Dive Into Matters of the Heart with ‘I Fear Love’

It’s rare for a performance to truly stick with you. I’ve sat through more than 100 plays and musicals, but only two have genuinely moved me— one is Katie Voravong’s I Fear Love. And I know I wasn’t alone; I Fear Love won the Vancouver Fringe Festival’s Artistic Risk Award last year and is set to return for a second run on May 9 and 10.

Written and performed by Voravong (they/she), I Fear Love dissects their anxiety around romance with a 55-minute mash-up of game-show antics, dating-sim bits and razor-sharp humour. You’ll laugh, you’ll feel…and you might even find yourself chanting “I FEAR LOVE!” with the crowd.

Let’s Run It Again

A second run means a second crack at the show—and this time, Voravong and their team are determined to take I Fear Love even further on this go-round. Last year’s production came together in just two months: when rehearsals started in July, half the script was still unwritten, and most details weren’t finalized until two weeks before opening night. Yet despite the sprint, it earned rave reviews from local theatre talents like dramaturg Heidi Taylor and playwright Tetsuro Shigematsu.

“I think we did a pretty successful job for what we wanted to accomplish,” says Voravong. “But we knew there were things we wanted to add. So we really used these design workshops this year to figure out what those adjustments were for this remount.”

Voravong hints at a new design element in the works, and also promises a stronger performance this time around. So, to anyone who saw I Fear Love last September: consider this your sign to catch it again.

Time to Get Real

Though Voravong has been active in Vancouver’s theatre scene since 2020—mostly stage managing for companies like ITSAZOO and Studio 58—I Fear Love is their first deeply personal work as both writer and performer. And while the show plays with humour, at its heart it’s about something tender: the fear of vulnerability and the longing to be truly accepted.

Let’s be honest—dating is hard. Even finding a real connection can feel like a full-time job, especially in a city like Vancouver where everyone’s busy and apps have become the main way we meet people. Making new connections is tough enough; building and sustaining them is a whole other challenge.

“I think just finding someone—or people—who really light up with whatever your ‘humanity makeup’ is, is a hard thing to do,” says Voravong. “And because we’re so busy working, I think even finding the time to incorporate those new relationships and make them consistent is also really difficult.”

All About Consistency

Consistency isn’t just key to relationships—it’s crucial for artists too. The road to becoming established is rarely linear. Voravong says they’ve been lucky so far, landing stage management and assistant directing gigs while learning from more experienced artists. But luck and talent only go so far—earning trust and building a solid reputation in the creative community is just as important.

“There’s a lot more to an artist beyond the talent they show in an audition room,” they say. “I want to know how they collaborate in rehearsal, how they work with designers, and how they treat crew members.”

That focus on trust and reputation shaped the team behind I Fear Love. Voravong brought on Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (vAct) Managing Artistic Director Derek Chan (陳嘉昊) to direct last year’s show. Chan, who mentored them during an internship at vAct, had a major influence on how Voravong leads a creative team—and on the kind of people they want to work with. From there, they reached out to artists they’d either met before or who came highly recommended.

Despite Chan’s connections to seasoned theatre professionals, Voravong saw I Fear Love as a chance to bring in emerging artists—creating space for future collaborations or, at the very least, giving newcomers a shot at roles they were curious about.

“Another big part of making I Fear Love was wanting to build a team made up of people of colour,” says Voravong. “And I wanted it to be a mix of folks who were really experienced in their craft, and others who were maybe new to theatre or just starting out.”

That team included projection designer and technical director June Hsu, who came highly recommended, and sound designer/composer Lennox Johnston-Yu—a first-timer in theatre design, but someone Voravong already knew had an interest in sound design.

The Grind Never Stops

Voravong’s creative journey is just getting started. They’re currently juggling a few exciting projects: writing a new play through the Arts Club Theatre Company’s playwriting program LEAP, directing a brand-new work by Garvin Chan (陳嘉泓) called A Grandchild’s Quest for Chicken, and recently signing with a talent agency in hopes of securing commercial film and television gigs.

But none of these opportunities came easy. Voravong is candid about the grind—most of the opportunities they applied for didn’t pan out. It’s persistence, they say, that’s made all the difference—a quality they urge emerging artists to lean into.

“I do think if you stick it out, if you [are consistently] sending those emails to directors to meet up for coffee, even if you get rejected from this one project or audition, ask to audition again,” says Voravong. “So that people see that you actually want to work with them.”

Find out more about Katie Voravong’s I Fear Love on Instagram or grab your tickets at vancouverfringe.com.