Chiara Aurelia On Her Self-Made Career and Just Letting Go in John Proctor is the Villain

Age: 22

Hometown: Taos, New Mexico

Current role: Chiara Aurelia plays the lead role of Shelby Holcomb in John Proctor is the Villain on Broadway, having taken over the role from close friend Sadie Sink in July.

Credits: On screen, Aurelia has racked up an impressive number of credits in trauma-centric television and film projects including Gerald’s Game, Cruel Summer, Luckiest Girl Alive and Fear Street: Part Two - 1978. She made her off-Broadway debut in Dilaria in June, promptly departing the show for Broadway.

Off and On Broadway in the Blink of an Eye
Chiara Aurelia just made what might be the most whiplashingly abrupt leap from off-Broadway debut to Broadway debut ever. On June 13, she was downtown, beginning performances in the world-premiere production of Julia Randall’s Dilaria, a twisted, acerbic comedy about Gen Z’s obsession with social media. On July 15, she opened in John Proctor is the Villain, Kimberly Belflower’s Tony-nominated play about young women falling out and speaking out. “Someone should check that,” said Aurelia of being a possible record-setter. “It’s my childhood dream to be in the Guinness Book of World Records.” In John Proctor at Broadway’s Booth Theatre, Aurelia took over the lead role of Shelby Holcomb, replacing Sadie Sink, a close friend of Aurelia’s since the pair co-starred in Fear Street: Part Two - 1978. Both Dilaria and John Proctor resonated deeply with Aurelia. “They’re both really wonderfully written, they’re complex female characters. And both plays were written by women and directed by women. There’s something really beautiful about that.” Both plays also happen to be about “grappling with what it feels like to be a young woman and the different struggles that come with that." The hectic schedule wasn't exactly planned, but one gets the sense that rushing headlong into things is characteristic of Aurelia. “Her Broadway debut is totally electric,” said the director Danya Taymor. “She’s a rare artist, given how much she cares about the work and how fully she throws herself into it. Her Shelby is like a grenade.”

Joining the Circus
With hindsight, Aurelia said, it's possible to trace her love of performance to a Cirque du Soleil show she saw when she was still in diapers. “Everyone was really scared that I—as a small baby—would be crying through the show and would cause a ruckus.” Instead, one-and-a-half-year-old Chiara sat intently for the entire nearly-three-hour show, enthralled. Still, growing up in Taos, New Mexico, Aurelia’s mother hoped she’d wait until she turned 18 before she pursued acting as a career. “That’s not quite how it worked out,” admits Aurelia. By the time she was four, she was taking summer acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre. By 10, she was doing al fresco Shakespeare. By 11, she had successfully pressured her mother (her words) into uprooting from New Mexico to Los Angeles. Not long after mother and daughter touched down in the new city, an agent was acquired and Aurelia’s first big audition was booked. At that point, Aurelia’s mother was persuaded her daughter was onto something. “I guess she took that as a sign from the universe that maybe it was something I was meant to be doing.”

Are You Afraid of the Dark?
The term “child star” tends to conjure images of the bubbly little squirts on Nickelodeon or Disney Channel. But this wasn’t the arena that appealed to Aurelia who, even at a young age, instinctually gravitated towards darker, grittier material. This was despite, or perhaps because of the fact she was reading her own scripts. “A lot of kids’ parents are kind of sifting through the material, picking what their kids should audition for. I was the one spearheading this journey for myself.” Through her teens, Aurelia made a name for herself with a string of juicy roles in horror, thriller and deeply adult projects, including the short film The Sound of Fear (meth addicts on a killing spree), Gerald’s Game (sex game-gone-wrong stirring up deep-seated trauma), Back Roads (child abuse, trauma), Tell Me Your Secrets (child abuse, serial murder, trauma), Fear Street: Part Two - 1978 (summer camp killing spree), Luckiest Girl Alive (sexual assault, school shooting, a bunch of trauma). Rest assured, Aurelia insists she was having a delicious time—and felt utterly safe—plumbing darker and darker depths on screen. “Any roles that feel challenging and will challenge me and excite me and push me out of my comfort zone a little bit, I think that that's really cool,” she said. Her multidimensional, multi-timeline performance in the teen mystery Cruel Summer, in particular, was received as a tour de force. Key line: “She’s not a sociopath. She’s a teenage girl.”

New York, New Challenges
A year ago, Aurelia decided to switch coasts, her sights set on the New York stage. “Everyone was kind of like, ‘Really? OK, we’ll see how that goes…’” Aurelia knew that she would be surrounded by performers who “have these crazy degrees and have gone to Juilliard and Carnegie Mellon and have these crazy musical theater and theatrical educations that I just did not have.” And yet, she craved the chance to test her mettle. “I love the craft of acting. Theater gives you this big open space to truly connect and express yourself. I was always inspired by actors and actresses that did theater. There was a certain prestige and elegance” (Aurelia’s posture straightened at those words) “where you’re able to show up and perform that many days a week and give all of yourself to what you’re doing.”

Main Character Energy
Aurelia’s audition for John Proctor is the Villain blew everyone away. She read for the role of preacher’s daughter Raelynn Nix, which eventually went to Amalia Yoo. “It was just amazing,” said Taymor. “I just felt her soul.” But Aurelia’s energy, Taymor felt, was a better fit for Raelynn's chaotic ex-best friend Shelby—and Sadie Sink was already on board in the role. Instead, Aurelia went on to perform in Dilaria at the DR2 Theater, enjoying a rare opportunity to do comedy. “Making people laugh… There's something really scary and vulnerable about that too.” But Aurelia had precious little time to settle into the role. With John Proctor is the Villain extending its run, and with Sink unable to continue in the role of Shelby, the issue of who would step in was a no-brainer. Aurelia got the call. 

A Fiery Force
Joining an established ensemble on Broadway several months into a successful run has been the cause of some trepidation for Aurelia—as has been the army of diehard Sadie Sink fans (“Some people are like, ‘No, no, it must be Sadie or die,’ which I totally understand.”) But, Aurelia explains, the character of Shelby starts in an awkward, nervous place in the play too. “Shelby’s nervous—just like I was on my first night and my second night and my third night and probably will be on my 15th and 27th night too. It’s a nice moment where the actor meets the character.” Shelby, as a character, felt “very reachable” to Aurelia. “There are things I really understand in her nature,” she said. “Her kind of fiery force.” Shelby is a ticking time bomb containing a terrible secret, and one of the most electrifying moments in the play—no spoilers here—centers around a feverish and distinctly feminine expression of cathartic release. Aurelia looks forward to that release all night. “It’s funny—that’s the moment that makes most people cry. I think it’s rare to see women, especially women in theater, able to have a moment where they’re completely letting everything go and baring it all to the audience.” Notwithstanding the initial nervousness, Aurelia feels very much at home on Broadway among her John Proctor family at this point. “I’m in the group chat. I think I've made the cut.”