Mornyng Knight Queers ECCC with ‘The Solo Swordfight’
Mornyng Knight on stage at ECCC 2026
The Evergreen Echo
The gender-defying scoundrel known as Mornyng Knight—a stage character who is an amalgamation of drag and Renaissance faire theatrics—has come to the Pacific Northwest. And they’re armed! Embodied by the Jeff-nominated actor, combat choreographer, and producer Chloe Baldwin, Mornyng Knight transforms your inner demons into physical objects (possibly balloons), then stabs them! In their own words, it’s a show of “epic poportions.”
Mornyng Knight offered more than the spectacle of violence: there was also a mostly-harmless puppet show, a Mad Libs-style serenade to the mysterious Geraldine, and a tomato duel—all with enthusiastic audience participation, some even gathering on the floor in front of Emerald City Comic Con’s Tavern Stage like it was story hour. The Solo Swordfight, a mostly tongue-in-cheek affair, also had a fairy tale quality to it; even when the medieval outlaw donned an electric-yellow poncho to protect themself from tomato entrails, Mornyng Knight retained their whimsy.
After the show, Chloe Baldwin was kind enough to sit down with me to talk swords, The Princess Bride, and what happens when we choose to manifest our fears and shove a sword through them.
Izzy Christman (IC): Hello, Chloe. Tell me a little bit about coming to the PNW. Why comic con? You said that this was your PNW debut as Mornyng Knight?
Chloe Baldwin (CB): Yeah, both me and Leah [of Tiny Girl, Big Show] got offers to do our shows up here through Wandering In Time, which is the company that does the Renaissance faires…Since we knew we were going to be up here this summer, it was a good way for me specifically to bring my [Mornyng Knight] show here for the first time. Because I have been up here before…I did a show at Seattle Rep in 2019, which was more on the acting side of things, and then we did Oregon Renaissance Faire last year with me as the musician for Tiny Girl, Big Show.
But I’ve been a big nerd my whole life. I went to comic con for the first time when I was 21 and I just loved it and thought it was the coolest thing ever, seeing so many people in one space who are so nerdy and so cool; it also has a similar vibe to the Renaissance faire in that way. So, to get to do something like this that feels like it gets to be a part of pop culture and bridge that gap between those two things was a really cool opportunity! I definitely jumped at the chance to get to do this.
IC: You talked about this a little bit at your show, but: How did you get into combat arts and, I guess larger context, drag too?
CB: Ohmygosh, so, I got into stage combat first. That was the very first entry point into any martial arts or anything like that. I was 14 and I was in Peter Pan & Wendy. I played Starkey, drew a giant eyeliner scar on my face, and had the best time of my life learning from these two fight choreographers that came in from downtown and then apprenticed myself to them once I was in college. I had done a little Olympic-style fencing before that, but it wasn’t what bit or gave me the bug. I love telling stories through combat and the extremes that human beings end up going to sometimes, and what can we take away from seeing that in a safer setting through the lens of storytelling, and how can we help ourselves not be led into that. I love telling those kinds of stories.
What I love, too, is being so visceral with my body. As an AFAB person, getting to use my body in a way that was mine. My autonomy and my strength; looking at my body that way, as a machine and as something that I got to have autonomy and say over and it gave me a lot of language around consent, which is such an interesting thing! I think that’s kind of carried through a lot of my life as a throughline.
I just love swords, I’ve always loved swords! I studied Italian rapier, I studied broadsword…there’s a gym in Chicago called Forteza, they do swordplay there. It’s awesome! It’s this beautiful space, it’s all brick walls—it feels like a swordplay gym a vampire owns! I learned a ton from my mentors there, and then once I graduated college, I spent 4 years in this apprenticeship with them while I was going to acting school. As I was graduating, I started doing fight choreography in Chicago as a fight choreographer for Storefront, then I started getting more into film…I did some stunts on Chicago Fire, which was great. Yeah. I just kind of followed what I was excited about. In so many ways, that instinct of just following what makes me curious and excited is what led to me writing Mornyng Knight, too, which is cool. Any time I follow that...it goes well.
IC: I’ve been following a few other queer events at comic con. I saw Chuck Tingle the other day, and you’re saying a lot of the same stuff. If you’re drawn to it, just do it.
CB: That’s wild! Absolutely, if you’re drawn to it, there’s probably a reason.
IC: I would love to hear a little bit more about what you said about swords and combat and our bodies help us tell a story. Like, how does that help you tell a story?
CB: My favorite analogy for this is horror because it feels so direct…The best horror to me is when the monsters represent something emotional or traumatic or metaphysical that is then made physical. And we get to see it and hypothetically touch it, even though it’s through the screen. It becomes something palpable, and because of that, it can make things that we’re going through that might feel difficult to explain to other people easier to explain.
The demigorgon in Stranger Things or Sauron in [Lord of the Rings]—any of those things represent fascism or these different plagues on society and ourselves that we then get to go, “Oh, if I can see it, and I can touch it, maybe I can defeat it.” I think when it comes to stage combat…the classic image is a knight with a sword slaying a dragon. I get to show people’s inner battles in a physical way, and that can help legitimize what they’re going through. I also think society has a hard time dealing with nuance and things we can’t look at and can’t touch.
So, to be able to create that analogy and to play that out on stage or on screen, it can do a lot in terms of catharsis. On the other side of things, it can also show us if it’s less of an analogy and more about violence happening in our society; it can show us some of the consequences of what happens and the fallout if we choose to go there as people rather than dealing with the inner demons that we have and grappling with those before they spill over into the real world.
