HowlRound: This year is the 25th anniversary of the signing the Americans with Disabilities Act and if you had told me twenty-five years ago that upon this anniversary I would be not only a writer and director working with disabled artists, but also an advocate for and about them, I would not have believed you. My company, Nicu’s Spoon, is this very year celebrating fifteen years as the first fully inclusive theatre company in New York City history. A fact that I am proud of but one that I think the NYC theatre community should not be.
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Acting is a very mobile, physical activity, so the entire notion of an actor with mobility issues is a hard one for certain people to swallow. Stephanie Barton-Farcas, the author of this article and the founder of her own New York-based, "fully inclusive" theater company, has some choice words for those people.
Chief among them? Get over it. By casting differently-abled people in a wide variety of roles, all of them public, and definitely not in a "token" fashion, Barton-Farcas enables both higher visibility (both literally and figuratively) to those people, helping those that may not be so educated/exposed to get a taste of that oft-ignored section of American society, in a theatrical environment which allows for both free interpretation and a bit of structure ( the necessity of which can be argued.)In short, I applaud Barton-Farcas for her efforts, and wish her well upon her way to 15 more years of awareness-spreading and great productions.
The new emergence of disabled actors in theater has been an amazing step forward in the positive direction for all members of the occupation. Its easy to see place that are built to churn out on specific type of practitioner, a cookie cutter actor/actress/designer. But the only way there can be and advancement in art, which is our over-reaching goal I might add, is if we open the doors up to a new breed to artists. This woman has used many awesome techniques to bring those who may struggle with different abilities to the casting table. I especially like her Co-Playing method, so the a disabled actor is never alone or in danger on stage. I think if more companies and casting directors were to consider practices like these that disabled persons would have a much better reputation on stage.
Just as a side note, though I appreciate what she was trying to say; I don't really appreciate her looping being black in with being disabled. She doesn't address it until much further into her article but only then she merely gives us a comma between black and disabled. Just suggesting that she rethink her labeling policies; being black is not a disability.
To respond to Alex's comment, I agree and I too was ticked off that she drew a similarity there. I think that after making such a strong point for working with disabled artists and portraying disabled characters onstage, it would have been good to write about working with minorities as a different facet of the same overarching goal of inclusive theater: being black is not a disability, but it is a game-changed for anyone, let alone any theater artists, and that's an important thing to recognize even though it was not done well, and the connection and/or differences between the two were not drawn clearly.
I found this article to be one of the most compelling I've read on this topic, because she writes about how to write with disabled artists as well as why it's important. Co-playing is so interesting on many levels, and I think it must be very effective onstage. When first reading about it I thought of it as somewhat negative, because it could imply that actors with disabilities cannot portray a character alone onstage, but I think that if done right it seems like a powerful tool, and a way to engage the audience more directly and make them ask questions they wouldn't have otherwise thought of.
I’ve started to notice the growing trend of having actors with disabilities be on the stage, but sometimes it is actors who are able to portray a disability rather than have one that wins out. By making a choice like using an actor with a certain disability can significantly change how the story unfold and what direction it is you are trying to take the theme of the play. The author makes a great point as how disappointing it is that it is starting to take this long for theatre district of the United States is starting to grow acting population with disabilities, and suing them to their companies advantage for various performances. What we don’t realize is how significant these simple changes can be to an audience. Where one might thing a struggle is staged, it could be something that has been totally normal for the actor to have been dealing with their whole life. It brings a realness to the theatre that you might not normally get anyplace else.
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