 So I bagged out a month so I wouldn't have to do the writing exercise. Just kidding. So thank you so much for being here. So the disability at the intersections conversation. And apparently there's a little bit of confusion because there's the one about having babies that's around here somewhere too. Very different. If you just have to talk about your babies and how to support them, it's like you're down that way somewhere. Very different conversation. So I guess we should just start by introducing ourselves briefly. So if you don't know a lot of time, we're going to try to get you all out of here by 120, 122 at the latest so you can run, sprint, roll, whatever you're going to do to your next scale building workshop. So my name is Christine Bruno. And I wear a bunch of hats, but primarily for our purposes at TCG at this conference. I am disability advocate at a non-profit arts advocacy organization based in New York City, but we're a national nonprofit called the Inclusion in the Arts. And I'm also an actor. Fantastic. Hi, I'm Beth Pregore. I'm the Education Programs Manager at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., though for the capacity of today at this conference, I'm here as arts administrator who uses a cane. And I also wear a lot of hats, fewer hats now that I'm a cane walker. But my education and training is in directing and performance. Just a lot of hopping around though. So I've been doing that all the time. Hi, I'm Beth Pregore. I'm hands-on in New York City. We're an arts service organization that provides access for deaf and disabled audiences to be able to do that. I'm Claudia Alex. I'm supposed to be a producer at the Oregon Chaseburg Festival. I'm a chair of our diversity and inclusion planning council. I serve on our access committee. I'm an artist with a disability, and I make it a priority to hire artists with disabilities. Yay. So we would love to quickly go around the room. Everybody say your name and what organization you are with. Let's start tonight, right? Sure. I'm Elizabeth. I work at Playhouse Square. I'm Florie Syria with the Manhattan Theatre Club. David Stewart, I'm the Production Manager for Texas Performing Arts. Katherine Rush, I'm a playwright. Claire O'Neill, Magic Theater. Caitlin Bryson, Calipers Rectory. Randy Anderson, Stays Directors and Choreographers Society. Jenna Hartoth, All South Stays Directors Society. Michael Hardy Institute of Outdoor Theater. Sarah Huddleston, Magic Theater. Elizabeth Brodersen, ACT, San Francisco. Jeffery Carver, Pricklodge Production Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dawn Chen, Lighting Design. Clea Shapiro, California Shakespeare Theater or Couching. Tears of Tyler, Couching. Ben Hadet, Police Theater, Boston. Michael John, Spartacus Theater Company. Alison White, Theater Communications Group. Joel R. from New Bromance. Carol LeBron, Dallas, Missouri. Erin Williams, Texas. Ryan Hadet, Performing Arts and Playwright. Bridget Lee, Freelance Director. Talarima Frey, Access and Inclusion Consultant. We just introduced ourselves. Oh, I missed everyone. Hi. I'm Nigel Smith. I'm the Artistic Director of the Flea Theater. Awesome. Looks like we've got some other people coming in. We'll catch people as we go. Welcome. Hi, guys. We'll put out a couple more chairs. Just chairs over in that direction. Yeah. Everybody. And for those of you who just joined us, we just finished introducing ourselves. So once you sit down, if you can introduce yourself. Yeah, just your name and the name of your organization. Awesome. Thank you guys so much. And again, thank you all for being here. Safe space. We want you to feel free to say whatever you want around issues with disability. There's a lot of fear about saying the wrong thing. So we want to encourage you to just be as inappropriate as you need to be in order to get your point across. Because we're not the language police. We're not going to write it down and stalk you afterwards. So conversations where we get down to the nitty gritty of what we want to talk about, the only way we can do that is to give everybody in the room, including ourselves, permission to say potentially the wrong thing. But we're saying for purposes in our space, there is no wrong thing. So feel free to say what you want. And one of the resources that we hope that you'll be able to come away with is the guy with your hand out there is a language sheet that helps with when you don't really know what the right words are and you're in a situation where you want to use correct language. This is a good step so that you have vocabulary so that you don't end up just not having conversations. And we're so glad that you're all here regardless of disability or non-disability. And it's very useful for these conversations to really have everyone in the room and for us all to be able to advocate for each other. Yeah. We're definitely encouraging our allies to speak up. Don't feel you don't identify as a person with disability. We're just as happy to have you as if you do. So we need all the allies we can get. Yeah. So I think we're going to start with sort of talking about what brought me here today, but there's so many of us and so little clients that I think we're just going to play a little bit of an icebreaker in the guys right now. And we don't have a whiteboard or anything. So we can't write these down. So if somebody wants to write some of these things down or has a really great memory, that's cool. But we're just going to spend a couple of minutes and we have quickly turned this little game, Disability Dumb, for no other reason than that's what we turned it. So when you hear the word disability, we say disability. Just throw out for us some things you think about. Some terms, some assumptions. And again, please don't worry about being inappropriate or anything. And for popcorning, we're not calling on you to shout it out. I'm going to try and talk to you. Oh, excuse me. Do it. Do it. Yes, let's go. Catherine has agreed to write it down. She's got a lot of sleep. I'm the playwright. Creativity, just throw it out. You got creativity. Empathy. Empathy. Empathy. Empathy. Access. Autism. Okay. Invisibility. Okay. Perspective. Cripple. Yeah, really. