Meet Xhloe and Natasha, the breakout theatre duo behind 'And Then the Rodeo Burned Down'

Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland discuss their decade-plus-long partnership, their absurdist artistic style, and their highly anticipated off-Broadway debut.

For years, Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland have been creating wildly inventive, genre-bending theatre, and now the acclaimed pair is ready for a major milestone. The breakout duo, known as Xhloe and Natasha, brings their award-winning show And Then the Rodeo Burned Down to Ars Nova from May 19 through June 18, marking their Off-Broadway debut.

The production — about rodeo clown Dale and his mischievous shadow, who attempt to find out who set their rodeo ablaze — arrives in New York with serious momentum, having earned Xhloe and Natasha one of three consecutive Edinburgh Fringe First Awards for Outstanding New Writing. This follows the massive success of their prior show, A Letter to Lyndon B Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First, a highly physical, historically influenced absurdist play inspired by the Vietnam War. That acclaimed production, seen in Edinburgh and at NYC’s SoHo Playhouse, was the recipient of the SoHo Playhouse Encore Series Prize and the 2024 Fringe First Award.

As a multidisciplinary writing and performing duo, and friends since high school, Xhloe and Natasha have cultivated a distinct artistic sensibility: creating absurdist theatre heavily inspired by the traditions of clowning. Their fast-paced, historically influenced work relies on dynamic movement and a deep understanding of Americana. Known for their highly physical, lightning-fast storytelling, Xhloe and Natasha are poised to introduce broader audiences to a singular artistic sensibility that perfectly balances razor-sharp comedy with poignant emotion. After years of self-producing their work in DIY settings, their arrival at Ars Nova marks an exciting new chapter.

Xhloe and Natasha spoke with New York Theatre Guide to reflect on how their remarkable 13-year collaboration began, why Ars Nova is the perfect incubator for their Off-Broadway debut, and what they hope audiences take away from their latest production.

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Where did your decade-long partnership begin?

Xhloe Rice: We met at a magnet program at Edgewood High School in Maryland. If we had both just gone to the normal public high school for our districts, we would’ve never been in school together. Natasha was a year older than me, so she was actually my tour guide and kind of a mentor coming into the school. We started doing the theatre productions together. From the moment we met, we would read plays or learn about theatre artists and companies together in drama class, and we found that we both gravitated toward the same things.

Natasha Roland: We had been making theatre in New York for years before anyone had ever heard of us, just in rogue settings, like living rooms, roofs, and theatres we weren’t supposed to be in. There is something to having known each other for almost 13 years. There is a trust that you cannot fathom in any other relationship.

Ars Nova is known for championing innovative voices in contemporary theatre. What makes that company the right fit for your Off-Broadway debut?

Rice: It really is a match made in heaven. We found that our DIY spirit had come completely out of necessity, out of being starving artists and really wanting to put something together that was ours. Natasha and I wax poetic about the way there is a missing middle in New York theatre. There is a brilliant, fizzy, electric, off-off downtown underground scene, and then there is really exciting commercial Off-Broadway stuff happening. The gap between those is pretty large and difficult to jump into on your own.

We really appreciated that Ars Nova had the perfect mix of scrappy downtown theatre artists who appreciate multi-hyphenate artists who can’t fit their work into a genre cleanly, but also the commercial and business sensibility that we had no access to. They say, “We give this space to you, and we want to make sure this feels like your vision.” It feels like a perfect pairing and the perfect timing for where we are in our careers.

Roland: We had been self-producing for so long that we had gone years without being in a real tech. Our tech processes were often the day of, or we were so used to feeling like we were being hunted for sport just to get into a theatre. Ars Nova has been so kind and helpful in showing us how things are and what you should be asking for as an artist, making the space welcoming. It has been a dream, honestly.

Archetypes of traditional U.S. folklore show up beautifully across your work. What initially drew you both to cultural myths, like cowboys and rodeos, to critique modern life?

Rice: It started with And Then the Rodeo Burned Down along that vein of classic American motifs. Natasha and I were chatting through ideas we were excited about. We were equally bummed that no one would cast us as cowboys. We’re never going to get to play cowboys because of the cultural mythos around them. We got really excited by the idea of subverting that, realizing we had the power in our hands to cast ourselves as cowboys. We like to write absurd theatre. When you take something that has such a cultural recognition, it does a lot of the grunt work for you ahead of time.

Your comedy has been described as both ruthlessly funny and weirdly tender. How do you strike a balance between making an audience laugh and breaking their hearts?

Roland: We prioritize storytelling so much in our process of writing. Every good tragedy has a balance of comedy in it. I had a clown teacher who said crying and laughing live in the same place. I think that is true. We wouldn’t want to box ourselves into one category of comedy or tragedy.

Rice: Because what we do is usually these short 70-minute bursts of storytelling, we think a lot about theatrical efficiency. If we are writing a joke, we think about the double duty it can be doing. Because we have such a short runtime, you have to make your audience care about the characters you’re introducing them to. One of the fastest ways to do that is by making them laugh, which really endears audiences to people.

How would you describe And Then the Rodeo Burned Down to unfamiliar audiences?

Rice: The biggest thing I would say is it is a love story, but we like to call it a self-love story. It is not a spoiler, but Natasha plays my character’s shadow in an absurd, magical way. We talk a lot about how funny and physical it is. It has an anti-capitalist edge and an absurd, meta-theatric plot twist.

But at its heart, it has to do with making peace with the parts of yourself that you don’t naturally like. If the word "clown" freaks you out, if the word "absurdism" freaks you out, if physical theatre isn’t your thing, come for the love story and stay for everything else.

What of your artistic sensibility do you hope stays with audiences after they leave the theatre?

Roland: A really big part of why we do what we do is to show people that theatre can be more than just what is shown on Broadway or what they are used to. Theatre is a very broad umbrella term. A lot of times when people come and see our shows, they say to us, “I didn’t know you were allowed to do this with theatre or make it like this.”

Rice: So much of our brand has to do with doing a lot with a little. We are so grateful for the resources we have with this Ars Nova run, but at its core, we do these minimal shows that are two bodies in space. We obviously hope to give people a good time, but we want to inspire people about doing a lot with a little.

I feel like that extends to everything right now. Whatever economic state or political difficulties we are dealing with, the conversation is around working with what you have. I hope we can inspire other artists.

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Photo credit: Natasha Roland (left) and Xhloe Rice (right) for And Then the Rodeo Burned Down. (Photos by Sean Perreira)