nowheresville, bc | playwright’s interview
NOWHERESVILLE, BC is a new play from actor, playwright, and 2019-20 apprentice Chantal Gallant! We asked Chantal about balancing humour and heaviness, how writing Nowheresville helped her get through the pandemic, and what the ultimate real-world roadside attraction would be.
See a staged reading of Nowheresville Nov 3-5 at Pacific Theatre.
Featuring Paige Louter, Daria Banu, and Kenneth Tynan.
Directed by Phil Miguel. Lighting Design and Production Management by Christian Ching. Sound Design by Shona Struthers. Stage Management by Amy Bell. Reading by Colin Milne.
CHANTAL CHAT
You performed one of your own short plays – Nosegate – during your apprenticeship at Pacific. Is Nowheresville your first full-length play?
I would classify Nowheresville as a one-act, but it’s definitely the most extensive work I’ve written for the stage! It’s been a huge blessing to be able to keep working on this piece, especially through the pandemic. It’s kept me sane, to be perfectly honest.
Nowheresville explores the push-pull between family ties and the desire to escape the place you grew up. What led you to this story?
A combination of me obsessing over a roadside attraction in my mom’s small home town in Alberta, and then me, as an artist, wrestling with “Do I leave home to go to a place with more opportunity?” I grew up on Vancouver Island and I LOVE it there, but you do carry a sense of, what if I never leave this place? That saying “home is where the heart is” was churning about in my brain when I left home after university. I don’t know if I fully believe in that. Part of it is true, yeah, but there is something special about place. You know how a certain smell will spark a vivid memory? I think place, especially a place you’ve known for a long time, does the same thing. I wasn’t able to go home for a long time last year and that kind of heart-ache made me reconsider my choice to leave for the big city. In this play I wanted to dig into how our relationship with home changes because of certain priorities or life events.
I also love to explore weird, eccentric characters and Nowheresville, BC seemed to open the floodgates for all sorts of fun characters.
Arts organizations at all levels still have trouble neatly categorizing ‘dramas’ and ‘comedies’. What helps you balance humour and heaviness when you write?
Honestly, I try not to think about it. In life, humour and heaviness can occur within two sentences of each other. I try to find the heart of the story and then attack that through odd, wacky angles. It can be hard, but I enjoy playing around with tone and this show is definitely an experiment in that way.
Favourite line(s)?
“MIA: Not after last night when you tried to dump him out of my window.
JOSIE: He loved the flower bed with the rhodos!”
“I don’t want a roadside attraction. And neither do my ducks.”
“Have you ever noticed that big vein in Anna-Mae’s head? I call it Atticus.”
If you had the money to build a roadside attraction outside your house, what would you build?
Oooooo. I think I would want to build a sock gremlin. We all know there’s a creature taking our socks from the dryer and I’d like to put a face to the thing. The world’s biggest sock gremlin. Maybe people would leave one sock when they visit it, as a sign of respect. Or maybe a take a sock, leave a sock kind of thing.
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