On Monday May 11, The Viscardi Center threw itself a glittering, star-studded 60th birthday gala, titled “The Night of Champions.” Literally entered on a red carpet, Viscardi’s public spaces were transformed into a gathering hall for a cocktail hour that featured extraordinarily crafted miniature hors d’oeuvres, including cheese puffs and tiny beef Wellingtons, prepared by Viscardi’s students. Reserved table seating for the dinner hour followed, in a gymnasium-turned-banquet hall that boasted full theatrical apparatus—a high stage with good sight lines, spotlights and pro sound.
After a rousing welcome by the chair of Viscardi’s Board of Directors, Roy Danis, the evening leaped to an entirely new level as Jenna Bainbridge took the stage. One of the night’s two guests of honor, Bainbridge is an actor, singer and disability rights advocate, currently appearing in Wicked on Broadway—the first time the Broadway production has actually had a disabled actor play the role of the wheelchair-using Nessarose. Sharing the spotlight with several Viscardi students, Bainbridge unveiled the silvery beauty of her singing voice. But it was little more than a teaser for what would happen later on.
Next, sandwiched between prerecorded spots highlighting an alum and a student, Viscardi’s President and CEO Chris Rosa came to the stage. Resplendent in a black tux, Chris acquitted himself well as an entertainer, combining solid comic timing with bravery enough to unspool a few Dad jokes, including a bit about “champignons” (French for mushrooms). Then he segued into a salute to his mom, who was in the audience—a nice touch for the day after Mother’s Day. Chris concluded by reminding the audience that they were there for a serious purpose, even amid the festivities: “To be a champion is to fight for something you believe in, to fight for people you believe in. Because of your belief in us, because of your advocacy, because of your leadership, you make access, opportunity and inclusion possible for all of us, and for that we love you, and we thank you.”
After Chris came Kim Hill Ridley, New York State’s first chief disability officer. She presented a citation from Gov Kathy Hochul and congratulated Viscardi for successfully re-launching the Museum of Disability History, and for opening the Kornreich Institute for Disability Studies (KIDS), the nation’s first disability studies center for youngsters, kindergarten through 12th grade. Ridley then announced a proposal to dramatically raise the Medicaid buy-in income limit for working New Yorkers with disabilities (subject to federal approval), which absolutely brought the house down.
Ridley departed the stage on this uplifting note: “having the opportunity to work with the incredible talent of Jenna Bainbridge, being able to not only show how important the arts are within the disability community, but to prove to every person with a disability that the sky is the limit. You want to perform on Broadway? You can do it. Jenna is showing everybody.”
The “Night of Champions” honoree was SJS Construction, the firm that performed the construction work for the Museum and the Kornreich Institute. The company’s President Dennis Burkan accepted the honors, which included an original artwork created by students at Viscardi.
Next came a remarkably informative and in-depth interview segment with Ms. Bainbridge. Skillfully conducted by two Viscardi alums, Josie Ramnanan and Jessica Dalonzo, they elicited some fascinating war stories from Bainbridge’s pioneering career as a wheelchair-using musical theater performer: “this has been a constant in my career–I have found out that some show was happening, and decided I wanted to audition, and forced open doors to make sure that I can be in the room. . . I have never found that being just placed in front of [casting] people has worked very well for me. I want to go in and tell them why I’m right person for the part, and when I explain to them here’s why this part should be played by a disabled person, and here’s why it should be played by me specifically, they’re more open to it. That has been the hallmark of my career.”
It was just this strategy that got Bainbridge into the Broadway production of the musical Suffs (a filmed performance of which is currently streaming on YouTube and PBS), and of course, into Wicked, of which Bainbridge said “it was the fastest audition I’ve ever had. I was in there for less than five minutes . . . But then I didn’t hear anything for months.”
Next, Ramnanan and Dalonzo pivoted to Bainbridge’s theater accessibility consulting firm, ConsultAbility and, from there to her involvement in an upcoming musical about the Section 504 regs sit-ins of 1977. That was probably the greatest direct action in the history of the disability rights movement—a nationwide series of sit-ins at federal offices, including a takeover in San Francisco that went on for close to a month. The play, entitled 504 The Musical, will make its world debut this coming August, at the Phamaly Theatre Company in Denver, a unique disability theater company where Bainbridge began her career. As she put it, 504 The Musical is “by disabled people, for disabled people, performed with a disabled company. It’s a beautiful show.”
As someone who knew many of the leaders of the 1977 sit-ins, I have to confess that I was absolutely blown away by this news. I became even more overwhelmed when Bainbridge and her accompanist performed one of the songs from the show, “How Rights Are Won,” about how to best lead the movement. For me, this was the high point of the entire night.
I caught up with Bainbridge afterwards, and asked about her place in the history of disability and performance: “I think about this a lot. With Suffs in particular, it was the first time a wheelchair user originated a role in a new musical. I thought about that the whole time, that if this show stays open, it means there was a track built for a disabled person. And that was the first time we really had that. Every time we’d had wheelchair users onstage before, like Cost of Living or Oklahoma, it was a limited run. And Suffs was open ended. We ended up closing after ten months, but the possibility was there. And now we’re seeing that it’s in schools now, and there’s disabled students in it, and it’s streaming on YouTube and PBS, for free. If we can set a precedent that people with disabilities are part of the story, then automatically future productions will have to think about that and have to consider it.”
Next up after Bainbridge was an auction which featured some intriguing items, including a seven-day Caribbean vacation. The auctioneer was incredibly effective—she even persuaded me to open my wallet and make a donation!
The evening’s final segment was a performance by the event’s second guest of honor, the stand-up comic Josh Blue. A renowned comedian and the winner of the fourth season of Last Comic Standing, Blue has cerebral palsy. Like Bainbridge he is a pioneer, a performer with a disability who appears in nondisabled productions for nondisabled audiences.
I asked Blue about his role in our history, and he told me that “I feel like my show is one more step in all our efforts getting the community to be recognized as human beings and not just something to pity or feel bad for. . . People don’t always want to hear a sad or hard message but if they are laughing, I think that people tend to take that in more and are better able to hear the message.”
I have not seen him work a nondisabled audience, but at the Night of Champions, performing to a disability audience, Blue absolutely killed—beginning with the very first line, when he pointed to Chris Rosa and said “I’ve never performed with Professor Xavier before.” Following up with joke after joke told at his own expense, Blue gave the audience a chance to laugh at themselves through him, unconcerned, at least for the moment, with the prejudices of the nondisabled. To cheers, whistles and table-pounding, Blue delivered gems.
“People ask me if I get nervous before performing. I’m like heck no, I get this many people staring at me all day.”
“I used to think I had a way with animals. And then I realized, I just make a lotta crumbs. Packs of random-ass dogs following me around, hoping I’ll break into a muffin or something.”
“I’m not supposed to swear here, and I’m doing my best. If swearing offends you, I encourage you to think of it this way: I have very well-timed Tourette’s.”
“The other day I was at a restaurant with a bunch of friends. And the server went around and took everybody’s order. When they got to me, they’re like ‘and what will HE have?’ My buddy was like ‘I’m guessing a talk with your manager.’”
May we all have such friends.
For more of Warren Shaw’s work in disability history, please go to www.DisabilityHistoryNYC.com