Meet Chloe
Canada, 2022. Directed by Marcel Stewart. 55 min. NR
It’s another day of virtual history class. Chloe is working with her group on a research project about John Graves Simcoe, but she discovers another historical figure more relevant to her, someone who even shares her first name: Chloe Cooley, a young Black woman enslaved in Fort Erie and Queenston in the Upper Canada of the late 1700s.
Can Chloe convince her teacher and her project partners to switch to Chloe Cooley’s story weeks before the project is due?
Meet Chloe explores the challenges Black students face in the education system and the lack of Black curriculum content in the study of Canadian History.
Playwright Cameron Grant was originally inspired to write this story during his time working in Niagara on the Lake at the Shaw Festival. The story of Chloe Cooley, a woman enslaved in Queenston who was taken by force to the United States and whose struggle against this action was observed and reported to government officials, is considered to have inspired the first abolitionist legislation created in Upper Canada.
Meet Chloe is produced by Carousel Players.
Preshow:
Descendant
Canada, 2021. Directed by Angola Murdoch. 4 min. NR
This piece questions how our ancestry affects our lives, whether our decisions are affected by our ancestral past, and if they shape our future. Is our lineage what makes us who we are or do we shed all of it?
Performers and Creators: Angola Murdoch. Editor and Videographer – Eamon Mac Mahon. Rigger – Angola Murdoch and Hayley Landry. Music – Angola Murdoch, Costume – Zuzanna Grimm.
