 Hi, Terry. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, perfect. All right, folks, we're going to start with our third presentation of the day. Have you facing as much of the audience as much of the audience as possible? And I will just introduce really quick. Hi, everyone. I'm so excited to announce our third presenter for the day, Terry and Hudson. Terry is a disabled, comically ill, queer actor and multidisciplinary artist and disability rights advocate living and working in Chicago. She has a BA in general studies in the humanities, concentrating in theater, film and dramatic literature from the University of Chicago. She has studied at Second City, Vagaron School of the Arts and Acting Studio Chicago. She has recently performed as part of the SHIFT video installation, led by Barack at Solil at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. And her works can be found being creepy short stories and audible, and on the random acts scary stories around the fire podcast. Terry is simply one of the coolest people I've had the pleasure of working with, and she brings such confidence and spirit to all her work. Her passion and grit is so clear in everything that she does. Please join me in welcoming Terry Lynn Hudson. This is a group with access needs, attracting and retaining disabled talent. A list of things that have happened to me as a disabled actor at various points in my career. In a nationwide talent search for an actor with a mobility disability where the producing theater was providing housing, I asked if the housing was accessible and was told that the ground floor shared areas, and living area were accessible, but seeing as it was a residential single-family home, the bedrooms were all up a flight of stairs. An entity that prides itself on body inclusivity to the point of using it as a tagline held a cattle-call dance audition where they said modifications would be made to the audition routine and that people who needed it would get individual attention. But instead, modifications were offered for bad hips and bad knees at the top of the audition and absolutely nothing else, and no one was available for individual auditions. They also didn't provide video of the routine ahead of time so that people with movement differences not addressed by bad hips and bad knees could come up with their own modifications ahead of time, making it so that one had to try to figure out modifications in real time without crashing into a room full of people at the same time. I responded to a casting call specifically saying, all ages, races, and abilities welcome. When I asked where the audition would be held, the producer said that it would be at their apartment, up two flights of stairs with no elevator. An entity whose casting director saw me audition at a disabled talent showcase invited me to audition and held the auditions in their inaccessible upstairs rehearsal space. This happened multiple times. One entity in particular holds itself up as a paragon of accessibility in regards to services offered to the audiences. I witness and appreciate witnessing strong focuses on audience access. When I see focuses on disabled talent, I see it much more rarely and more as a thought exercise than anything concretely executed. I do know that we've had a lot of incremental changes over the years. Allie Stoker and Madison Ferris have been on Broadway. Unfortunately, although I've been a working actor for 30 years now, the incidents I previously mentioned are all things that have happened to me in the past decade. What I hear and what many of us have heard in response to these sorts of incidents is that we need to be more assertive. We need to advocate for ourselves. We need to make sure our needs are met. The onus has put on us to change the system, pushing back at one microaggression or barrier at a time. I'm not here to tell other disabled actors how to better self-advocate. Disabled folks could pretty much all teach courses in self-advocacy. We have to do it all the time. What I want to do is push back at the concept that we should have to put in twice or three times or ten times the work that non-disabled actors do to be afforded the same responsibilities. I'm sorry, to be afforded the same opportunities. We shouldn't. What I would love to see is for producing companies, training centers, educational institutions, casting directors to remove the barriers to begin with and understand why it's better for literally everyone for you to do so. The most insidiously pervasive ideas around disability inclusion that I still see and that I want to challenge is that we're still your very special episode actors. If you don't know what I mean by that, you're probably significantly younger than I am. Back in the day, whenever a normally light-hearted TV show wanted to tackle what they considered a sensitive subject, they'd say that up next was a very special episode. For my purposes, I'm going to call this The Crips Show. This would be a show that specifies a disabled character and the casting seeks out the cast authentically with a disabled actor. In theory, this is great. We want our stories told. We want authentic casting representations. So why am I calling it out? I'm calling it out because it perpetuates the situation where we aren't considered and aren't front of mind during the rest of your seasons or for any other roles besides the one that specifies us for casting. And that's a big, big problem. It still means you see us as