More Proof: Disability Doesn't Exist!

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S.K.

NEW YORK CITY

Theatre Breaks Barriers for Disabled Actors
February 14, 2008 By Lauren Horwitch

Director Ike Schambelan had a problem. The founder of Theater by the Blind in Manhattan wanted to cast company regular Ann Marie Morelli as Tatiana and Hermia in his production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream last year.

However, Morelli’s multiple sclerosis kept her in a wheelchair.

Even after 29 years of working with blind actors, Schambelan hesitated. He wondered how he would direct her. Would the audience accept her in the roles? How would she get on stage?

"You would think I would not be scared to use someone in a
wheelchair. I was. It took me a long time to say, ‘Yes, Ann, this is
right. Let’s do this,’ " Schambelan said.

Casting Morelli turned out to be a brilliant move that The New York
Times said added "a most delightful extra layer of meaning in the
production."

TBTB’s second production in 2007, John Belluso’s The Rules of
Charity, featured another actor in a wheelchair, Christopher Hurt, and
Gregg Mozgala, who has cerebral palsy.

The productions inspired Schambelan to change the Theater by the
Blind to Theater Breaking Through Barriers. As announced Jan. 24, the
company will continue its commitment to blind and vision-impaired
artists but will also include actors with a range of disabilities. The
new TBTB will open its
2008 season with Romeo and Juliet, March 5-April 6 at the Kirk Theatre
on Theatre Row, featuring Mozgala, TBTB co-artistic director George
Ashiotis, who is blind, and Nicholas Viselli and Emily Young.

"It was time to reflect the reality of what our lives are and what
our country’s lives are," said Schambelan. Indeed, people with
disabilities are rarely seen on stage, on television, or in films
despite being a sizable minority in the United States. According to the
U.S. Census Bureau, about 18 percent of Americans — over 51 million
people — have some level of disability. Yet, according to a 2005 SAG
report titled "The Employment of Performers with Disabilities in the
Entertainment Industry,"

less than 2 percent of TV characters display a disability, and only 0.5 percent have speaking roles.

Gaining Access

L.A.-based actor Teal Sherer, who became a paraplegic at age 14 as a
result of a car accident, said being in a wheelchair adds another level
to the already challenging business of being an actor. Not only are
roles for actors in wheelchairs rare, but she literally can’t get into
many casting director offices and acting classes.

"I auditioned last year for a commercial. They wanted somebody in a
wheelchair, but the casting office wasn’t accessible, so we all had to
audition downstairs in the parking lot," Sherer said. "It’s like that
with acting classes. I am so limited by where I can study because of
the accessibility."

Such challenges haven’t prevented Sherer from success. She is a
regular on NBC’s upcoming sitcom I’m With Stupid, appeared in the 2005
telepic Warm Springs, and recently booked a national commercial for
Liberty Mutual.

Sherer is also producing a staging of Michael Ervin’s The History of Bowling, starring Danny Murphy and Lynn Manning, at the NoHo Arts Center in North Hollywood, Calif.

"We’re hoping that it will be a kind of springboard into a theatre
company for people with disabilities but for able-bodied people too,"
she said of the production, opening March 14. "It’d be a place where we
know we could go and bring material and put up stuff. There’s nothing
really like that [in L.A.]."

L.A. is home to Deaf West Theatre, which features deaf and
hearing-impaired artists. Center Theatre Group also hosted a
play-development program for artists with disabilities. It was
discontinued in 2005.

Reporting Recognition

Sherer and some of her fellow Screen Actors Guild members are
working to change Hollywood’s perceptions of people with disabilities
through the guild’s Performers With Disabilities Committee. "The bottom
line is to get more work and get out there, get into the audition," she
said.

For 20 years, the committee has been focused on getting actors with
disabilities included in the annual Casting Data Report, released by
SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The
report — which calculates the number of opportunities in film and TV
available for Caucasian, African-American, Asian, Latino, Native
American, female, and senior actors — serves as a kind of report card
for the industry and can encourage casting directors to cast more
minority performers.

PWD national chairman Robert David Hall, who plays Dr. Al Robbins on CSI:

Crime Scene Investigation, said the absence of performers with
disabilities from the report reflects Hollywood’s reluctance to even
consider writing roles for and casting these performers. "You’ll see
the occasional role about the pathetic disabled person or the
incredibly inspirational person. But by and large, with very few
exceptions — I’m lucky to be one of them — I think there is a
discomfort with casting people with disabilities as moms, dads, cops,
teachers, social workers — as human beings who do their jobs," Hall
said.

Hall, who lost his legs as a result of an injury 30 years ago,
likens the disability civil-rights movement to the African-American
civil-rights movement, which changed Americans’ perspectives of
minorities in real life and in entertainment.

"There was a time when there weren’t very many African Americans on
television, Latino Americans, or Asian Americans. There definitely
weren’t any people with disabilities," said Hall. "I believe with all
my heart that you really have to explore every segment of society to
find quality people who are going to contribute."

However, actors with disabilities can’t simply wait for attitudes to
change. Hall said, "Any actor who sits around and waits to be
discovered is a fool, and they won’t have a career. That applies doubly
for people with disabilities. You’ve got to seek out every avenue and
opportunity there is. And if there isn’t one, you’ve got to create one
for yourself."

For tickets and information about Theatre Breaking Through Barriers,
visit http://www.tbtb.org. Tickets for The History of Bowling will be
available at http://www.thenohoartscenter.com. For a directory of theatres for
disabled actors in the United States, go to
http://www.dmoz.org/Society/Disabled/Arts/Theatre.

Lauren Horwitch can be reached at lhorwitch@backstage.com.

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