World Premiere of Inside/Out...Voices From The Disability Community at the Kennedy Center

Published June 28, 2008 VSA arts

Seven remarkable individuals...seven remarkable stories. VSA arts has commissioned Ping Chong & Company to create the world premiere of Inside/Out...voices from the disability community, a performance piece about disability in America, from June 27-29 at the Kennedy Center. First-hand experiences from the disability community are explored in this new production as part of Ping Chong & Company's ongoing series of oral-history theater works. Exploring issues of culture and identity in America, powerful personal histories are interwoven into a script that is performed by the participants themselves, giving voice to stories that frequently go unheard.

"VSA arts is committed to changing perceptions about people with disabilities," said Soula Antoniou, president of VSA arts. "Inside/Out is the latest in a series of a new body of work that VSA arts has commissioned in the visual and performing arts. This production sheds light on the disability experience and shatters stereotypes."

Participants ranging in age from 23-65 were selected for their personal experience with disability:

-- Josh Hecht is a rising New York director whose mother had multiple sclerosis.

-- Monique Holt, performing artist, is an adjunct theater professor at Gallaudet University.

-- Christopher Imbrosciano is a young actor with cerebral palsy who apprenticed at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

-- Zazel-Chavah O'Garra is a dancer (Alvin Ailey), cover model (Essence), and disability advocate who is a brain tumor survivor.

-- Vivian Cary Jenkins is a former healthcare administrator who became legally blind later in life.

-- Matthew S. Joffe is an actor as well as director of the Office for Students with Disabilities at a New York community college. He was born with Moebius Syndrome

-- Blair Wing has her MFA in acting from Ohio State University. She was paralyzed in a car accident at the age of 18.

VSA arts works with cultural institutions and arts organizations to initiate programs and new works. Commissioned, funded, and produced by VSA arts, Inside/Out is the latest in a series of inclusive, accessible, and high-profile performing arts commissions by VSA arts. Recent commissions include Nobody's Perfect, a joint world premiere with the Kennedy Center (October-November 2007), and The Farthest Earth from Thee by Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (June 2007).

Ping Chong is recognized as one of the country's most significant theater artists, having created more than fifty multidisciplinary works for the stage, including Humboldt's Current (Obie Award, 1977), A.M./A.M. - The Articulated Man (Villager Award, 1982), Nosferatu (Maharam Design Award, 1985), Kind Ness (USA Playwrights' Award, 1988), and Brightness (two 1990 Bessie Awards). He is a 2008 recipient of the Urban Artist Initiative/NYC Fellowship for artists of color. In 2006, he was awarded a USA Artist Fellowship in recognition of his contribution to American arts and culture, and in 2000 he received an OBIE Award for Sustained Achievement.

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