Disability and Accessibility

Marshall Botvinick shares the results of the research he undertook about new plays premiering across the United States in the 2019–20 season: who is being produced, what characters are appearing on stage, and what forms and themes are common.

Ezra Brain discusses the experience of creating a piece of theatre in the dark, the theory of “rasa,” the act of performance, and more.

Black British writers Matilda Ibini and Oladipo (Dipo) Agboluaje talk about choosing to study theatre at school, crowdfunding, Afrofuturism, and more.

Demi Nandhra and Rajni Shah talk about their performance practices, social media, mental health, ego, and more.

Michaela Goldhaber, current artistic director of Wry Crips, talks to the founding and early members of the disabled women’s theatre group about their history.

Jill Marie Bradbury reflects on the Deaf Theatre Action Planning Session, co-produced by HowlRound, when thirty Deaf, DeafBlind, and hard of hearing theatre artists, administrators, and scholars gathered in Boston for a weekend-long convening.

Nicole Kelly and Jenn Poret, two arts managers with disabilities, reflect on the most and least accessible aspects of the jobs, accommodations they need, and the future of accessible theatre management.

Mallory Kay Nelson and Michael Maag talk about the low number of full-time designers working in theatre; the realities of costume, lighting, and projection design as a disabled artist; and how delegation is a skill they’ve both had to master.

Claudia Alick talks about growing up as an abled youth and her sudden onset illness as an adult, how areas of inaccessibility in the theatre suddenly became hypervisible to her, “crip time,” and more.

Andrea Kovich talks about the glaring need for more disabled theatremakers, the importance of new plays and musicals, and working with a disabled dramaturg during a new work’s development.

Talleri A. McRae and Mickey Rowe, co-founders of the National Disability Theatre, introduce their series “The Future of Theatre is Accessible,” talk about some key takeaways from the upcoming articles, and discuss how language is a barrier to inclusion.

Alix Rosenfeld talks about the difference between inclusion and belonging when it comes to working with the disability community, using the Philadelphia-based FringeArts production of A Fierce Kind of Love as an example.

Adam Roberts talks about the devising process used at TILT, a performance company in Austin, Texas, that celebrates the creative work of adult actors with disabilities.

Vijay Mathew discusses how the HowlRound team has worked, and continues to work, to make HowlRound.com an accessible platform.

Kim Peter Kovac looks at the way the theatre for young audiences field has changed over the last few years, where it’s at today, and what his hopes are for the future.

Playwright Jenny Kokai talks about co-writing a piece of theatre for young audiences with her now twelve-year-old son.

Andrea Kovich talks about the importance of disability representation on Seattle’s stages and Sound Theatre Company’s recent work in that area.

Tim Collingwood talks about the importance of creating “ability-positive” theatre so that people with different ability statuses have the chance to see themselves represented on stage.

Jacob Juntunen, who has bipolar disorder, speaks with several other artists who struggle with mental illness about the realities and challenges working in the field.