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Awesome. You get all great and all right answers, right? But you guys were like wicked polite, yeah. That's sad. Like, we're all like crippled. We don't need to go, ooh, we don't want to, we don't want to say only the good stuff. Filled. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good afternoon. Yep. I think there's a fear around, or at least for myself, around fragility that I might further hurt someone. Okay, yeah. That's a really good point too, but I think that sometimes with the disability community, there's a little bit more of that particular, not trying to hurt someone because of the fragility with other communities where we have affinity groups, because part of the unconscious bias that we sometimes face is that we are very fragile. Right. Yeah. I'm really... We're not all almost there. Yeah. We have one hilarious, you know, that is, has always been in this perception that friends call me a little baby bird. Oh, yeah. I'm an eagle, people. Plays. I find that there are really, there are similar, I just don't know how the conversation plays out when it comes around conversations about inclusion around race. You know, people are like, black. You know, they don't want to say the word or a conversation about gender or sexuality. People don't want to say the wrong thing because they don't want to get themselves in trouble and they're afraid that they're holding on to... No, they're not afraid. They know that they're holding on to some larger societal assumptions. I respect that. You know, I think sometimes, you know, we're moved to try to use character language because we're trying to train a bigger community that we hear saying offensive language and then we get to do a circle like this and free up to have a more honest conversation. Whoa. Yeah. I think fear is a huge part of it. I totally agree. I think fear is a huge part of it. But I think it's fear. I mean, I think it's fear of saying the wrong thing but I also think that there's a fear of people with disabilities. I mean, I think disability is a fearful thing for some people. Because I think that not only do we not know what to say but I think it's also a fear of this could be me and I don't really want this to be me and this might be me or it will be me. The chances of it will be all of us is probably 100%. Yes. The longer we live with the more medical advances we have, look, it's all of us and let's just say, and you probably all know this but it might not be something that you've thought about, but disability, every single person in this room, I don't care what your ethnicity is, I don't care what your race is, I don't care what your orientation is, I don't care what your gender identity is, what your religious status is, what your economic status is, every single person in the room, you can join our club at any moment. Well, honestly, we're one of the largest communities in the United States because if you, at some point in your life, you're going to be disabled, right, who happened or will be, and you are related to someone who has or will be, it's not a minority community. I sometimes get confused when we talk about, you know, making accommodations. I'm like, why don't we just build things since they're accessible because we're all going to do that. Let's just say ignorance, not really knowing what's happening or what the issue is, is it bigger than just the visual thing that I'm seeing, you know, is there, you know, just the trepidation of, you know, is that the only way I can handle a deal of, you know, if I do have to do it. You know, we were having a conversation yesterday just about what people are, what it's okay to say to a person and how much you can actually cross that line of asking questions to a pretending stranger and what people feel very comfortable about saying, I will always have people walking through the game. I'll have people ask me, what's wrong, so what's wrong with your leg? Making the assumption from there and probably that I said my toe or I took it away from me or something a little bit more acceptable than probably what the actual situation is. But the idea that somebody has the ability to ask a personal question like that is always kind of mind blowing to me about that, that it's a personal question that I don't think that they would necessarily ask other personal questions to somebody like that, but somehow they're given that permission to themselves to ask that because I think what they think the outcome is, which is not necessarily the case. Hello, I just met you. Would you please tell me, it's for details about your body. I'm being helpful because I'm thinking about it. I'm interested in you. Right. After the four of us had that conversation last night at the party, the last conversation I had with someone before we walked out the door was with someone coming up to me being like, why do you walk in the game? Because I have a disability. What kind of disability? What specifically is wrong with you? Are we going to call up to you again? But really, what is wrong with you? Our names are box people in. One second. I have a box that I'm better at. I feel more comfortable being able to relate to you. Now I know who you are, what's going on. I'll put you in that box. I feel safer. The lines are blurred. I think you get nervous. I'm sure you're a curious nation. And I don't think we have a lot of, in our culture, a lot of barriers to just saying what we... I don't think it's the same in other countries, to be honest. And I think it's our way of making friends, too. It's like, let's find a common... I love your necklace, or why are you doing a game? So sometimes I don't think it's necessarily about the