1. Cast Physically Disabled Actors Disabled Roles
While disabled characters have existed for centuries, they have rarely been played by disabled actors. Many famous non-disabled Hollywood actors have won Oscars playing disabled roles. Scholar and theatremaker Claudia Alick calls this practice “disability drag,” where non-disabled actors mimic, imitate, or assume the physicality of a real person with a disability to play a role. This is fundamentally offensive and hurtful to the individual and the art form as a whole.
An actor living with a disability can draw from their lived experience and create a disabled character based in authenticity. Recently, Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living, a story about giving and receiving care that features two disabled characters, was authentically cast. This casting choice allowed audiences to view truthful portrayals of physically disabled characters by rooting them in the actors’ physical realities, which aligned with the realities of the characters’ bodies. These actors brought with them a wealth of knowledge, behaviors, and traits that a person is who has not lived in a disabled body or experienced life while disabled would be incapable of fully understanding. Like the rallying cry present from the earliest disability justice marches and protests, there should be “nothing about us without us!”
In “Re-membering the Canon,” Ryan Donovan writes about the discomfort many audiences and critics experience when seeing disabled bodies onstage, even in disabled roles. Donovan focuses on the 2017 revival of The Glass Menagerie, which starred Madison Ferris as Laura—a physically disabled actor playing a disabled character. Donovan writes that viewers tend to “prefer their disability metaphoric,” meaning that they are okay with the idea of disability but become uncomfortable when viewing it in all its forms and realities onstage. According to Donovan, “The onstage wheelchair, used for an actor’s mobility instead of as a prop for a nondisabled actor as is conventional, caused anguish amongst those whose sensibilities were upset by having the realization that realism is not the same thing as reality.” The reality of disability being authentically shown through a disabled body must artistically overrule the realism of pacified disability portrayal that relies on sterilized, untruthful, or offensive stereotypes. At its core, this discomfort comes from fear—fear of the unknown and fear of becoming disabled. To quell this typical but damaging fear, actors with all types of physically disabled bodies need to be cast and shown existing onstage.
Disability is common and present everywhere in the real world, so why shouldn’t it be in theatre?
2. Cast Physically Disabled Actors in a Wide Range of Roles
We are so used to seeing a range of non-disabled bodies onstage–bodies that are elated or breaking down, buttoned up or naked, at ease or fearful—and we must see physically disabled bodies in the same way. Only then will physically disabled bodies be viewed with the same respect, compassion, and regularity that non-disabled bodies are.
This is an issue that goes beyond representation of a specific physical disability: a variety of types of physically disabled bodies must be seen onstage. Casting teams and directors must show a range of different physically disabled bodies onstage to normalize the diversity and beauty of the physically disabled body.
Of course, the issue of casting goes far beyond disabled actors playing disabled roles, as disabled characters only make up a small portion of the theatre canon. When right for the part, actors with disabilities should be cast in non-disabled roles. Ali Stroker was the first actor to appear on Broadway in a wheelchair in 2015 in Deaf West’s Spring Awakening, and she eventually won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her 2019 performance in Oklahoma! Both roles were not originally written with disability in mind.
This is clearly a complicated matter. I do not believe that a disabled person can play any sort of disabled role; disability is much too vast than that. For example, I am an actor with a certain type of physical disability, but that doesn’t mean I should play a character who is blind or paralyzed. However, I maintain that audiences need to see disabled bodies onstage in a range of roles. Disability is common and present everywhere in the real world, so why shouldn’t it be in theatre?
3. Establish an Equitable Priority Audition Process for Local Disabled Actors
The Boston Area Theatre Auditions (BATA), an opportunity for non-union actors to be seen by producers and casting directors from the area, includes priority audition sign-ups for actors from marginalized communities. In my experience, I was not only able to sign up earlier than non-disabled auditionees, but I could also request any accommodations and accessibility measures I would need weeks in advance. This priority sign-up ensures a large amount of the disabled population can be seen. Having these accessible auditions gave this historically underrepresented group time to be seen and hopefully cast by theatres and producers who were looking for new actors who happen to be disabled, thus benefiting all parties involved. Over three hundred Boston area actors were seen, though I do not know how many of these were disability priority sign-ups.
This simple step of making a Google form and reaching out to the disabled acting community made a huge difference: it felt like the most accessible audition I had ever been to and was clearly led with a disability first mindset. Equitable auditions can come in many forms, including earlier sign-ups for disabled actors to guarantee that they are seen, holding separate audition days specifically for disabled actors, and/or making sure theatres are equipped to take care of accessibility requests actors may have on the day of auditions. BATA is just one example of a local theatre community centering accessibility and valuing the contributions of disabled actors.
