Description
Early years in Missouri and Texas; contracting polio at age three; receiving master's degree in literature from Columbia University; leaving teaching to pursue acting; rejection from Neighborhood Playhouse due to disability; moving to Portland, Oregon; joining the Family Circus Theater; moving to San Francisco, 1978; working on The Independent at the Center for Independent Living, Berkeley (CIL); joining Lilith Woman's Theatre; influence of Judy Heumann; CIL as consumer model system; developing first performance piece about disability; teaching theater to women with disabilities; writing No More Stares; moving to Los Angeles, 1980; Virginia Rubin as role model; developing work at Mark Taper Forum; power of disabled-only environments; Other Voices theater workshop; PhD in theater from University of California, Los Angeles; training in the arts for young people with disabilities; California Arts Council grant; Tell Them I'm a Mermaid; depictions of disabled people in theater, fighting stereotypes; accessibility issues in theater; casting and training issues for actors with disabilities in film and TV; Chautauquas: bringing together artists with disabilities. Supplementary material includes photographs, clippings, articles by Lewis, etc.
Family background; role of music and poetry; disabled children and the role of physical touch; acknowledging and surviving childhood sexual abuse; experiences in school; onset of rheumatoid arthritis at age ten; attitudes of medical establishment; mother's denial of disability; parents' alcoholism; returning to College of Marin, 1974, impact of more accessible campus; complexity of the disability experience; University of California, Berkeley's Physically Disabled Students' Program; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, Judy Heumann; motorized wheelchair; becoming an activist; attending UC Berkeley; impressions of Berkeley's disability rights activists; decision to leave psychology program; joining Wry Crips, disabled women's theater group, 1985; Wry Crips goals: inclusion, education, empowerment; decision to leave Wry Crips, 1989; inception of Axis Dance Company; Axis' international recognition; working with Brava! For Women in the Arts; receiving National Endowment for the Arts Solo Theater Artist Fellowship; choosing to write about disability; the Corporation on Disabilities and Telecommunications (CDT); Professional Enrichment Project; creative process as writer; role of art in disability rights; mainstream media and disability; Ed Roberts.
Family background; role of music and poetry; disabled children and the role of physical touch; acknowledging and surviving childhood sexual abuse; experiences in school; onset of rheumatoid arthritis at age ten; attitudes of medical establishment; mother's denial of disability; parents' alcoholism; returning to College of Marin, 1974, impact of more accessible campus; complexity of the disability experience; University of California, Berkeley's Physically Disabled Students' Program; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, Judy Heumann; motorized wheelchair; becoming an activist; attending UC Berkeley; impressions of Berkeley's disability rights activists; decision to leave psychology program; joining Wry Crips, disabled women's theater group, 1985; Wry Crips goals: inclusion, education, empowerment; decision to leave Wry Crips, 1989; inception of Axis Dance Company; Axis' international recognition; working with Brava! For Women in the Arts; receiving National Endowment for the Arts Solo Theater Artist Fellowship; choosing to write about disability; the Corporation on Disabilities and Telecommunications (CDT); Professional Enrichment Project; creative process as writer; role of art in disability rights; mainstream media and disability; Ed Roberts.