disability, but maybe I'm really concerned. No, I think that's a very good... I think that's a great point, but I think it also leads us... and we're actually getting ahead of ourselves because you guys are asking great questions. We want to make sure that we take time for some of the language stuff, but I think that what happens with disabilities, people don't see it as a community or a culture as they do race or ethnicity or even sort of religious, you know, gender identification or sexual identity or people don't see it. So they feel okay to ask about it. It's like, I wouldn't say to you, so what's up with your race there? Tell me about the characteristics there that I will see in your face. You're really handsome guy. Can you tell me where you come from and you say, oh, I come from New Jersey? No, but where do you really come from? People do ask that question. People do ask that question. What are you? In some sense, with disability, we have forgotten to the point there are people who will say, right, but by and large, we've kind of moved past that with some of the other underrepresented groups. I don't like to use the word marginalized, so I'm going to use the term underrepresented for our industry. We've been thinking about there are just like a couple of really helpful statistics and Claudia alluded to that that there are between 56 and 58 million of us in this country, and that's all kinds of disabilities. That makes us America's largest minority, 20%. That's 20% of our population identifies as having a disability. Now, that's just the people that identify or can be identified as having a disability, it's probably larger than that. That's a huge number. What does that mean for our industry, necessarily? What does that mean for the bottom line? Are we targeting audiences with disabilities? Are we thinking about our programming in ways to bring people with disabilities into our spaces, into our theaters? Are we thinking about the stories we're telling? Are we telling stories about disability? Are we telling them authentically by using actors with disabilities? Are we doing those things? Some are, some aren't, but we all can be doing a better job in every area of underrepresented groups, particularly with respect to disability. Just a little factoid that's kind of an eye-opener. In the 2013 to 2014 Broadway season, there were seven plays on Broadway that had a character with a disability as a major character in play. Not one of them was played by an actor with a disability, either as the actor who was cast or understudied, not one. Seven of them. Seven fairly well-known plays. None of them new plays except, I think, Carrie's incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. All great plays, not even people of characters, actors with disabilities, not considered for any of those roles. So that just shows you where we are in the disconnect with our thing. And you guys, you know, so astutely outlined some of the reasons why. One of the biggest ones, I think, is fear. You know? And Christine, that's not even thinking about casting actors with disabilities and roles that don't necessarily stay. The women have gotten there. Yeah. Just one question. It's about a seven-place, but there are a lot of regional leaders here. So maybe we can take an opportunity to state to that, you know, if any of the leaders are intending on doing those productions. Um, may I really fast, is there anybody here from Mixed Blood Theatre? All right, so Mixed Blood is doing something fabulous. I freaking love it. Now, of course, they were like, okay, we want to support artists with disabilities. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna hit the road, so to speak. So they started off trying to make a list, a database of scripts that highlight or focus on disability. What they discovered was that it was a crazy project that did not work. Right? Because so many plays have a main character or a main plot point that deals with disability. So they realized, oh, we need to take a slightly different tap. So they sourced a list of plays and they have a grant project where theater companies can apply to do one of these plays and if they promise to produce that play with actors who actually come from the disability community that the play is talking with and about, that group gets $5,000 to help you that play. Now, I hope I am representing that program accurately. You are, but it's only three. It's only three? Only three companies? Yeah. There's a lot of plays on that list, okay? A lot of good plays. They only had money to give $5,000 to three theater companies. So if you're, it's percolating, hurry up. And then it has like direct connection on audiences. You know, everything is, nothing is kind of separated out. Everything kind of relates to each other. They just came from the audience revolution section. And they talked about that, you know, that people want to see themselves reflected on stage and that's a great part of developing audiences. And so people with disabilities also want to see that. And then, and so the point too is you want to get, you know, kids with disabilities to have an idea of going into the theater when they're older so they see themselves on stage and their expectations of themselves, realistic representation of themselves, they have an interest in going to theater. So every segment of theater, whether it's on stage, off stage, backstage, kind of reflects and kind of impacts the other part. And I, did I mention set up for the economic? No. I don't think I've said it. I don't think I've said it, which I always do. It's one of the first things I go to because, you know, it's all about the bottom line. Now, no, did I say that? I didn't. So just so you guys know, people with disabilities have $220 billion of discretionary income to spend. So like, we're a target audience, you know? And I think that figure is probably even larger now that I think that stat is about five years old. I think it's from 