Once Upon A Time...
There Were 2

Apart from the occasional rude stares, though, people are generally very nice to me. I especially like meeting kids and explaining my short stature to them. I figure if they are taught early, they will be more accepting of others as adults.

Laurie and I have been friends for about ten years. What has held our friendship together is our mutual love of art -- and it just so happens that we are both little people. We met through Little People of America (LPA), a national organization for people of short stature. I had always been resistant to meeting other "little people" -- I didn't even know the term. I had this idea that "they" were all complainers (or circus performers) who sat around and felt sorry for themselves. I was an advertising copywriter, playwright, actor, and director, and thought I had it all together. It wasn't until I actually became friends with other little people that I realized I had been thinking that underneath it all, I was a complainer, and was actually feeling sorry for myself. After I took a good look at that, my creativity blossomed.

My family has been very supportive of me throughout the years. I had several surgeries as a child and spent a lot of time in casts. My parents carried me around a lot, and I'm told my brother Wally was carryng me when he was five years old. Both of my brothers are of average stature and considered it their duty to protect me and fight for me if necessary. I never detected any animosity or jealousy towards me; if anything, I was jealous of them because I longed to play baseball, ride a bicycle (without training wheels), and just plain run around! My parents mostly treated me as if nothing was different; they didn't allow me to cry or feel sorry for myself. (The simple fact, though, is that I did have a lot to cry about. It all came out in my twenties after a personal crisis, but I dealt with it, and I'm now able to handle my life with all its ups and downs much better.)

In talking to other little people my age, I've learned that most families were like mine. You have the occasional family that was overprotective or very unaccepting, but those are the exceptions.

Little People of America is an excellent support and social group for little people of all ages. We meet on the local level once a month, the regional level twice a year, and on the national level once a year. I personally feel that the organization leans too heavily on the social aspects of meeting. The national conventions become desperate attempts to find a mate, and I would like to see the emphasis shift to being a true support group. I am running for district director this fall and hope to encourage this change of direction at least in the Chicago area.

I have been doing theatre since I was about four years old, when I made my parents throw a blanket over the swingset as a curtain and I cast my brothers and the neighborhood kids in various roles (of course giving myself the lead). As theatre people everywhere know, if you have the gift for theatre you find a way to do it -- whether you're disabled or not, just like you find your own way to tie your shoes.

I consider myself a writer first, then an actor and director. I end up writing and performing my own material, since the writing generally moves me first. I haven't faced a lot of rejection in the theatre community as an actor because I haven't put myself on the line in that way too often. Yet I have done some very satisfying roles as a performer -- always starting with directors who have the vision to see me first as an actor, then as a little person.

I have been in two plays at The Blue Rider Theatre, Passing On and more recently, Twisted Richard. In Passing On I played a grandmother who flew her own small plane in the '30s. (She just happened to be a little person). Twisted Richard was a slightly different situation. The director wanted to contrast my character's acceptance of her disability with the destructive behavior of Richard III as a result of his disability. I created my character through improvisation; she turned out to be Richard's niece, who grew up in the midst of that dysfunctional family. Not only was she physically handicapped, but felt very emotionally handicapped as well. They say that art imitates life, and this was no exception. As the character grew, I grew with her, seeing how my emotional handicaps kept me at an arm's distance from people - not my physical disability.

On stage, I feel that my disability works for me in a way - being so different looking, people really take notice. And then, if the character I'm playing has something very powerful to say, and I am able to put my soul into conveying it, I think people really get it. I also think that when people see a person with a disability putting herself out in the public eye with pride, it makes them automatically look at how they limit themselves - and maybe some are inspired to do more.

On the flip side, I think my disability works against me as a performer in that I'm most likely not going to be cast in the female romantic lead, and I'm sure there are some directors who wouldn't even have cast me in the roles I have successfully played. I'm limited in my ability to move on stage, so my character needs to be staged accordingly. As little people, we also battle against the circus performer stereotype. Even today, most of the acting roles for little people in professional theatre and film are elves, dancing bunnies, Disney characters, Super Mario Brothers, or roles that blatantly make fun of the actor's short stature.

Personally, I do a lot of comedy -- I think I'm a funny person inside -- but I'm careful not to do comedy that hinges on my height. I think that gets old fast. I try not to judge the little people actors who accept those roles though, because this is what they do to make a living. But there has to be a point when we start to respect ourselves as a group. Maybe that starts with accepting oneself as a person. We need to keep going out there for conventional roles until people start to see us for who we are: everyday people who go to work, drive cars and have kids -- not just someone in a Mickey Mouse costume. I'd like to be that example, especially for the young people who aren't jaded yet and who love theatre in its purest form.

As a director, I've found that when actors initially come into auditions, they're a little taken back that I am so small. But once we get going, I feel I gain their trust and respect by being competent at my craft. If directors are unsure of themselves, it's hard to hold a cast's attention (no matter how tall they are). If you speak with authority, people are going to listen. I make a living as a freelance advertising copywriter, but for years I worked for corporations managing creative people, mostly writers. I feel that that experience is invaluable to me in the theatre, especially as a director. The bottom line is you have to get the job done, and if you can it with joy, you've succeeded twice.

To sum up, I have found that the times I've felt discouraged have been because I'm limiting myself in some way. Last year, for instance, I was in a very beautiful play called The Sleepwalker's Ballad, an adaptation of a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca, and for the first time on stage I played the ingenue. She was supposed to be very beautiful, romantic, hopeful -- and young. I was in extreme pain over the role because I sometimes have a hard time feeling beautiful, romantic, hopeful, and especially young. The director cast me in the role; she didn't limit me. It was me who couldn't get at the beauty inside myself.

Disabled or not, I think that's a part of the human condition. We all struggle to set our souls free, and it hurts -- it's scary to show who we really are. But it's when we do that that art transcends any disability!