheet interviews! Chloé has one of the strongest, most specific artistic tastes, that she answered every question almost before I could finish asking it. You’ll be hard-pressed to find an artist that is as excited to rave about other people’s work! The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Kevin Russell Poole: Chloé I am so excited that you finally get to be interviewed!
Chloé Hayat: I am so excited that I get to be interviewed by you!
Kevin: It's an honor for me as well! We've heard you ask so many lovely questions and now the audience is demanding to know more from you. So, first and foremost, let the readers know how you describe yourself as an artist.
Chloé: I describe myself as a playwright, a dramaturg, a makeup artist and a producer.
Kevin: I love that! Have you done makeup for theatre?
Chloé: Mhm! I got my makeup certificate in 2013, and pretty much did that throughout college for money. Most of what I did was student films, theatre, and drag. And honestly those were the best. Character creation is one of my favorite things and it actually takes a lot of dramaturgy because you have to think, “what does the character have access to? What do they like? Who are their makeup idols? What do they want to look like? What do they want to cover up?” It's so much fun.
Kevin: That's so cool that you brought your writer dramaturgy brain into it.
Chloé: I often over-complicated things.
Kevin: Hey! And that's what college is for!
Chloé: And then you learn to pare it back when you're a grown-up.
Kevin: Exactly. Or you don't!
Chloé: Or you don't!
Kevin: And that's also beautiful! How did you get involved with Breaking & Entering?
Chloé: Well, I had the honor and privilege to train Emily [Bubeck, Artistic Director of Breaking & Entering] as an intern at New Dramatists, and literally day one I loved her. I made some stupid joke while I was training and Emily laughed at it and immediately did a silly voice and I was like, “oh I love this girl.” And then Emily trained [you] and I loved [you] day one, because [you] told Connie Hall that [you] would take pictures for their Instagram as long as [you] could be in every picture, and I thought, “that’s a kid I need to be friends with!” And so I’ve been along for the ride since you guys told me your plans! I was like, “that sounds excellent and exciting! How do I join?”
Kevin: And we said “Help us! You're in! Let's do this!” So primarily you describe yourself as a writer.
Chloé: Yes.
Kevin: When did you realize that you wanted to be a writer?
Chloé: (Laughs) That's a good question! I remember very distinctly when I was ten, I was obsessed with the American revolution, and there were all those Dear America books that were journals written by young women in historical time periods, so I had my parents buy me a little leather-bound journal and I wrote a first-person diary of a girl in the American revolution. And then when I was twelve, I went to a middle school for writers and artists, and I took my journal and turned it into a screenplay, and was like, “oh this is the format that I've been looking for” and I have not stopped playwriting since then.
Kevin: What is the first play you ever wrote?
Chloé: The first actual play I ever wrote was at Young Playwrights Inc. I love them, they saved my life, they’re an incredible organization. Anyway, I wrote a play about a teenage girl named Alonie, and that's important because it’s supposed to reference the fact that she's alone, so it’s spelled “Alone” with an “ie” at the end, and her– I swear to god– her boyfriend dies in a motorcycle accident, so she kills herself, as you would, obviously, if your boyfriend died in a motorcycle accident. And her ghost has to haunt her evangelical Christian father’s house, until they learn to communicate with each other. I have never met an evangelical Christian still to this day!
Kevin: (Laughs)
Chloé: I don't have this problem with my parents. I’ve never ever been at odds with my parents. I don't know where this story came from. And so the only way that she can figure out to communicate with her father is when he listens to (long pause) Green Day and Nirvana. And so the title of this play is All Apologies (laughs) based on the Nirvana song.
Kevin: Oh Chloé.
Chloé: And if anyone wants to see a monologue that I read aloud from this, we over at After School Special [Theatre] did a challenge where we had to read our very first monologues out loud, and I hadn't read it in like ten years. It is so hard to get through, Kev.
Kevin: I've never wanted to see a play more than to see your fifteen-year-old self’s play.
