Back

Play focuses on struggles of those with disabilities

October 01, 2009 3:29 PM T.D. MOBLEY-MARTINEZ THE GAZETTE Granted, it sounds minimalist to the extreme: No costumes, no sets and no actors; only a handful of people reading the script in front of them. But there’s something powerful in these real life stories of pain, courage, humor, determination and endurance. Director Ping Chong calls it “reality theater.” “It’s hard to describe why six people sitting on a stage is compelling,” says Chong, who directed “Invisible Voices: New Perspectives on Disability,” “but it is.” An artfully scripted 95-minutes as much haiku as theater, “New Voices” celebrates its world premiere tonight at TheatreWorks. “Disability, diversity, racism,” says Chong, who, at 62, has created 41 renditions since stumbling onto the form in the 1990s. “I did one with all Native Americans. I did one with all inner-city kids.” It’s his thing, you know — social justice and healing the world. He laughs, though, at the suggestion. “In my modest, grain-of-sand way, yes. It’s all about empathy, about getting people to see beyond stereotypes and ignorance and to recognize the humanity of the people they scapegoat or stigmatize.” The New York artist came to town in June, about a year after Randy Dipner saw one of Chong’s productions on disabilities at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Dipner, a TheatreWorks board member, is co-founder of Meeting the Challenge, Inc., a local company that disseminates information about the Americans With Disabilities Act. He was so moved by the work (“I was stunned”), Dipner contacted Chong, who has won six National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Playwrights USA Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, about building a production here. “Ping Chong is a performing artist of the highest order,” says Drew Martorella TheatreWorks’s executive director. “He’s a force and he’s a name. That we had the opportunity to even imagine participating with it was very interesting. Yeah, yeah, it was a fit.” To find the stories, Meet the Challenge sent a 33-question applications to about 100 people. Of that number, 34 responded — from as far north as Fort Collins and far south as Pueblo. Chong chose about 20 to interview, coaching them into deconstructing their lives in casual, two-to-four-hour interviews. “What we’re looking for,” Chong says, “is stories. No good stories, no show.” When Kelly Tobin heard about it, she knew wanted to be involved. “I’m on stage every day,” says Tobin, a 40-year-old mom congenital limb anomalies. “I get the stares, the awkward reactions. ... I thought, how powerful would it be to have the opportunity to be on the stage literally ... and to be involved with education, educating the public about disability.” Back in New York, Chong mined the six interviews for the shape and text of the script. He returned with the first draft about four weeks ago, and in four three-hour rehearsals a week, he and the cast culled and refined the piece. “They have to have ownership,” Chong says. For Chong, these works are not just about disability or racism or ethnicity. They’re about the very human fallout of living in a world of differences: Everyone, he says, is an outsider at some point. “When you see the show, you see six people with disabilities,” Chong says. “You see how different they are from you, but in the end, they’re not. It’s just that their disabilities are visible.” Details “Invisible Voices: New Perspectives on Disability” When: 7:30 p.m. today and Friday, Oct. 8 to 10, 16 to 17; 4 p.m. Oct. 11; 10 a.m. Oct. 13 Where: TheatreWorks, Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theatre, University Hall, UCCS, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway Tickets: $7.50 to $25; 255-3232, theatreworkscs.org Something else: A DVD of the show, behind the scenes footage, interviews and a history of the Americans with Disabilities Act will be released in March to celebrate the signing of the act.