disabled first and as talent second. Unless a character is expected to perform specific physical acts during the show that require specific stated abilities, there's no reason you can't cast disabled. Unless you're structurally unable to, and that built-in inequity is what I want to talk about. What I want to enlist everyone watching and or listening in the fight against and most pointedly, I want to propose some ways to solve this issue. Ways in which some individuals and institutions have already implemented solutions. So first, let's talk about the shiny chrome elephant in or most likely not in the room. Wheelchairs, the universal symbol of disability. Lots of theater companies are tied into leases and contracts in physically inaccessible spaces and can't afford to move or either can't afford to or aren't permitted to renovate. Here is a list of workarounds for this issue that I've seen and even participated in. Partnering with another company or entity with an accessible space. Many of your bigger producing houses with larger budgets have multiple spaces and I've seen several offer reduced rents or even free rehearsal and or performance space to companies who are looking for that space for access reasons. And it shouldn't just be on the smaller companies to reach out and ask. If you have space you'd be willing to share, advertise that to your local storefront. Theaters aren't the only ones with space. Although you may need other amenities that are more difficult to find outside of theater space and there may be permits and other paperwork, there are library meeting rooms, park buildings, corporate office meeting rooms, common spaces and residential rentals. If you can't have us physically, have us virtually. We just spent the last several years learning how to virtually produce. One virtual show in every physically inaccessible houses season, even every other season would do so much to help us build credits and relationships. If a full virtual production seems like too much, how about a virtual actor? Is there a voice over role or a way someone could appear on a screen or projection? And if you're thinking everyone is tired of watching Zoom or virtual productions, you know what people aren't tired of at all? Podcasts. Do a serial or a podcast play. Produce some scripts you wouldn't necessarily put on your main stage and cast disabled talent. And if physical accommodation is still impossible and insurmountable for you, there are other disabilities and other accommodations you can make. Do you have a list of ASL interpreters on call? Do you have captioning equipment? Do you have a screen reader compatible soft copy of sides and scripts? Here is a list of possible solutions for very special episode syndrome. The short answer, folks, is just call us in. Do we meet the demographics for the character? Is there any reason the character can't be disabled? If not, call us in. Yes, we have the idea that, well, if you make the character disabled, then the entire thing ends up being about disability. And honestly, casting us more often will get rid of that because you'll get used to seeing us. We're doctors, teachers, parents, friends, love interests. We exist in all facets of life and theater is a reflection of life. A lot of debates and discomfort around the implications of making one single character disabled can be very easily solved by not having there be only one disabled character. Casting more of us solves this more than casting less of us does. Audiences will adapt. And casting us will expand your audiences. A lot of us come with fans and followings already, and we love to see ourselves and support one another. Use that to your advantage. Now, assuming that you want to cast us and make a practice and habit of casting us, I'm often asked, where do you find us? A common excuse we hear for inauthentic casting is, but we couldn't find anyone. And I'm just going to stop you right there. A lot of casting practices can get fairly insular. People build relationships, work with people they know, and who they know just isn't often very demographically diverse. One point I constantly bring up is the constant exclusion of disabled people from all aspects of public life. This is a constant battle because separating us from everyone else is so thoroughly baked into our society. And often, unless it's a relative, a non-disabled person can be very hard pressed to name a disabled person they interact with on a regular basis, let alone one with particular skills in training. That being said, there are trained professional working disabled actors. The ones you know of who've achieved a certain level of fame and accomplishment didn't start where they are. They had to come from somewhere. Look at your communities. Most major metropolitan areas have some sort of disability-focused community center. Most schools are required to have some degree of access, although a lot of them are still failing at this. I picked a project once that was rehearsing and performing at a school theater thinking that the access situation would be more ideal. And guess what? Audience space was accessible and performer space had stairs. Yep. Your municipality should have an office for people with disabilities. Reach out. They can connect you to people. I've been known to put up casting flyers and rehab centers in hospitals. The pushback that I expect here is that we should be doing this work. We should be submitting, like everyone else, just showing up at auditions, et