Artslandia at the Performance: Portland Playhouse Nov/Dec 2014 | Page 44

GOOD DEEDS

For years, artists with
disabilities were relegated
to the margins and denied
creative opportunities by
discriminatory attitudes,
unfair barriers to access,
and ignorance. Rather than
resign to this exclusion,
they’ve created their own
opportunities. Two Portland
companies featuring disabled
artists, PHAME and Wobbly
Dance, are premiering
projects this summer that
take them in new directions
and illustrate the value
of including artists of all
abilities on Oregon stages.

FROM THE MARGINS
TO THE MAINSTREAM

BY BRETT CAMPBELL.

BEYOND THE ROUTINE
PHAME, an acronym for
Pacific Honored Artists Musicians and Entertainers, is an
academy that creates opportunities for artists with developmental disabilities. After
celebrating its 30th anniversary
last year with its most extensive performance schedule yet,
Executive Director Stephen
Marc Beaudoin sensed the
Academy was ready for more,
“an artistic stretch project
... out of our broader vision
to position the organization
and the artists we serve in the
artistic mainstream.”
Departing from the traditional
American musicals they’d performed previously, PHAME
embraced the most ambitious
project they could imagine:
an original musical which
would involve music, theatre
and dance. They had the ideal
playwright in Debbie Lamedman, a Portland-based former
teaching staff member at
PHAME who’s been commissioned by theatre companies
across the country. “She knows
what it’s like to work with
artists and actors with developmental disabilities,” explains
Beaudoin. She’s even written
integrated stage works (that is,
involving performers with and
without disabilities) before.
PHAME gave Lamedman only
one instruction: be inclusive
by creating characters with a
range of ability and disability.
“Her interest as a playwright
is writing great theatre,” Beaudoin explains. “We haven’t
taken a tokenistic approach.
We didn’t give her a checklist
and say ‘include these disabilities.’ ”
Lamedman’s musical Up the
Fall, which will premiere in
August at Artists Repertory
Theatre, calls for one of the

characters to ride around in a
chariot, which could include
an electric scooter or wheelchair but doesn’t have to. The
chariot is only one artifact
drawn from many different
folk tales and myths from
cultures around the world
that collide in Up the Fall in a
manner somewhat reminiscent
of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the
Woods.
For Up the Fall’s music,
PHAME turned to another
frequent collaborator, Portland
songwriter Laura Gibson,
who’s earned national attention for her delicate story
songs. This will be her first
time writing music for the
theatre. The creative team
also includes PHAME Music
Director Matthew Gailey, who’s
composing incidental music,
along with well-known Portland playwright and drama
teacher Matthew B. Zrebski as
stage director, and PHAME
Artistic Director Jessica Dart
as assistant director and dramaturge.
Since Beaudoin expects Up the
Fall to have a life beyond the
six scheduled performances at
Artists Repertory Theatre, it’s
designed for a wide range of
performers. “We’re writing this
for an integrated cast of people
with and without disabilities,
including some members
of our program and actors
from mainstream theatres in
Portland,” he says. PHAME
also hopes theatre programs in
community colleges and high
schools will pick up the show,
finding ways to integrate people with and without disabilities in their own productions.
Eventually, Beaudoin wants to
see PHAME’s performers get
more opportunities beyond the
organization. “We’re making the case that artists with
disabilities, developmental or
otherwise, have the moxie and
guts and talent to go toe to toe
with any other artists or performers,” he says. “Cultivating
the talent of performers with
disabilities is not an end in
itself. It’s also a way for them

to be out working in the mainstream community onstage,
backstage, in galleries, community choirs, volunteering.
They deserve the same access
to those outlets as any other
artists, and their interests and
ambitions are as diverse as
they are.”

BACK TO NATURE
Wobbly Dance co-founders
Erik Ferguson and Yulia
Arakelyan, both wheelchair-users, also understand
the desire to break out of the
ghetto of “disability arts.”
“We’ve spent a lot of time in
mainstream contemporary
dance, especially contact
dance,” says Ferguson, “and
[we know that] if you’re serious about being a performer or
artist, you need to be practicing many times a week.”
Yet until recently, Portland
harbored few opportunities for
performers with disabilities. “If
we had waited around for the
next disability event or workshop, we wouldn’t be where
we are right now,” says. “In
both the disability and dance
worlds, we’re on the fringes.
We have to make our own
opportunities happen.”
“I’m OK with being a little
marginalized and doing my
work,” Ferguson says. “There
are tons of people more athletic than I am who are making
inroads into the mainstream.
That’s not us. We’re off to the
side, and we embrace that.”
Now in its ninth year, Wobbly’s latest opportunity, like
PHAME’s, represents a leap
into a new arena. Their
as-yet-untitled project premiering in May at Headwaters
Theatre will incorporate film
as well as dance.
“We had just finished a residency where we had done a
performance that was very
durational and strenuous,”
Ferguson remembers. “It
had really heavy costuming,
and stretched the limits of
breathing and certain aspects
of our physicality. After that,