Disability: casting a revolution | Jenny Sealey | TEDxWarwickSalon

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Jenny Sealey wants theatre to evolve and explains how crucial it is for each and every one of us, and how deaf and disabled actors are not just deaf and disabled people, but...exactly that: actors, and they should be given a chance and as well the recognition they truly deserve.

It will make sense at some point.

I'm Jenny and thank you very,
very much for having me here.

I'm deaf, and all deaf people give
each other name signs,

so I have to show you my name sign.

Can you follow my instructions?
Have I put this on?

Nope, I haven't,
so not a good start, is it?

How about now? That's good.

Can you put your right palm
on your right nipple?

Left palm on your left nipple.
Have a rub - no, no, don't!

(Laughter)

Now, move your palms,
so your palms are facing the heavens,

and your little fingers
are still touching your nipples.

Now imagine you're carrying something
very big and bouncy,

and have a good look at me.

They're not small.

I'm a 34K and, as Bravissimo say,
I'm working my way through the alphabet.

So while we're here, can you just think
about what would your sign name be?

Your signing frame is from your stomach,
it's almost like a TV around your head.

It could be you have long hair, you've
got sparkly eyes, you like football,

you're always smiling, you've got dimples.

So just take a split second.

What is the sign representative of you?

I'll count to three, and then we'll just
do a mass signing of names

and shout out your names as well.

Ready?

One, two, three!
(Audience overlapped responses).

Look, I know it's Saturday
afternoon, three o'clock,

we could do a bit better than that!

One, two, three!
(Audience overlapped responses).

Fab! So, I'm the Artistic Director
of Graeae Theatre Company.

I have my tools.

I have a rose: you throw the rose
at the actress you most adore.

An onion: you peel away, you peel
away to find your character.

Gaffer tape: no theatre is
complete without gaffer.

And nails: to nail those floorboards, nail
those flats, that set, everything.

So, the tools of theatre.

Graeae is an awesome theatre company.

It is founded on the Greek myth,

the three Graeae sisters had between
them one eye and one tooth

but Perseus stole them, because he wanted
to know how to kill the Medusa.

So of course they tell him, but they
want their vital organs back.

He doesn't give them back,
instead he flings them

and the Graeae sisters are left
screaming and defenseless.

As a theatre company Graeae is screaming.

We are screaming with passion
to make change.

We are also exactly the same
as those Graeae sisters.

We use our eye and our tooth,

we use what we have
rather than what we haven't got.

So if someone walks up with no legs,

I'm not going to go
and find them some legs,

I just check out how else they move.

It is as simple as that.

Graeae has been evolving
over the last 33 years,

not only because we put deaf
and disabled people centre-stage,

the work is always political.

It's always theatre that really, really
matters and because of that it is always,

as far as I'm concerned, a tool
of huge importance and huge influence.

Not just because of our performers,

but also we're curious.

What does access really, really mean?

We've been pioneering creative use
of sign language on the stage.

This is usually the furthest
I would ever be with an interpreter.

She would normally be right next to me.

We've been looking at creative captioning,

we've been looking

at how does audio description be part
of the whole theatrical experience;

It's not something
that is just an afterthought,

not something that is just chucked in.

I, maybe it's because I'm a control freak,

I like to know every single essence
of access, and how we are going to do it.

And how the art informs
the creative process of access,

and how access in itself
informs the creative process.

It's all entwined.

Access for me is everything
that Graeae does.

And also entwined within that
is the word 'evolution,'

the word 'revolution,'

and the word 'revolting.'

Revolting is synonymous with Graeae,
I don't know whether that's the right word

but people sometimes think
we are nauseating, we're sick,

we're repellent, we're degenerate.

Two years ago, I did a presentation
for the Bush Theatre,

and I called it my Bush Provocation.

Take with that
what it means, what it will!

Anyway, but in this provocation,

it was a litany of things
people have said to my actors.

"Ah, with that arm!"
- to a young woman who's an amputee -

"With that arm,
we'll never let you on stage."

"Thank God our theatre
backstage isn't accessible,

it means we can't have
that lot on our stage."