cetera. In an access-focused world, we would. But I can definitely tell you that over the past decade, I've spent countless hours trying to figure out the accessibility features and access access of various theater companies to see whether or not I could audition for them and often came up with no information or incorrect or incomplete information. When I've approached theaters directly, I get reactions that make it seem like I'm just trying to paint a scarlet letter on them for all the ways in which they're not accessible and they just shut down and go unresponsive. We really need for you to do better. One thing that could be done to avoid this would be a database of theater's access assets. Do you have an elevator, ramps, a flat stage, a projector, captioning equipment, ADA regulation restrooms, a dressing room that can accommodate chairs and suitors? If theaters and producing entities would provide that information upfront, it would save us countless hours of work and put us on a more even level with non-disabled actors with regards to what we need to do to prepare to work for you. So at this point, I'll give some benefit of the doubt. Say you've found us, say we're on your radar, say you've got some roles for us, and let's say you're making some casting decisions. A lot of problems we run into are in script. I've seen inauthentic casting happen, for example, because, well, the person needs to be able to get up and walk for this part of the story. Two layers here. One, disability is a spectrum and ambulatory wheelchair, brace and crutch users exist. You can have both and cast authentically. Just be specific. But also, who is that story for? Why is that convention being used? The stereotypes that disabled people just sit around wishing we weren't disabled or wondering what life would be like if we weren't disabled is largely something that lives in the non-disabled gaze, as opposed to being authentic to us and our lives. I'm still seeing plays produced about parents hand-wringing over having a disabled baby. Yeah, just last year. The play itself is admittedly decades old, but a company decided to dredge it back up and produce it. We don't just deserve to work. We deserve good material. And we deserve stories that don't harm us. Lastly, I do want to remind everyone that the state of being non-disabled is temporary and fleeting. The sorts of access that we require honestly creates a better, safer, and more flexible working environment for everyone. What if an otherwise non-disabled actor didn't have to leave your cast because of an injury because there was already an elevator and a flat entry and a flat stage? What if everyone got adequate meal breaks because people with blood sugar or other issues needed them? What if the clearance for wheelchairs backstage meant that no one was stumbling over wires or needing to be nimble enough to navigate around lumber or detritus? What if bathrooms and dressing areas big enough for chairs and scooters were also better fits for larger performers? What if we just made more space and made that space welcoming and navigable? I think we can do it. We, you, just have to want to. I left a lot of time at the end of this because I really want to have dialogue with people. If anyone has any questions, any feedback, any complaints or grievances, let's please take this time. Let's build some community here. Let's support and suggest and brainstorm. Please. Hi, Terry. I'm great. Great. This is Sahai Bear sitting here attending this wonderful conference. You've given some really excellent suggestions. Can you talk a little bit about the actors and contractual issues with them doing radio only or performing on other platforms? What has been your experience or have you had that experience with putting things on the audio platform and union issues? Is my question clear? I think so. I think it may be a little bit out of my wheelhouse, but it is clear. First of all, hello, Sahai. It's so great to see you. I am non-union, and the fact that I've been in this business 30 years and I'm non-union is a lot of why I came up with this presentation because there have been a lot of barriers for me. So I don't know all of the union rules. I do know that personally, I have been doing a lot of podcast work and a lot of audiobook work, and I do think that there's some flexibility and some different rules around those. I do know that people like during the strike were still able to do some of that work if they were union, but I would ask union people about that and I am not one. Yeah, I did. Thank you so much for your list. Absolutely. Any other questions? Hi, this is Millie Rose. I'm like right over here. Hi. Hello. Hi. I was wondering if you could talk about some spaces or theater companies or any kind of area in which you see like really positive steps being taken, just like things that people are doing well and things that you would like to see continued or like places that we could go support that are producing really cool work that you are excited about. I wish that was an easier question to answer. I have spent the last three years working remotely because I'm immunocompromised and I do know that a lot of companies have folded and a lot of people have lost their spaces. I will say that I have done some interesting work over the last several years with Straw Dog and when I was working in person, Straw Dog was a great space for inclusion and accessibility in my experience. I did get to work there in person