Sunday April 15th, 2012
7:00 pm ~ 9:30 p.m
2433 North Lincoln Avenue
Box office: 773.871.3000 (TTY 773.871.0682)
Victorygardens.org
Tickets only $5
One provocative play. One passionate panel.
At the April 15th Crip Slam, a reading of Rachel Axler’s very dark
comedy Smudge becomes the catalyst for a high powered panel of experts
on disability who’ll wrangle with ethics, emotions and activism, not
to mention cultural appropriation ( a current theme in our Mainstage
production of with We Are Proud to Present A Presentation….)
A former writer for “The Daily Show” who now works on “Parks and
Recreation”, Axler has “a comic’s gift for language that is precise
and imaginative” (NY Times). In Smudge, she has used that comic gift
to tap into a primal fear of giving birth to a “monster”…a “smudge.”
One of the central ideas of the play is that not every parent falls in
love with his/her child on first sight, but for parents Colby and
Nick, the words they have to describe their new offspring are “nub”,
“this”, “jellyfish”.
In a 2010 interview, Axler says she was inspired to write Smudge by
reading an article by the disability activist Harriet McBryde Johnson.
Axler herself is not disabled.
VG has invited Chicago’s leading experts to explore the issues of the
play. Karen Tamley, Commissioner for the Mayor’s Office for People
with Disabilities, and Gary Arnold, President of the Little People of
America, and others will join Access Project Co-Director Mike Ervin,
who will pose some provocative questions: Who has the right to tell
this story? What defines personhood and a viable life?
Will our panel of experts agree?
Sign Language interpretation for discussion and cationing will be
provided and the theater is totally accessible!
--
Sandie Yi
Graduate Assistant
Bodies of Work: A Network of Disability Arts and Culture
http://www.
Ph D Student, Disability Studies and Human Development
University of Illinois at Chicago
E-mail: cyi9@uic.edu
Personal Artist's Website: http://cripcouture.org
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