Moving voices bodies borders in Tampa Bay
A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet up with Andrea Assaf and Dora Arreola of Art2Action and University of South Florida's School of Theater and Dance , respectively. They form a team that develops community-engaged theater in Tampa and internationally, with a focus on LGBTQ stories, veterans, and immigrant women. I found out about their work when a friend sent me a link to this trailer of a play about disability and queerness that they had produced. Samuel Valdez (right) is actually disabled, he is not an actor playing someone with something like cerebral palsy. I was immediately impressed by this, because so often, disabled characters are played by able-bodied actors. Beyond that, it was obvious that the play had been staged with deep attention to Valdez' natural "atypical" movements, giving the dialogue and the stage action an authenticity and freshness I seldom see when it comes to disability in the theater. So, I was totally thrilled when ...