2010. So think about that. I mean, that's a lot of money. It's a lot of money that theaters are just kind of letting go into the vapor, you know? Yes. I have a question about that in particular. So one of the things that we look at is, yes, we want people, individuals with disabilities to feel welcome in our audience and we try to make business as possible with different programs. However, we give a lot of inventory away for free. And so the idea is, you know, you look kind of at these models and there's some discount pricing and all of that. And I'm really interested in people to talk about what's the equity in pricing? Is there a reason that we should have discounts or should be giving a certain amount of weight or what can we expect as having to support all of our, you know, our own organizations and the bottom line? I have a thought on that. I think that it depends, as we're talking about intersectionality, there are a lot of people with disabilities who come from underserved areas and I would think that there would be more factors rather than the unavailability issue, for example, that would go into that slide pricing because I mean, a lot of people with disabilities are, you know, recently retired vagillionaires and there's no reason that they wouldn't be willing and delighted to pay full price for an accessible seat. I think sometimes you have to look at sections like you would look at every other section. You're going to have people that have money to spend and then you're going to have people within that community that don't have money, so it varies. And I also think that with disability and I hate to throw out all the stats to you guys, but like, if the national average of people who are unemployed is 21%, which it is, so 21% of our population is unemployed and this is the non-disabled population is unemployed at any given time, right? That doesn't, whether it's part time full time, it's just 21%. The people with disabilities, it's 71% of the people with disabilities at any given time are unemployed or under-employed. So that sort of speaks to your question about discounts and strata pricing that I think it just depends. Now we had a question over here. The next section. Shall I go? Okay. I think one of the challenges in talking about disability arts activities, I'm from Toronto. We have a 2025 full in Ontario full accessibility for all employees and all businesses. And the challenge is this huge financial fear on the part of struggling theatre companies to make the physical changes to the space that are required because so many are in 100-year-old theatre spaces, adapted for years, backstage, let alone dressing rooms, there's up to seven flights of stairs and narrow and dark. And so there's, I think, apropos of nothing, apparently, except money. It becomes like a really interesting discussion to try and have and to facilitate when government has legislated there's actually no funding to make the capital changes and investments. And so there's a fear on the part of theatres of the capital required to do what they already know they should be doing in addition to the four wheelchair seats. I just have a very interesting conversation about artists, actors, performers who are disabled that, you know, in terms of companies wanting to access those actors, performers and artists, or vice versa, in terms of training. Like, what are the barriers in terms of that? That's a, like a, like he said, a question. Yeah. Yeah, no, no, totally, no. I mean, I'll try it and then you guys, you know, one of the things that the organization that I work for does is maintain the database of disabled actors from around the country. So anybody who is considering hiring a disabled actor, you know, call me. I have cards here so please see me and I'll give you a card or I'll put them on the table and you can take them. So there's that. I mean, we are out there and there's other resources, but what I can help you find resources that you need in order to in order to find actors with disabilities. And I don't mean, I think sometimes there's a presumption that when we're talking about actors with disabilities, we're talking about art as therapy or community theater. We're not, we're talking about professional training, artists with, you know, in a lot of cases with degrees, with advanced degrees, but I am an MFA in acting and directing. So I mean, we're out there. So it's, it's, it's, what we're really trying to do today, I think is sort of change the perception and help you guys feel like you can more easily navigate the landscape and not be afraid to, to reach out in a way to communities with disabilities to bring them into your theaters to see stuff and to reach out to the disabled artist community to start to put stuff on your stages that is authentic. And I think that's part, that's a big part of the conversation because it's, it's, it's making assumptions about what you think you have to do or what you should be doing before you include the people with disabilities in the mix. And I think that, and I think that for a lot of the parts is that there's, that, that kind of like puts a stop on going forward and hiring somebody because you think, oh, I can't do this because of this, this, this, this, that's already in place. And probably, you know, I mean you said this yesterday, who ever said disabilities won't work? Just like any, just like anybody. So it's, it's not so much that, you know, try to talk, have a discussion first before you kind of like pick a kibosh on things and say, well we can't do it because that, you know, there might be a step or there might be a this or there might be a thing or I make this assumption, talk to the person. People want to work. And so what, what you can actually do and do, you know, people can be creative, we can be probably, you know, they put in a lot of creative idea that a lot might work before, you know, you stop it. In logistics and in rehearsal. Yeah. So there's like a double win