"You're deaf and black. Fuck,
you haven't got a hope in this theatre."

"Come back," a drama school said,
"come back when you're cured."

A director said to me: "Jenny, people
don't come to the theatre to be reminded

of the tragedy of being handicapped."

And very recently, i.e. 2014,
we did the Threepenny Opera,

with New Wolsey Theatre, Birmingham Rep,

West Yorkshire Playhouse
and Nottingham Playhouse and Graeae.

It was wicked, it was fantastic!

But when we were trying to evaluate,

asking the audiences
about the show, some people said:

"Oh, I arrived, and there were
all these disabled people in and around,

and I thought maybe I had come
on the wrong night,

it was a show just for the disabled
by the disabled."

"Oh, if I'd known that it was going to be
performed by disabled performers,

I might not have bothered to come."

2014, and we still have that.

Do we question Stephen Hawking?

Do we question Stephen Hawking, that he is
a genius, a scientist, he is awesome?

Do we question David Weir,
wheelchair racer?

Do we question Ellie Simmonds,
power swimmer?

Do we question David Blunkett?

You may not agree
with David Blunkett's politics,

but did we question his ability
as a blind man to be a politician?

No.

So why do we question actors on stage?

Their right to be centre-stage,
why do we question that?

TV, I suppose, is evolving.

We've got Lisa Hammond on Eastenders,

we've got Cheryl Houston
on Coronation Street,

Lizz Carr on Silent Witness,
Cerrie who's on CBeebies.

But, oh my God, when she was
on CBeebies, hell broke out!

Our children are going to be traumatized

by seeing a woman with one arm
on stage, or on television.

Casting, I'm sorry, has not evolved
in the way that I think it should.

So, these become the tools of casting,
and the disabled experience.

We are like petals, fragile
because of constant discrimination.

But oh, my God, we have thorns

because we dare
put ourselves on that stage.

We're like an onion, but somebody else
has peeled us away and exposed us.

We need gaffer to wrap around
those wounds of bruises and cruel words.

And nails, it is always
another nail in the coffin.

When there is a role,
it is a disabled character,

but even then, we don't get cast in that.

A non-disabled person
will crip up and play that role.

And another bloody nail is when...

how many Oscars are awarded
to those actors that do crip up?

The tools of casting.

Shakespeare.

When I was headhunted
for the National Theatre of Scotland job,

- "Wow, oh my God,"
I thought, "this is incredible." -

first question was: "Jenny, I know
you're the Artistic Director of Graeae,

but if you were to work
with a normal theatre,

would you still be wanting
to audition deaf and disabled people,

and if so, why?"

(Groans)

Shakespeare doesn't say whether Juliet
was or was not a wheelchair user.

I've had a deaf Juliet,
I've had a blind Prospero,

I've had a wheelchair user
who was Miranda,

I've had a woman playing Caliban.

Theatre is about throwing it all up
in the air, getting it messy.

It's a brilliant, brilliant thing to do,
it just requires a bit of imagination.

And, oh my God, how brilliant it is

when someone rocks up
and they have a different voice pattern

and you're thinking about access,
you're thinking about their access,

access for audience,
access for that character?

How much richer is the world
in which I inhabit for people out there?

I love casting, and I work
with a wealth of actors.

These are just some people
Graeae works with.

I've had an all disabled cast for Bent,
an all disabled cast for Blasted.

Look at her, how sweet is she?
This lot deserve to be everywhere.

Why can't we have
Mat Fraser as Doctor Who?

Or, what about Leslie
who's really revolutionary,

have a young disabled woman
as Doctor Who?

Why can't we have one
of my favourite actors, Nadia,

who the National Theatre said
they couldn't have because of her arm?

Why can't she be in a cherry orchard?
Why can't she be Juliet?

Why are this lot not everywhere?

I'm proud that I work with these people,

and I know Stevie will talk
about her Candoco performers,

she's proud that she works
with them as well.

We work with people
that nobody else wants, it's brilliant.

At the moment, my big "if only" is...

A casting request came through
to Graeae on Thursday.

