I am a BA Theatre Arts (Performance) student at Middlesex University. My final year essay I have chosen the topic of disability artists, specifically actors. I am currently researching the obstacles disabled actors face in their early career development. And am posing the question, is there a lack of opportunities for disable actors today? In terms of training, getting auditions and if there is a lack, does this lead into disabled collectives creating original new work? I am in my early days of research so I don’t necessarily believe there is a lack, I’m just interested in what other people think? Do you have a personal experience you would like to share? I am happy for people to email me privately at jessheasman1@hotmail.com I look forward to some replies. Jess
So much work to be done. We are not yet at a point where a disabled actor’s disability isn’t ‘the story’. We’ll have succeeded when disability is a non-issue and we’re a long way from that.
On the other hand Sarah Gordy has had some good opportunities. There is always the other question also: Does a disabled role always need to focus on the disability element or could they/should they be part of the wider story?
I think there is still a lot of work to be done- just looking at recent films that still use “pretend actors” as in “the fundamentals of caring” and so on. Would all make great opportunities for actually disabled actors?