Benton Hartley is a Theatre Creator based in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (Epekwitk), who started writing plays at the age of 3 years old when he devised a piece of agitprop theatre about the Sunday shopping debate entitled The Shopkeeper Never Sleeps. A graduate of the University of Prince Edward Island with an Honours in Creative Writing in 2015 and George Brown Theatre School in 2019, Benton founded Desert Island Theatre Company later the same year, where he produced many of his own plays, including Nutshell (2016), I Know You (2021), Cowardice (2021), and The Dance, which was written with support from a PEI Arts Grant as well as attendance at the 2023 PARC Playwrights’ Retreat. Most recently, Benton co-wrote How It Happened with Candace Hagen for the 2024 Island Fringe Festival. Currently, Benton is working on the second draft of his play Pagan North, for which he also received provincial Arts Grant funding.
We asked some questions so our members could get to know Benton a bit better.
What are some Plays that have stayed with you or influenced your work?
So many! I’ll choose three for brevity’s sake. The first one that comes to mind is David French’s classic Salt Water Moon. Like many Canadian actors, I was introduced to this play early on, and it’s just such a gift for actors – the text is so dense with juicy stuff to play. As I got more into playwriting I realized what an absolute masterclass it is in plot, character – all the good stuff you need to know. The next play is Punch Up by Kat Sandler, it was the first play I produced in my company that I didn’t write. It’s such a tight, hilarious plot and the characters are so clear. Really aspirational stuff for me. And finally, a bit of an off-the-wall choice, but a decade ago this year at the Island Fringe Festival, there was a play called Because You’re Not by a writer named Nicholas Browne. This play blew my mind, the way it played with time, form, and structure was unlike anything I’d seen before. Nicholas, if you’re reading this, you made me the writer I am today.
What are some questions you’re exploring or investigating in your work right now?
The script I’m writing right now has two major questions emerging: how do we struggle with (and ultimately transcend) the expectations others have for us? Many of the characters are coming up against a future that was planned out for them that they no longer feel represented in, and I think in the current political climate we find ourselves in it feels very topical. Also, as a resident of an island writing a play set on a completely different island, I’m curious if there is anything that islands have in common, intrinsically speaking, that lead to a common identity amongst their inhabitants.
Do you have any rituals or routines that fuel your creative process? We’d love to know the behind-the-scenes details of your creative journey. Share your tips for staying in the zone
I tend to write late at night, often after midnight. I usually have something on in the background, like a Dungeons and Dragons podcast (shout out Dimension20) or something that I can drop in and out of. I also go for a lot of walks and try to shuffle the script work into the background, where I find a lot of things unlock when I’m not focussing on them. I also got really into using index cards with scene synopses written on them stuck to a cork board so I can see the flow. Turns out I’m a visual learner – who knew?
Tell us a bit about the role that PARC has played in your development as a writer and an artist.
PARC has been such an invaluable resource for me as I’ve continued to develop. The Retreat in 2023 was truly life-changing for me, and the home deliveries I’ve had through their development have been key in helping me get the script out of my brain and onto the page. Even when I don’t have a script that’s ready to make use of the formal resources on offer, just knowing that there is a community of like-minded artists out there that are going through the same thing I am and can soundboard for me eases a lot of the stress.