IC: Which is exactly what you did in your show: “Tell me your demons! let’s fight them!”
CB: Exactly, that’s why I do it! I’m taking them and physicalizing them, and then I stab them with a sword.
IC: Was there a person or a book or film that inspired you?
CB: To be honest, my biggest inspiration was my partner Leah, who has Tiny Girl, Big Show, going up to me and saying, “Have you ever considered making a ren faire show?” I learned so much from helping her write her show, and it inspired me…What kind of character would I like to embody on stage in that way? That was a huge inspiration and she’s helped me so much creating it at every stage.
IC: And she’s the counterpart in the other show you’re doing at ECCC?
CB: Yes! I’m the bard in Tiny Girl, Big Show. I’m still Mornyng Knight, but I’m playing to different strengths that I have, which is fun.
IC: And what does Leah do in her show?
CB: She’s an acrobat and a circus artist, and all the things. She’s just a hero herself…she shoots a bow and arrow with her feet, it’s crazy. She rides a unicycle.
IC: I wish I could see that show tomorrow, too!
CB: Well, we’ll be back this summer. We’re doing the show in Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire!
Mornyng Knight’s victory pose
The Evergreen Echo
IC: As an AFAB kid, I didn’t think there was a kind of girl I could be. This kind of persona you’ve embodied—this Xena-masc archetype—that was always a kind of girl I could see myself being. So, even though I’m not a girl, I still have a lot of affection for “sword-wielding knight lady.” What does that do for you? Do you get satisfaction out of creating this character as a Queer person? And what do you think that gives people?
CB: When I think back to the first way I felt like, maybe I could fit into a gender, was “girl with sword.” “Girl” didn’t really feel like it fit, but “girl with sword,” maybe. And as I got older and realized there were more possibilities, it made me realize that in a lot of ways, the “girl with sword” I looked up to didn’t subscribe to what “girl” is supposed to be in the first place. It just kind of blew open my mind—gender doesn’t have to be a specific thing, I don’t have to be a specific thing. I can approach this with the same kind of creativity that I approach my art. It took me a little while to figure that out because I spent so much time in my art—in some ways because I was like, “I don’t quite know how I fit in in the real world? Do I have to choose one thing? What am I supposed to do?”
But I can exist in all these different characters. Some of my characters have been men, some of my characters have been women, some of my characters have been somewhere in between; but to then get to figure that out about myself and go, ‘I don’t think any of these characters actually cover who I am as a person’…but to then get to turn fucking all the way back around and write a character for myself that actually embodies all of who I am in so many ways has been, for myself, one of the most cathartic processes I’ve gotten to do.
And then to get to see the response from people, first online…and then (even more so) once I started doing my show and started meeting people in person. Meeting kids who are clearly figuring some things out, or even adults who are clearly figuring some things out. Having people come up to me saying, “I’m genderfluid, too, and I’ve never seen a genderfluid character on stage before,” is crazy. One of my best friends is a cis woman and she called me the other day and said, “I need you to know that if I’d seen your character on stage when I was a kid, it would have made me realize that as a woman I could be strong and I was allowed to be that. Not because you’re ‘woman on stage with a sword,’ but because you’re whatever you wanna be, so it means I can be whatever I wanna be, too.”
IC: Did you just sob?
CB: Yes, I have giant chills in my body just thinking about it right now! It means the world. It means more than I think I can express that I get to do this. Especially right now; there’s so much happening with funding for the arts…there’s people coming for our freaking rights! There’s so much to be scared of, and to get to do a show that’s all about being brave…You get to own yourself in a way that you don’t have to prove to anybody.
IC: Favorite sword?
CB: Favorite sword? [excited shuffling] Um! Um! I think I know my answer: my favorite sword is Inigo Montoya’s sword in The Princess Bride. I will say also, The Princess Bride is my favorite movie, and I think if you combine all those characters, A: that’s my gender, and B: that inspired Mornyng Knight! I didn’t realize how much that sword meant to me…Then I came here for “Morning Is Broken,” the short film I worked on…we were in the genre night of the International Film Festival, and as part of that we got to go to [MoPOP], so I got to see it, and I just started crying…That movie influenced so much of who I am and what I’ve become. That sword specifically really got me into Italian rapier, as you can see in my show! My sword is not exactly the same, but it has the swept hilt.
IC: Do you have any upcoming projects you’re excited to promote?
CB: I’m doing my 2026 tour as Mornyng Knight. The best way to follow that is on Instagram. I also have a short film that has been out for a little bit, but I’m very proud of it: “Morning Is Broken.” It predates Mornyng Knight, but the character’s name is Morwenna Morning Song. It’s about Dungeons & Dragons and healing your friend group or a broken heart through TTRPGs, and what happens when characters or creations we make get abandoned and we pick them up later. My friend D. Matthew Beyer wrote it, we went to college together, he’s amazing.
IC: Last question: why Mornyng Knight?
CB: My favorite part about it is that it’s a seeming contradiction. I love things that are like that in my life. I am in so many ways seemingly a contradiction or something that doesn’t make sense when you put it all together. I have found that those experiences are often the most beautiful experiences in the world: when you’re happy and sad, when you’re boy and girl in the same moment, and when you get to experience the things that don’t seem to make sense but actually do. And I also think it’s funny.
Find more on Mornyng Knight’s The Solo Swordfight tour on Instagram. And catch them, along with Tiny Girl, Big Show, at this summer’s Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire.