sometimes. Let's see who else is out there doing the thing. There is a theater company on the west coast called Alter Theater that did some online work that I was really impressed with. There are also disabled run theater companies and that's actually something I was negligent about in my prepared speech. Here in Chicago we have Tell and Tell Theater and we also have the Inclusive Playwrights Project and both of those are founded and run by disabled people and they are both great resources for finding disabled performers and disabled playwrights. Who else is out there anymore? As far as spaces, I'm a little hesitant to say because I'm not sure who all is still open. I do know that Steppenwolf has lent space to Inclusive Playwrights Project and that they have their 1,700 spaces completely flat and has a good dressing and restroom space in it. I just don't know how competitive that space is and I don't know what their rates are but considering that they work with IPP I want to say they have some flexibility for accessibility for this project because IPP is not a big money operation. Hello, my name is Hailey and I don't know if this is a specific question but during the presentation you talked a lot about physical disabilities and things that are more visual. Could you talk more about the invisible disabilities and representation and accommodations, just some things that we might see actors and not see them as a disabled person just because their disability is more internal if that makes sense? Absolutely, I am physically disabled so I speak a lot from that experience but I also have what can be referred to as sort of a conditional level of visibility. There are people who can look at me and not know I'm disabled so I've had to fight that fight because I'm not always in a wheelchair or what have you as well and I will say that once again a lot of the things that I'm stating are things that will help everyone with fatigue issues, have trouble with stairs, inclines, etc. It's more exhausting than just navigating a flat space. Making people stand up all the time is a thing like you can have chairs in reverse. The idea that energy is sucked out of everything if everybody is not standing up all the time is really ablest and that applies not just to people who have actual motor issues like I do but people with chronic fatigue issues and pain issues can also benefit from sitting. There's also the food issue. Non-equity theaters are starting to follow the equity food break schedule but that's a very recent thing and previously we were just kind of expected to not eat for six to eight hours and people can't necessarily do that. I've been in spaces where I've just been assertive about food like I am bringing food and I'm going to eat and you're going to suck it up because this is what I need to do for my body right now and that is a self-advocacy thing it's just showing up and doing it but also when people cast they need to be prepared for that. So this is really just kind of putting the onus on the producing entities to go okay people are going to need accommodation maybe people might be running late for reasons they can't avoid or might be tired maybe we need to work in more breaks more food breaks more sitting is anybody in pain can we like do we have people with sensitivity to the environment can we lower lights can we regulate sound that there's a really just extensive list of things that we can do that would improve everyone's experience so thank you for bringing that up. Great any other questions? Well kind of along the lines of what you were just talking about I think that what's important for people with disabilities especially if they're invisible is having their elevator speech like knowing exactly what they need and asking for it because as someone with kind of an invisible disability if I don't ask for very specific things for specific situations people will make the decision for me and then you have to undo what they did to do and then do what you need to do the other thing that's important is to I think like know the law and know what your rights are people tend to jump more if you can say okay well actually the ADA says this about effective communication or the ADA says this you know as a person with a disability I'm entitled to you know ABC so you know as a person with a disability being an advocate for yourself means being knowledgeable about what you need and I found that the people with a disability don't always know what the options are that are out there that's part of the problem too like they're unaware of what accommodations and what solutions oh that was the other thing if you go in and say I need this this and that and you come in with a solution they're more likely to enact it than if you put all of the responsibility on them I know that that is historically true and I'm not saying that none of this was to say that we should not self-advocate what I'm saying is that we should not be the only people who care about us and that there are things that entities can do on a base level to make a disability friendly environment on a base level people are always going to need other accommodations that aren't just solved by you know ramps elevators etc so please don't misunderstand that I'm not saying that I'm saying that we should not self-advocate I'm saying that we should not be the only people advocating for us that it is completely possible and feasible and ought to be standard to expect disabled people to come