April 19, 2014

April 16, 2014

I remember when Ethan Hawke spoke to us theatre majors in the exact same hall where I spoke to theatre majors last night.  (Been hanging on to this purple dress, hoping for this very occasion for a while!)  Thanks to the dear friends that joined me last night, on this wonderfully fulfilling, full-circle journey!







April 10, 2014

OK. I LIED. Another deep post. Here goes: I thought I knew this show. I've done it HUNDREDS of times. EVERY NIGHT in Edinburgh. LA, New York, London's West End, blah blah blah. I can LITERALLY do it UPSIDE DOWN. Yet yesterday's performance at Syracuse University's Disability Culture Center's "Cripping the Comic Con" was like doing it for the very first time. Sign language interpreters filled my peripheral vision, ever surreally acting me out. As for my central vision, a lot of the audience wasn't even looking at me-- but rather reading my words as the appeared in real-time on the big screen. Others were rocking or waving at me-- overstimulated, apparently. All the while, no one is laughing… Is it because they're deaf? Because it's 10am and we're at a "symposium?" Or because I suck? All distinct possibilities. A service dog had bumped my blocks/props out place-- meh, no biggie, I'm an improviser! And yet, this show is scripted-- as I was so rudely reminded each time I said the word, "freak" AND CRINGED. I'd just never heard my own words in that way before. I tip-toed my way through the Q&A afterwards-- big, academic questions about disability, all directed at the one seemingly non-disabled person (me)-- my mic on blast. That's when it hit me: what a gift this little character's been, not just to my career as an actress, but to my life experience as a human, and now, apparently, an advocate. SO MUCH to be grateful for!

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