At the Intersection of Disability and Drama: A Critical Anthology of New Plays

by John Michael Sefel (Editor), Amanda Slamcik Lassetter (Editor), Jill Summerville (Editor)

Overview

"Cripples ain't supposed to be happy" sings Anita Hollander, balancing on her single leg and grinning broadly. This moment—from her multi-award-winning one-woman show, Still Standing—captures the essence of this theatre anthology. Hollander and nineteen other playwright-performers craftily subvert and smash stereotypes about how those within the disability community should look, think, and behave. Utilizing the often-conflicting tools of Critical Disability Studies and Medical Humanities, these plays and their accompanying essays approach disability as a vast, intersectional demographic, which ties individuals together less by whatever impairment, difference, or non-normative condition they experience, and more by their daily need to navigate a world that wasn't built for them. From race, gender, and sexuality to education, dating, and pandemics, these plays reveal there is no aspect of human life that does not, in some way, intersect with disability.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476678474
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	04/02/2021
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.81(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

John Michael Sefel, MFA, PhD, is a Melton Center fellow and co-editor of Texas Theatre Journal. His original plays have been performed in New York City, Boston, and at regional theatres and colleges in several states. He lives in Berkley, Michigan. Amanda Slamcik Lassetter, MA, is a theatre faculty member at Baylor University, co-editor for Texas Theatre Journal, and executive board member for Therapy Center Stage Productions, a non-profit focused on mental health and healing through the creative and dramatic arts. Jill Summerville, PhD, is a performer, playwright, and scholar. Her research explores the complexities of putting actors with disabilities onstage.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword (Calvin Arium)
Preface
Introduction (John Michael Sefel)
Part One—First Person Singular
STIFF (Sherry Jo Ward)
The 2018 Invisible Man (Leroy F. Moore, Jr.)
An Open Letter to the Usher at the Theatre Who Asked Me if I Was “the Sick Girl” (Amy Oestreicher)
RPM (Graham Bryant)
Whack Job (Kate Devorak)
I Come from Hoarders (Carly Jo Geer)
A Performer’s Monologue (Connor Long)
Why This Monologue Isn’t Memorized (A True Story) (Kurt Sass)
Tinted (Amy Bethan Evans)
Invisidisability (Anonymous)
Crooked (seeley quest)
Last Train In (Adam Grant Warren)
Part Two—Past Is Present
The Last Reading of Charlotte Cushman (Carolyn Gage)
Tales of My Uncle (Monica Raymond)
Gramp (Mandy Fox)
Dyscalculia (Katrina Hall)
Part Three—Alone, Together
The Brechtones (Billy Butler)
Hiccups (Ben Rosenblatt)
Ex/centric Fixations Project (Bree Hadley)
The Plague Plays (Bradley Cherna)
Still Standing (Anita Hollander)
Afterword (John Michael Sefel)
About the Contributors
Index