Steven Spielberg is looking
for a young woman

to play the lead
in the Big Friendly Giant.

We have two young wheelchair users
as part of our youth theatre.

Robyn, she's stocky, she's got glasses,

she’s a wheely, oh, my gosh
she's dangerous!

You really have to watch
your feet when she's around.

She's a glorious young woman.

And then, Evie, not quite as robust,
but she's got that sparkle, she's cheeky.

If only Spielberg would think:

"Yes, yes I can see beyond
the normal sort of casting,

these girls are good,"
and give one of them a role.

In the stadium for the opening ceremony
of the Paralympics

we had Spasticus Autisticus belting out

in front of a 40-foot statue
of Alison Lapper,

Marc Quinn's statue,
Alison Lapper Pregnant.

Limbless, woman, defiant, it was heaven.

67,000 people in that stadium
singing Spasticus Autisticus

and then "I am what I am".

I was in heaven.
We were glorious.

The whole artistic festival that happened
afterwards, the sports itself,

there never has been
such a time to say, "we're good."

And Channel 4 said,
"Thank you for the warm up."

They embraced us for a split second.

How can I be asking
our artistic directors,

our filmmakers, all of those people,
to join me in the revolution of casting,

when Channel 4 then pull
the rug from under us?

They contacted me, they phoned!

I'm deaf, I don't use the phone, hello!

Anyway, so then,
they emailed me, and they said:

"Jenny, what a fantastic show.

You must have met

some wonderful professional
deaf and disabled artists and volunteers.

Please, please,
can you suggest people for..."

- I'm thinking: "Oh my God, here we go,

here is the moment where my art
is going to be really everywhere!" -

"please can you suggest people

for our fantastic new programme,
The Undateables."

Have any of you seen it? It's sick.

It's car-crash television.
It's insulting.

It takes the most vulnerable
deaf and disabled people

and just smacks them in there

to be vilified, to be looked at,
and to be laughed at.

It's disgusting.

There's that,

and this might be the last time
I ever do a speech like this.

I want us to evolve, I want how Graeae
use the aesthetics of access to evolve.

I want it to influence a whole
generation of theatre-makers.

But I might not have a job anymore
because Access to Work,

which is the government fund,

so that I can have Madeline
as my interpreter,

and Jen who's over here,
who's an interpreter and prompter

when I get a bit stuck...

I have my interpreters for rehearsals,
for meetings, for stuff,

the Department
of Work and Pensions pay them.

A lot of my actors also use
the Independent Living Fund,

so that they have PA support

for bath and food, holding
a script, for line feeding.

Brilliant, brilliant resources,

and we could not have done 2012
without those resources.

But suddenly, they're being
cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.

So from the 35 hours a week entitlement,
I'm now told I can have 72 hours a month.

I fought that,
so I've got some of my hours back,

but I got an email this morning

from a young woman who's just left
university, just got her first job.

She was awarded six days a week,
she's been doing that for a year.

She's now just recently moved job.

They've given her six hours a week,
not six hours a day.

She's had to quit her job.

So, tools of a revolution.

Nails: nails to nail
my feet down to the ground.

Gaffer: to tie me up
by the railings.

Onions: I mean,
I never could facilitate tears,

but I have been crying so much
about this whole debacle

around Access to Work
and my fight to keep Graeae

and other disabled companies,
like Candoco, fighting this battle.

I don't have any more tears.

But I will put the rose in my mouth,

I will be defiant.

And Access to Work
will not fight this battle,

you will all join me in this revolution
to ensure that theatre does evolve

because theatre is crucial
for each and every one of us,

because it is about
our mental health and wellbeing,

it's about our emotions and intelligence.

It's about articulating feelings.

And if theatre is taken away from us,
from disabled people -

- it's not going to happen,
so don't worry -

but please do go on 'Stop the Changes'
it's a petition around Access to Work,

please make a noise, and please
join me in twittering and twattering,

and get that bloody awful programme
Undateables cut, gone forevermore.

And on that note,

thank you very much
for listening to me burble, and join me.

(Applause)