there, right? Because the idea of making an accessible casting choice or an inclusive casting choice means sometimes that you are in an exciting way rethinking your design elements. It means in an exciting way you're rethinking who's in the rehearsal room, what that rehearsal room is literally shaped like, looks like, all those things. So the creativity that you get from the logistics of, I have an inaccessible theater but I have an actor who needs X, Y, or Z accommodation. There's a logistic creativity which the disability community deals with all the time. And then there's the artistic creativity that you, it's kind of the extra little gift that you get in the room with you as well. Yeah. No. And I just want to acknowledge this woman over here. She's got a handbag for like 20 minutes. Yes. Yeah. I just want to wait so forgive me if this is hard to discuss. But I was wondering if someone on the panel would like to speak to the American, the ADA and, you know, requirements or preventance that are associated with that as it relates to non-profit theaters? You're talking about ADA specifics? That's... I don't think any of those are... Well, let me just... I'm not going to actually, we have time to go into specifics but I am going to say something in general which is you should be going beyond the bare minimum. You should be going beyond what is asked for by the ADA. Now the thing is when you are designing, when you are like, when you buy that new carpet, are you thinking, oh, are we making design choices in that carpet that will help people with low visual? Are you thinking about that when you buy the new carpet? When you're making small changes because it's not just about when you're buying a new building or building a building from scratch. Sometimes it's about, oh, when you're buying the new couch, are you thinking about it? Are you consulting with your community? Does your theater have an access committee that's made up of staff members and audience members so that you're making sure you're really just fully thinking about these things? The ADA has a really great disability section and there are people who give you advice and to help you but my advice is go beyond the bare minimum. I do want to make sure that we get to some of this language stuff and especially the social model of adaptability so I'm just going to bring that up. I think we're there. Alright. Let's start quickly by we did something yesterday. You guys all have a handout, right? So we're going to ask you, we're going to ask for volunteers and you leave on page, let's see, what's their handout? So on the first page would somebody please read aloud the definition of able body. It's down towards this definition in the first one. Able body should be avoided although you will still hear it used. Accessible environments and adaptive equipment allow many individuals with disabilities to be able body preferred by the disability community non-disabled. Awesome. And we're going to go through all these and then we'll do that. Now the next one is a crib face or disability drag. Will someone read that please? Anybody? Crib face. Crib face. What does that come from? Do you know how there's black face? Let's read the next one. The next one is disability. If someone read the definition of disability as it is. This definition of disability is a compilation of several resources which focuses on and quotes the concept of disability from the perspective of the social model rather than the traditional antiquated medical model which emphasizes impairments and limitations and puts the onus on disabled people to be fixed or adapt to societal barriers. Developed by disabled people, the social model regards disability as a socially constructed experience that identifies systemic barriers, negative attitudes and exclusion by society purposefully or inadvertently as contributory factors in disabling people. The social model promotes the notion that while physical, sensory, intellectual or psychological variations may cause individual functional limitation or impairments, these lead to disability only if society prevails to take account of and include people regardless of their individual differences. The social model further recognizes disability as a community and a culture. That's a mouthful. Thank you. Thank you. And the next one is invisible disability. Invisible disability also comes in disability. We find it is a disability that is not immediately apparent and primarily neurological in nature. Examples include that are not limited to ADHD, learning disabilities, chronic pain, brain injuries, anxiety disorders, source, disabled world right now. Deaf culture. Deaf culture describes and social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values and shared institutions of communities that are affected by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. Some people are born deaf while others lose their hearing later in life because of illness or injury. People who have been deaf their whole lives are actively involved in the deaf community consider deafness a difference in experience rather than a disability. Important note, big D deaf refers to a person who is culturally deaf and a member of the deaf community and uses American Sign Language ASL. Little D deaf refers to a person who has a hearing loss. That's awesome. And when we get to the end, I'd like to talk just a little bit about the presentation we talked about. Yep, sure. And people first language? Putting the person before the disability and eliminating old, prejudicial and potentially offensive descriptors, e.g. person with a disability not handicap to physically challenge or be disabled. Important note, as increasing numbers of disabled people view disability as an identity of culture and community, people first language has fallen out of favor with many in the disability community. Preferred disabled person, disabled people. Thanks. I hope that'll leave you. All right. I didn't think to