I discovered my disabilities in New York City’s Professional Theatre Industry.

This is what happened.

Contains candid, difficult content.

I am a disabled artist
Always been a disabled artist.
Whether one can ‘see’ my disabilities or not.

Born with

processing differences,

a unilateral seeing impairment.

Autistic — in every way.

Hard of Hearing.

Real.

…

For 30 years,
I lived as someone
‘trying to make it on Broadway’
as a
smiling, tap-dancing tornado
in
authoritarian instinct,
joyful neural-connection,
desperation,
and a will to live.

Just get me to a rehearsal schedule, damnit.

…

Theatre and dance

were one of the only

ways I could process the world.

Instructions in theatre were:

‘Stand on number 6.’

‘Sing your heart out.’

(Well, sh*t…I can do that!)

Or life-changing

audition-advice that

started unmasking my Autism 20 years ago:

’Never be more than who you are or less than who you are’.
(Note: ‘Being who you are’ is not ‘safe’ for everyone or in every moment.)
…
Art, creation can be lifelines.
Access to them is life-saving and, unnecessarily denied.
…

Did first show at age 6.

Became the "Star Search" Junior Vocalist winner for my state at age 9.

Made a professional debut at 10, next year working with Academy / Tony noms.

I was authentic, uninhibited,
my ability to regulate dependent on the structure of a show schedule.

A triple threat!
And, thankfully, encountered a life-saving interest.
. . .

Worked as a local hire in the summers until I was 18.

Moved to New York to attend NYU.

My first day of classes in a BFA program there was 9/11.
Subsequently, I entered the Mental Health Industry.

. . .

In 2006, moved back to NYC, got a job, an ‘Equity Card’ shortly after.

The job was called a ‘swing’ — a person who understudies 7 ensemble / dance tracks.
Pattern-recognizer’s dream and the only fulltime job I’ve ‘successfully’ held down in my life.

Im 42.

. . .

This whole time - I wasn't seeing, hearing, processing in the ways the industry (and many people) did.

I was processing in many great ways. (Woohoo!)

But the disparity and unawareness of how I can work were disabling:

I did things like

+ Walk in on the person before me's audition (when I couldn’t process the monitor’s instructions in an echo-ridden hallway).

+ Attend an audition on behalf of my agent, then not be able to read the script.

+ Plow through “Law & Order" sides, not remember the casting director’s name and do what one might consider logical and
….ask.

. . .

In 2007, I was dancing 6 hours a day.

Class was a place to feel my body, connect helpfully.

My outer world was devastating.

(And because....dance ❤.)

. . .

Around this time, I was called in for the Maggie / Val cover of the 1st nat’l of the Chorus Line revival.

(Unequivocally the most accurate psycho-identity analysis I’ve received to date.)

I’d been doing the choreo for years, done the show,

but got to the audition, with a nervous system so burnt out I couldn’t point my toe.

. . .

Within 2 weeks, I was in outpatient therapy 4x / week and couldn’t walk.

25 years old, in olympic-style shape, able only to sit and look at my hand.

Not depressed.

Catatonic.

. . .

The mental health industry is known to pathologize difference, further marginalize it.

And that institution began to take over my life.

Over the next few years, I
was put on a total of 7 psychoactive medications

that didn't help,
I didn’t need,
don't currently take,
and wreaked havoc on my system.

(Medications can help some people.

Like some Autistics — research has shown — I evolved out of any benefit, each and every time and then more were added.)

. . .

Nothing was going to alter my deeply-embodied - albeit distressed - life-energy, except understanding and support of the differences, disabilities.

Nothing was going to change me.

. . .

Therapy, is where I (and my parents) spent 25 years.

As I went on in ‘therapy’ my internal resources disappeared further.

Thus, the more ‘therapy’ I ‘needed’.

. . .

The ability to access art — to sing, to dance, listen to a song, to speak — left for years at a time.

I processed language in different ways / at different rates.

I would get jobs and get fired;

Or have to quit after a week.

I dedicated my life to therapies, medications, places, people, ways that reinforced the roots of my problems.

And was blamed each step of the way.

(*A common experience to wish on no one <3 )

If there had been "a way" that way - or, frankly, any other way - I had the will.

