Thread by @JessyYates

In just the 3.5 years at my little hashtag woke liberal bastion of Yale I’ve had to sit through:
- three nondisabled students cast as Richard
- two new plays that cast nondisabled actors to star in physically disabled roles, both positing disability as tragedy (cont…)

- one word premier of a new work at Yale Rep where a sighted actor was cast as a blind man, and that character’s only purpose was to stumble into shit and make the abled laugh
- two shows there the actors donned speech impediments. (Cont…)

My casting assignments have been:
- an egg
- a drunk who is (historically) fat and so therefore funny
- the clown in winterstale
- someone who comes on stage once and sings a funny song
- someone who comes on stage once and is sassy
- the mother of a lead character
(Cont)

And
- a 15 year old ghost who is a fragment of the leads imagination (sort of…but I got to sword fight! At least?)

My first year, there was many articles about how ysd was leading the charge of in disability inclusion in mfa programs (because i was accepted).
(Cont…)

Actors students are used as understudies at The Rep and then, in turn, get their Equity card. I have been here 3.5 years and I have not and will not be given the opportunity to understudy.

*and my experience at Yale has still been MILES better than my time at NYU re disability*

But when disabled actors say we are TIRED this is what we mean. Even at an institutions like Yale who have SO much EDI training & this nonsense *still* happens regularly.

So forgive us crips when we don’t thank institutions who have done One Disability Based Play ever.

This thread might get me into trouble. buuuut it’s honestly nothing I haven’t said to the institution themself, so it’s not like this is secret tea. I have a LOT of love for a lot of This Place, but when you love something you’ve gotta be real with it.

lol there are SO many typos in this, dear god. sorry sweet readers.

Ooookay to clear things up: if your takeaway is yale=bad, then I’m mistaken. The point that I’m saying is that even at an institution that has tried *really hard* still gets it wrong, because ableism runs deeper than accessiblity and admissions.

Disability appropriation is

So common, that even an institution who is #DoingTheWork(tm) misses it REGULARLY, bc ableism is baked into every facet of storytelling and acting.

SO when disabled people say “this type of casting is so shitty” don’t ask them to explain why to you or argue with them, dear god.

And auction disabled actors for GOOD PARTS, BOTH DISABLED ROLES AND NOT

Lol @ auction. Audition*

[here I am sitting here 24 hours later — terrified that people from my program are going to think I’m ungrateful or entitled for saying all this. this is how/why the disabled community stays silent.]

To be abundantly clear — my experience would not have been better at any other major institution. It would have likely been worse.

Ableism is embedded in it all. I mean, look at your own life — how many disabled people do you have as EQUALS/real friends/collaborators/lovers?