into your spaces and to cover what you know to be or should know to be basic needs that we can possibly have does that make sense absolutely thank you so much Terry I think we have a question from our live stream so I'm just going to hand it over to Monica yeah Claudia in the HowlRound chat I think you touched on this a little bit with Hayley's question but she said what advice do you have for immunocompromised doctors wish I had more that has been a really rough thing to navigate especially during COVID a lot of it is just stick to your guns set your boundaries and do not waver on your boundaries because people will insist that you need to be in dangerous situations for your career and I'm like well I'm not going to have a career if I'm dead yo and so I have really had to adjust what my career looks like because there is very little safe performance space for immunocompromised people right now people have just dropped a whole lot of precautions that they were taking and you can set your boundaries but that doesn't mean that people are going to honor them because I have definitely gotten offers where I'm like yes I will perform if people all you know COVID test beforehand and everyone is masked in the space and I just get told well we're not going to do that and I'm like okay well I'm not going to work with you and that is just that and I don't know what the solution is there because that's not just in the performance sphere that is in every aspect of public life right now I have been working with an organization called Care Not COVID Chicago just trying to get masking reinstituted in medical buildings because we don't even have that right now so my optimism for people outside of the medical field when people in the medical field won't show compassion for immunocompromised people is just not very much anymore I have really just had to reassess my career and go to remote only work doing voiceover I've been doing audio description I've been doing podcast work I've been getting into audio book narration and I know that people are like well I just want to perform so do I and I don't know what the answer is right now because I don't know how to force people to end if anybody wants to coalition build around that and try to come up with like a show of force and some solutions I will happily get in the trenches with you Hi Terry it's Ashna I read in your bio that you were a theater student at UChicago and I wanted to ask because a lot of us are like college student theater bakers I wanted to ask what advice you had for us to make the spaces we lead more accessible in the rehearsal room and in production spaces and just in general in the spaces we work in. So I will preface that I graduated UChicago in 1995 and that they could have made some changes and I actually I know they have because like I know the Logan Center for the Arts exists now and things like that so not everything is being held in a hundred year old building with no elevators or one really you know crappy freight elevator but as far as making spaces welcoming and inclusive you know make sure that there aren't huge barriers to begin with is what I am harping on today as a baseline and also just like I say reach out like if there's a disabled student's office or organization reach out go there and go like hey we want you to work with us we want you to come audition and just make it so that they know that you know they exist and that you are prepared to deal with them I don't like the idea that you know we should be treated as the only disabled person anyone has ever seen or heard of every time we show up a common line that I have heard in a lot of performance spaces that I've been in and I don't just mean the physical space here but just showing up as a disabled performer is something to the extent of well we didn't know anyone was going to need that and what I'm asking entities to do is assume that there will always be somewhere someone there who needs that assume it from the get go always assume that someone will need extra rest time always assume that someone will need an elevator or a flat entry always assume that people are going to need more meal breaks always assume that somebody is going to show up who's not a straight size or who needs a bigger dressing room or who needs an accessible restroom always assume that we are going to show up is what I'm asking and that that should be done at the college level as well because otherwise we don't get the same opportunities everyone got in college and then we're 22 years old and we're going around and auditioning up against people who've done 20 more shows than we've had because they haven't had the barriers that we've had. Thank you thank you so much Jerry I think that's really great advice are there any other questions in this space hi Terry I'm Matthew over here thank you so much for being with us and your presentation our first speaker today was Ali Easton she's a disability consultant and I was wondering in your experience how have you interacted with disability consultants obviously I'm assuming there aren't enough of them and she was mentioning that there aren't enough like certifications or programs in which people can really become well equipped to pursue a disability consultant route where folks can advocate for actors and spaces where there aren't necessarily accessibility efforts being met and I was wondering how you've interacted with disability consultants or if you have in the past and what you see