Defeating The Arguments Against Authenticity When Casting People with Disabilities
Madison Ferris and Sally Field in ‘The Glass Menagerie’
by Bekah Harbison
Authenticity in casting is a subject that has thankfully become more prevalent over the last few years. While the subjects of race, sexuality, and gender identity have been brought up in this conversation, the community is recently beginning to more closely examine authentic casting in regard to disability. Time after time I see the same response from naysayers.
“I just cast the best actor for the role.”
The unintended implication here often seems to be “I, as a director living without a disability, am the ultimate arbiter for who can play the best ‘disabled person’”. Gross.
As a theatre director, I’ve unintentionally developed a reputation for casting performers with disabilities in a variety of productions I’ve worked on. I say “unintentionally” because I only did what is being so flippantly suggested - casting the best actor for each role.
For characters who the script defines as Deaf or disabled, casting an actor who identifies in the same or a similar way is the only valid choice. No one can play a blind role as well as an actual blind person. As a sighted director, it would be pompous for me to assume otherwise. Living with a disability or as a Deaf person are experiences that those who do not have a disability cannot and should not try to authentically portray.
People have responded to this view, “Oh so there’s no such thing as acting then! So if you haven’t been married then you shouldn’t be allowed to play a wife?! It’s acting! Where does it stop?!”
The idea that casting authentically eliminates the art of acting misses a major point. Disabilities are not just an acting choice to “play pretend” in. Many folks with disabilities tie that into their identity. They are not things that can be put on or taken off at will - they are facets of how many Deaf/disabled folks live on a daily basis. While you may be able to choose to get married, you don’t choose to have a disability.
Some disabilities may also have an impact on the ways that a character moves, speaks, and/or behaves that should not be mimicked by someone who doesn’t live with the same impact that a disabled person may. As an able-bodied director, I am not adequately equipped to tell a non-disabled child how to physically portray Tiny Tim. The right call objectively is to search for an actor who can authentically play the role. (When I cast A Christmas Carol, our call was for an actor with a “mobility limiting disability.”)
“So now we’re just going to pigeonhole actors with disabilities into ‘disabled roles’? That’s not fair either!”
I guess it depends on what you define as a “disabled role”. The issue here is that folks are assuming that any role that isn’t explicitly defined as having a disability should be played by someone not living with a disability. This totally misses the point.
Individuals with disabilities can and should be featured in roles that do not center on their disability. Sometimes visible onstage disabilities can allow stories to be told in more nuanced ways. There’s nothing about the role of Ebeneezer Scrooge that says he can’t be Deaf. There’s nothing that says that the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella can’t be blind. Ali Stroker won a Tony playing Ado Annie while using a wheelchair. There’s nothing that pigeonholes anyone when you remember that folks with disabilities are people, just like everyone else, who can be misers or fairy godmothers or flirtatious townswomen. That openness is, inherently, authentic casting.
“But… what if we don’t have anyone who can play that role.”
I promise that there are folks out there who can authentically play characters with disabilities. Be deliberate in your posting. Make it clear who you are looking for. Say that you are casting authentically and will only consider performers who live with certain disabilities for specific roles. And if the actors genuinely aren’t in your community so you can cast your show authentically, choose a different show. There are a wealth of productions whose characters have no stated disabilities; choose one of those. Yes, even if you want to “spread awareness”. Even if the original performer playing the character on Broadway didn’t have a disability.
As directors, we should be out here creating as many authentic opportunities for casting as we can. The landscape has changed from the world of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape or even the 2012 Broadway Premiere of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. I will always fight to be on the edge of that curve, not because it’s new or exciting but because it’s what serves both the art and the community as a whole. Authentic casting isn’t just an artistic choice, but an ethical one. It’s our duty as leaders to do better.