Beyond Victims and Villains: Contemporary Plays by Disabled Playwrights

In the 21st century, the disability experience offers new perspectives on issues that promise to dominate the collective (un)consciousness: diversity vs. unity; difference vs. normalcy; rugged individualism vs. it-takes-a-village political ideologies; right-to-die; healthcare as a for-profit industry; care-giving within families and across the boundaries of gender, race and class.

This anthology offers insights into the ongoing dialogue in our theatres about diversity, multiculturalism and universality, and the debates in our civic life about interdependence vs. independence. But in the end, I offer this anthology as a collection of irreverent, comic, terrifying and beautiful plays. -Victoria Ann Lewis

This anthology, the first of its kind, explores how disabled artists depict the world they inhabit with their disabilities.

Includes:

P.H. *reaks: a collaborative project developed by Doris Baizley and Victoria Ann Lewis (Los Angeles, CA) Gretty Good Time by John Belluso (Los Angeles, CA) The History of Bowling by Mike Ervin (Chicago, IL) Creeps by David Freeman (Canada) Shoot by Lynn Manning (Los Angeles, CA) A Summer Evening in Des Moines by Charles Mee, Jr. (New York, NY) No One as Nasty by Susan Nussbaum (Chicago, IL)

Victoria Ann Lewis is the founder and past director of the Mark Taper Forum’s Other Voices Project. Emerging from the disability civil rights movement, the Other Voices Project is the only professional playwriting program for writers with disabilities in the regional theatre.