like that path looking like that has been an interesting space for me to navigate most of the disability consultants that I have worked with have not been disabled and that is a little awkward just right there there's definitely not enough of a focus on that and there's not enough programs and there's not enough access to those programs but at the same time I am a big fan of if people are able to work around this because I do realize that with certain entities that your flexibility on hiring people without certain degrees without certain certifications etc. is limited that needs criticizing as well but backing up disabled people living out in the community as I mentioned in my speech we have to assess spaces for access every single day it's all we have done most of our lives or ever since we acquired our disability if we acquired our disability later in life most disabled people would be pretty good at doing that job you know if you factor in other personality traits etc. so it's something where if you have the capability to hire an outside consultant instead of looking for a piece of paper like look for lived experience look for disabled disabled people in the disabled community people who do advocacy work people who work with adapt people who here in Chicago are active with access living or active with like their various disability organizations are all great resources and I would highly highly advise hiring someone like that if you have the flexibility to do so as far as getting more official certification programs because I'm not in the academic sphere I have my degree and then I just never did anything else in upper academia ever again I'm not sure how you get programs like that started I was on an advisory committee for one university who was trying to build a curriculum and I don't know whatever happened after that they had a committee and we did a lot of talking and a whole lot of brainstorming and then got told well somebody's going to have to approve or not approve this so this may end up being a program and this may end up being nothing and as far as I know it's nothing so putting pressure on institutions if you have influence and connection in order to get them to take that sort of thing seriously is another avenue I think could be taken thank you so much I think that's a lot of the questions we have here right now thank you so much for being patient and answering all of them for us Terry's information and social media is linked in the welcome packet that is given to all of you so I encourage you to check out all her really cool work and connect with her on social media is there anything else you'd like to say Terry I just want to say that self advocacy is important but that I've gotten to a point at 50 years old where I'm tired of being told with every single thing I want to do that I have to carve out a whole new path and what I'm wanting to do here is to create a partnership and create a give and take where we as disabled people who constantly have to self advocate and constantly have to navigate access aren't the only people who care and aren't the only people doing it and creating a framework that's accessed first so that it's not built on the back end of everything I got into a conversation with someone about ramps once where I said and this isn't always true but in this particular case of the structure we were talking about it was true I'm like the problem with this ramp is that it was an after thought because you've got this space that was not built with flat entries and lists for multiple levels to begin with and someone had to figure out access after the fact and what I'm saying is if we figure out access as part of anything we're building we don't have to worry about how to accommodate a random disabled person who shows up because we didn't think about access we may have to tailor what we have done to their specific needs but the issue is not going to be as huge or as much trouble if we have already walked in with and built the structure from the ground up with access in mind this is what I'm asking for everyone to build their structures whatever their structures are be they physical or just ideologically from the ground up with access in mind. Thank you Jerry that makes a lot of sense and I hope that's like one part of what ITF can do is bring this information to people who are not disabled so that they can start creating these kind of spaces and not let the burden fall on just those with disabilities. Exactly Thank you so much for being in this space with us today again I think it's so cool that we can have someone zoom full of people this way and I really want to admire you Terry for doing that for us today and just giving us an example in real time of what hybrid models and remote accessibility can look like so thank you so much we're also grateful for you two for being here in this space today thank you. Thank you. Alright everyone we're going to take a 15 minute break so we're going to break till 340 and then we have our last and amazing last amazing presentation of the day Dr. Tina Childress so I will see you all here at 340 a reminder that there are toys sensory toys at the water at the back of this room and our quiet room is down the hall and to the left thank you so much see you in 15. Thank you Terry I'm going to log up yeah you might have to log off this call because I might just try to answer this Okay, I'm Matt case thank you and thank you so much goodbye. You've been amazing thank you.