pull it up on here so I will share that with you in a second. The creation of this document came about because we were putting together our workshop to do with the Institute, TCG's Institute. And we realized that we didn't have shared language and we didn't have shared definitions. And going on Google was a bit of a nightmare. It was just full of definitions that were hurtful to the specific communities that we were trying to address. So this document is a living document and it's pretty darn fresh but it's been vetted with artists with disabilities. I'm going to make it round. I'm doing the shout out to Howie Siegel. I'm doing the shout out to Julie Simon. I'm doing the shout out to Reagan Linton. There were others. It was a huge community. I know that you sent it to your people. You sent it to your people. So it is my hope that this document will continue to grow and be fed into. The disability community is not homogenous. So there are of course different perspectives within it. So it's to give you a context. But of course you should always ask the person you are talking with what's their preferred noun, what's their preferred pronoun, what do they like to identify as and with. And even in the document itself there's contradictions. I think we all recognize it. And I think as you said it's not a homogenous community and there's going to be people that people first language is the way to go. And so to kind of say it's not people first language for some people is kind of going to make a lot of people need to re-record. Neurodiversity, a movement in the autistic community to embrace our differences. The neurodiversity community believes autism does not need a cure and that a community benefits from having many neuro types and we actually have a fresher definition of spectrum in the updated version which is autism spectrum disorder and autism are both general terms for a group of conflicts, disorders of brain development ASD is a developmental disability that affects many parts of the brain including difficulty understanding social interactions, sensory processing disorder and affects the language communication centers of the brain as well as obsessive special interests while many people with other conditions may have some of these symptoms. A doctor only diagnosis ASD if all of these and other symptoms are present. ASD is a condition that's present from birth until death. Those with ASD excel in spatial, visual and logical thinking. I think we're probably going to run out of time to do this but I just want to point you to page 4 of the document has a really hand in the top 10 table of commonly used terms that you might find helpful as you go back to your companies and their alternatives that are preferred by the disability community and I'll just share the first one how many of you have heard or have used and you don't have to raise your hand you can pull yourselves out privately have used the term wheelchair bound or confined to a wheelchair right? I know that most of you are going yeah I've seen that or I've heard that or I've said that or I know somebody who said that something really helpful because language is not hard and fast and we recognize that it's changing all the time because our culture is evolving as we evolve something really helpful to think about in terms of language particularly for the disability community is that most of the language that you will see to describe the disability community either in news or in literature or in our plays or screenplays most of the language has been coined by non-disabled people which is why you will see a term continually like wheelchair bound or suffers from or afflicted with like I don't feel like I'm suffering right now some days I do suffer but that's because I'm a human being you know it's not necessarily because I have cerebral palsy so when you're just thinking about how to frame disability and how to talk about it just check yourself before you open your mouth and I could also come back to the definition of disability that we put in there it was a concerted effort to introduce this idea of the social model of disability just to kind of look at disability from a different lens from a different framework in terms of the community itself that's been, it's morphed there's been a lot of different models of disability over the years basically going from medical to social has been the biggest junk or the biggest kind of eye opening for a lot of people this idea of going from just fix them and go to the doctor and once you're cured and everything that's the goal of personal disability to this idea of disability that's part of an identity that's part of who you are and basically it's society that disables people because if society didn't put up with the barriers environmentally and only and only at the barriers that they did then we really wouldn't have a disability so it's just a different way of thinking which brings us into what we can all do to support each other in the world of theater and what resources I'll keep in mind and the packet is really useful language is hugely important but to that point just being a player that people have different ways of moving and different physical requirements is just so useful among the affinity groups that are represented at TCG we were having a little bit of a conversation last night and the disability group is the only one that you could sort of accidentally affront to really exclude so last night at the party those stairs were for real I was not having any hot dogs yeah so we split them in and it's like stages one through nine upstairs these other things over here hot dogs upstairs there's not another group that you would be able to do that but if you put up a sign that says Norwegians aren't allowed upstairs you have to think about that like no even upstairs dude's only up there that would be alarming but it's not until people with mobility issues come in and be like ohhhh we forgot about those guys and you