. . .

For whatever reason — monotropism, pervasive drive, passion, stupidity — the theatrical soul contract wasn't done yet.

In 2017, I moved to New York City, a 3rd time,

to “try to make it on Broadway”.

. . .

By now,

social media and rapid-fire communication had taken over.

I could not understand social media

or the Industry’s hyperized need to create carrots like ‘pay to plays’.

Or what was even happening there.

I couldn’t work, and made myself sick to get money for lessons and [what turned out to be] predatory coaching.

If I could attend a dance audition, I had to push to the one place in the room where i could see the combination.
I wasn’t a ‘B’; I needed something called an accommodation.

Video & visual components dominated.
I read lips and had no idea.

‘Like a fool on a fool’s journey’, I marched onto the playing field, cymbals crashing, knowing deep down I couldn’t sustain playing…that way.

Like many, threw myself on the line for it all.

For the love. (What [We Do] for Love).

(Also known as a Fawning Trauma Response.)

And the perceived exceptionalism.

Like Kevin’s ‘Orlando’.

. . .

The irony is:

I’m a worker.

A theatre-worker.

I was there to work.

If the job was theatre, it was what I did.

But that, ultimately, wasn’t the job.

Everyone kept talking about this community.

After 30 years of "being a part"

(albeit not with access to the ‘right’ door....)

I look back and

like Mayor Shinn, wonder:

WHERE’S THE [COMMUNITY]?!

. . .

Over this time, I was using audition technique and creative processes

to dig deeply, and connecting to my inherent way of being in the world….

and that was unmasking my Autism.

How that looked was brave, empowering,

dangerous,

bridge-burning,

liberating.

. . .

When the pandemic hit,

a theatre acquaintance

looked at me and said directly:

"You know, I think you might be Autistic."

There it was.

. . .

Someone who they, themselves,

had taken an empathetic journey.

What a beautiful, genuine application of theatre’s power of transcendence.

It saved my life.

. . .

After receiving an ‘official’ diagnosis of Autism and ADHD, the summer of 2021,

I was denied
medical and
mental health care
at 42 places

in 90 days

when moving back to New York City.

Denied long term mental health care at a public hospitals and other places for reasons like, ‘You can’t be diagnosed Autistic at age 37.”

(Again, these are all common.)

My neuropsychologist suggested I come off the medications slowly,

but I was forced off of them overnight that summer — 7 psychoactive medications —

including an Adderall crash and SSRI —

some I'd been on for 15+ years
at a time when I had stopped breathing 80x/hour in my sleep.

My brain and body had not been getting enough oxygen for some time.

. . .

In the 3 years that followed,

there was a threat to my life:
1. If I went to bed.
2. If I woke up.

Like 9/11 over and over again.

I the ability to be a mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, aunt.

My husband and I became unhoused.

Lost every aspect of family, connection, communication, friendship, processing light, sound, motor function, hearing, seeing…..

At a certain point you just…lose it ‘all’.

. . .

For fellow Neurodivergents, marginalized people, spirits, template-changers —

for those who have faced this —

what happened here is maybe no surprise.

This is, in fact, how systemic isolation, pathologization,

dehumanization,

cultures of violence, dominance, and

control…work.

. . .

That summer, a fellow artist from a ‘theatre community’

I'd spent a long time in,

whom I’d spoken to in person twice. . .

Saw me on West 50th Street.

Pointed in my face, and laughed.

. . .

That was the the day my self-respect was born.

The first day of the rest of my life.

. . .

I was never an ‘actor’; I was the show. (We’ll talk more about what I mean by that.)

I was an Autistic Person, living through the songs, lines, process, characters

whom I never played, except in my head, to stay alive.

Living through their Autism, ADHD, PDA, using their literal voices and words to come into my own.

I was someone who wanted it all…(drum roll!)

for the schedule.

It’s so damaging, disabling, unnecessary.

But ultimately, I came to beauty from that dark.

. . .

Las year, I started to sing again.

Started doing small dancing videos in my kitchen.

I’m speaking more consistently, storytelling about this journey.

(It’s common.)

I’m working with artists struggling on professional contract.

Because that was me.

. . .