Chloe Johnston is a writer, director, and teacher in Chicago and an Assistant Professor of Theater at Lake Forest College. She 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, and tours throughout the country. With the Neo-Futurists, she has also created several original, full-length performances about everything from Walt Whitman to mirror neurons. As a performer, director, teacher, and dramaturg she has worked with theatres throughout Chicago, including Steppenwolf, The Goodman, Lookingglass, About Face, and CollaborAction. Chloe is also a founding member of The Laboratory for the Development of Substitute Materials, a performance collective that blends literature, science, and architecture to develop new work, recently creating a new production in residence at Arcosanti, an urban laboratory in the high desert of Arizona. She has adapted and devised several production at Northwestern University in Chicago and is co-author of 44 Plays for 44 Presidents, published by Playscripts Inc. and quite possibly playing at a high school near you. She recently directed the inaugural production of the show of the 2012 Plays for Presidents Festival, a national theatrical political festival.
Chloe earned an AB in Art History from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Performance Studies at Northwestern University, where her research focuses on high-risk performances in public spaces. Her articles have been published in Liminalities,Theatre Topics, and Performance Research 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 the recipient of Breen Prize, the Lilla P. Heston Award, and a grant from the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts, all at Northwestern. 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.