know everybody's very well meaning so then you'll get the lovely volunteers you say oh what's up there oh that you know there's a couple of food things up there but that's okay there's like plenty of stuff down here for you to enjoy you know and like everyone is very well meaning but you just when you're thinking about it it's to expand on what Beth said really quickly and just encapsulate the difference between the medical model and the medical model I like to say because it's one sentence in the medical model the onus is on the person with a disability to adapt or to fix ourselves or to make ourselves better right with the social model the onus is on society so that's just like an easy way to start to wrap your brain around it I think that is incredibly empowering for the allies in this room because if we think about disability in the medical model all you can do as an ally is feel bad for us right like all you can do is say that's something that's different about you that you're dealing with and pity is something that comes up in any kind of allyship right but it's particularly salient I think in the disability community but as allies you can say look I don't know I don't have the same experience that you do but I can make sure that this space is accessible I can make sure that this production is inclusive and like I said before there are actually hidden gifts of creativity that come when you make that commitment so I'm really optimistic because I think there's a lot that can be mine from it I also want to offer to all of us allies as well another shout out Mixed Blood because they've gone so far as to have a guiding committee of disabled folks who meet month I was so surprised when I was working there like every month they're there to make sure that the institution is including the voices because we don't know everything and we are ignorant and we need to make sure everyone has a seat at the table you know what that we also asked our dance company who's coming in to work with the kids to organize that curriculum around disability and movement so I think that's a really great opportunity to help you know kind of a movement building thing you know to help expose that age group to these issues that's right I mean early we have to realize that when we were talking about training before they're you know it's hard to get training as an active disability because there are a lot of barriers institutional barriers you know, attitude barriers and so the earlier we start the better we have a few minutes for questions so anybody, yeah I want to speak to this it's not going to be a disability so I I don't want people to have to speak up that I'm not able to do something I look like I should I've been hanging in there for all this time I did the same kind of I found the important question like well can you lift it so I know I really can't well why not but then it's like a whole complex medical history it's like I just why can't I just say I can't I'm cute or their job postings and I work in I do administrative work but there are a lot of theater management positions but I don't think people think about this you have to be able to lift a certain amount so does that mean I can't apply for a job then qualify for except this one thing and I see that all the time and it's something that I don't know do I apply when I go into my interview I have to say like I can't do I get this really complicated thing because like this doesn't or do you hide it and hook it to the job and deal with it later I also love you because you know with a visual disability and we had this huge conversation about it because I was like man let's do it and then of course my colleagues were like well wait a second he's gonna have to be able to update the website into the computer and he's gonna need to be able to seal and he lives in the world and I had the gift I worked at the American Foundation for the Blind I've been a disability advocate since before I was disabled and it's worked out very well because I ended up I got my job here at Shakespeare Festival and one of the first things I did was get a grant to make sure that my stage could be accessible because I wanted to get these dancers really cool dance through backs as dance I wanted to get access dance to wheelchairs got those ramps and then boom in hallelujah I could get on my own stage accesses for everybody when I shared this story because I ended up taking the risk in Ironman but I also just had a transparent conversation where I was like dude these are the job requirements can you do them do you have workarounds to make this work and then there were some things where I was like oh I could be barge type on this oh I can get this kind of a thing because that'll be useful for the future to make it more accessible for you but I had a conversation and that was useful so I do think you always apply you never listen to somebody say no you don't let somebody say no for you but I think it's also up to the higher order to be thinking in a more accessible way and also yet just one quick thing that some of you made and you probably know like in an administrative staff way that you are not allowed to ask someone in a job interview if they have a disability if it's obvious that they have a disability what the nature of their disability is that includes casting folks as well those of you who are involved in casting at all you cannot, cannot, cannot ask an actor when they come in so what's up with you why are you in the wheelchair and it happens all the time so I know you're probably all like really people ask that but you can't ask them you can't talk to them about being able to fulfill the actual requirements of the job and that includes casting clearly if the role is a ballerina are you going to be able to walk on a tightrope can we, you know so that we can do, Jolie you have a question thank you guys we are very much out of time and this is just the beginning of a conversation thank you so much