Chloé: So here's the thing about Young Playwrights Inc. They do readings of our plays with very professional actors. A very professional working actor had to read this role out loud in front of people at Cherry Lane, and Lucille Lortel. I thought I was a real writer.
Kevin: But how amazing! What a cool opportunity for you! How wonderful that it gave you so much confidence to continue on with your career. Now you write incredible plays that real actors read and you're not mortified.
Chloé: I'm not! I'm not generally mortified by my work anymore! And I hope that ten years from now I don't feel the same way about my adult writing!
Kevin: We’ll see! Let's check back in ten years! This is our little time capsule. Okay, now what is a play that you wish you had written?
Chloé: Wow... There are so many honestly. I might have said Hamilton a while ago. But more recently, I produced Cheri Magid’s play, The Virtues of Raw Oysters. And the first time I read it I was like “Wait! That’s not fair! How did you think of this first?” It’s brilliant, it’s so fucking good! It's about a street urchin in 1894 who discovers that he can sell smut over the newly invented phonograph. And it's a vaudeville, it’s burlesque, it's sexy, it's funny, it’s about New York City in 1890, those are all things that are like, “you went into my brain and you took this out of my brain and you put it on a piece of paper.” And I'm so happy that that play exists. I am incredibly jealous.
Kevin: Yeah you could definitely tell people that’s your play and there's not a person in the world who wouldn't believe you. Okay what is a TV show that you could write essays about your artistic admiration for?
Chloé: Harlots!
Kevin: Harlots?
Chloé: Harlots! It is on Hulu! Nobody watches this show! I literally yell about this show all the time; it is my favorite show. I have written essays about how much I love this show. Harlots is about– there’s gonna be a trend here– Harlots is about sex-workers in 1770 London, they’re all shapes and sizes and races, it shows history not through a white conqueror’s, colonial lens. It shows all of the sexualities of people, that gay people existed in 1770, that black women had autonomy, and it shows like sex workers in a very positive, very realistic light... It’s just like so brilliantly directed and shot and lit that there’s a very clear difference between sex work and love and passion and neither of them are bad. And obviously it shows realistic dangers, and women taking care of each other, and also women clashing with each other– but not over men– over power and responsibility. God, I love it. It's so clear, it's so intersectional, UGH!
Kevin: I feel like we have learned so much about your work without talking about anything you've written in the last ten years. What are you working on now?
Chloé: Actually, I've got my hands on a lot of… fires? What do they say? I forgot the idiom as I started saying it. I've got lots of pots on the fire?
Kevin: Hands in a lot of…
Chloé: Pies? That seems disgusting.
Kevin: Don't put your hands in pies! I know what you're saying!
Chloé: Thank you Kev!
Kevin: I assume our readers will as well!
Chloé: I really hope so! I’m doing a lot of things right now, is what I mean to say! I am in the middle of rewriting a couple of things. I'm rewriting the play that I had the privilege of doing [at The Pre-Emerging Artist Festival] last year.
Kevin: The End of Incorporated Filth!
Chloé: The End of incorporated Filth! Yeah! I learned so much about the piece through the PEA Fest process and I have a really clear direction where I wanna go with it. And I’m also writing a play about Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who is currently my queer Arab bi-con, and that one is the first play that feels truly close to my identity. And for fun, and a little but of a breather for my brain, I’m working on a disco murder mystery musical with my collaborator Jonah Bobo, the composer….[We’re] writing a filthy dirty disco cocaine musical, with murder! The other thing I’m doing is producing the Hit and Run reading series with Theatre Accident and Matt Freeman where we take exciting, passionate voices and put together these hit and run readings where we have short rehearsal times, we throw things against the wall, and see what sticks! This month we’re doing a play by David Cote called Saint Joe about Joseph of Jesus, Mary, and. And next month we’re doing a play by May Treuhaft-Ali, who I love! Actually, who did YPI with me who might remember my horrible plays! So I’m so excited!
Kevin: When is the reading this month?
Chloé: This month is Tuesday, January 19! At 7PM!
Kevin: I’m putting it on my calendar right now! Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me. I feel like I have an even deeper understanding of you as an artist!