Wheels up: Denver actor about to make Broadway history | John Moore

Even if Denver actor Regan Linton never appears onstage as an understudy for the upcoming Broadway play “Cost of Living,” she’s about to make history. Not only when she enters the official archives as just the fourth wheelchair-using actor – ever – to be cast in a Broadway production. But also, and even more meaningful to her, every day starting Tuesday when she arrives for her first rehearsal at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre and is greeted by an open door. As a welcome and valued member of the creative team that is preparing Martyna Majok’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play for its first public performance on Sept. 13.

Because every time a person with a disability is in the room where it happens, said Linton, former Artistic Director of Denver’s acclaimed disability-affirmative Phamaly Theatre Company, it’s a victory for disabled artists everywhere.

“When I think of the hundreds of people from Phamaly and the thousands of people with disabilities who have dreams like mine, and that I am going to be rolling into that theater every day,” she said before trailing off. “… Well, if that’s the peak of my Broadway experience, I will be plenty happy.”

Linton, who was paralyzed with a T-4 spine injury in a violent, rainy highway collision 20 years ago, brings much more to the rehearsal room than her considerable acting experience, which earlier this year put her in Craig Lucas’ world-premiere play “Change Agent” for the prestigious Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. She’s also a director of both stage and film – her award-winning documentary “Imperfect” is making the rounds at film festivals around the world. She’s also a facilitator and educator whose passion is affecting social change through storytelling.

“I do all I can, onstage and in life and beyond, to upend stale narratives about disability,” she said.

Just last week, Linton was nominated for a national “Strong Wheeled Together Award” by the National Spinal Association. That would add to a bevy of previous honors including the Colorado Rockies’ 2010 Hal O’Leary Inspiration Award, the 2017 Spirit of Craig Hospital Award and the 2017 Colorado Theater Person of the Year Award – that last one for swooping in and saving Phamaly from an existential financial crisis.

When she reports for Broadway duty on Tuesday, she will be bringing a wealth of practical, earned knowledge and experience that will contribute to essential conversations about how a non-disabled theater company like the Manhattan Theatre Club can work with, accommodate and learn from artists with disabilities, now and into the future.

And she won’t be alone in this history-making venture. The primary cast of four is led by Gregg Mozgala, who has cerebral palsy, and double amputee Katy Sullivan, both making their Broadway debuts. They are joined by non-disabled veterans Kara Young and David Zayas.

“Cost of Living” centers on two storylines involving four wounded characters – two of whom happen to have visible disabilities. One is the relationship between a wealthy graduate student with cerebral palsy (John) who is building an uneasy trust with his newest caretaker (Jess). The other involves a truck driver (Eddie) struggling to reconnect with his estranged wife (Ani) after she is paralyzed in a car crash. What makes “Cost of Living” even more remarkable than its groundbreaking ensemble, casting director Kelly Gillespie said, is the fact that the story isn’t even about disability. Not really.

“This is not a play about people with disabilities and their caretakers,” she said. “It is really about how all people need to care for each other.” And, in many ways, it’s the two lost, non-disabled characters who, in the end, are most in need of care.

Linton first played Ani, the accident victim, when the developing script was being workshopped by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2016. Since then, Sullivan has played the role in four productions around the country, and Linton was set to play it at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Md., when that production was shuttered by the pandemic. The Broadway staging brings the two Anis together for the first time, with Linton standing by in case Sullivan ever misses a performance.

“We’ve known about Regan since she finished grad school (in 2013),” Gillespie said. “We are so lucky to have an actor of her caliber for this, and I’m just thrilled that she was willing to go on this ride with us.”

For Linton, the ride really started back in 2005 at Denver’s Phamaly Theatre Company, which has been creating performance opportunities for actors with disabilities for 33 years. She cut her teeth in milestone Phamaly productions like “Side Show,” playing one half of conjoined twins; and “The Man of La Mancha,” which included an unforgettable moment when Linton, having been beaten and tossed as Aldonza, had to crawl the length of the stage on her elbows to get back into her wheelchair.

“There is no way I would be where I am without Phamaly,” she said. “Phamaly was really the company and the community that gave me license and confidence – and taught me to be a performer again – after my accident. There is some element of self-determination in all of that, but had I not rolled into Phamaly and been taken under so many sets of protective wings, none of this is happening.”

When I first interviewed Linton in the hours before the opening performance of her first Phamaly musical – ”Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” in 2005 – I asked her what her end game was, and she didn’t hesitate to respond: “I want to be the first wheelchair actor on Broadway,” she said. She couldn’t have known yet that Broadway would be 17 years away, and she hadn't learned yet that Broadway shouldn’t even necessarily be the goal. It's certainly not where the most progress is being made.

“For better or worse, Broadway is considered by many to be the center of the theater universe, and yes, it is pretty unfair that the center of the theater universe has not regularly included actors with disabilities,” she said. “I have seen great progress all over the country, but because Broadway is considered the standard, that does make this a unique achievement.”

Ali Stroker, who would go on to win a 2019 Tony Award for playing Ado Annie in “Oklahoma,” became Broadway's first wheelchair-user in 2015 when she played Anna in “Spring Awakening.” Two years later, Madison Ferris became the first to play a leading role when she played Laura in “The Glass Menagerie.” Michael Patrick Thornton, who became disabled from two strokes in 2003, played Lennox in "Macbeth" earlier this year.

Gillespie believes the number of disabled actors in “Cost of Living” probably equals the number of all disabled actors who were cast in the entire 2021-22 Broadway season combined. It’s egregious, she concurs, but she believes change is happening. “This has been a really long time coming,” she said, “but it’s really starting to feel like this is a moment where something important has come to fruition.”

“Cost of Living” officially opens Oct. 3 and has no set ending date. But unlike musicals that can run for years, most Broadway plays open and close within a few months. So Linton knows it’s unlikely she will ever be called upon to perform, and she’s OK with that because her daily presence will make an impact – by necessity.

Many of New York’s Broadway theaters are a century old, including the building where “Cost of Living” will be performed. Opened as the Biltmore Theatre in 1925, it has limited accommodation for wheelchair actors, so the presenting company is literally building Linton her own dressing room just behind the stage itself.

“That’s an issue that exists industry-wide, from Broadway and beyond,” Linton said. “There are theaters all over this country that cannot accommodate an actor who uses a wheelchair.” So when an actor like Linton is added to a cast, it creates what she calls “a breakthrough opportunity” for the company to come up with permanent and ongoing solutions.

“There tends to be a tokenism of artists with disabilities,” she said. “People think there will only ever be one. But just look at it in terms of numbers. Studies show that 1 in 5 of us identify as having some kind of a visible or invisible disability. So in an equitable world, 1 in every 5 people in a Broadway show should have some sort of a disability – and let’s be honest, we have never seen that. Hopefully shows like ‘Cost of Living’ will start to push other Broadway houses to change their own structures so they can accommodate more artists with disabilities, too.”

Linton has performed on professional stages all over the country, and what she hears a lot when it comes to accommodating actors with disabilities is this: “We’re just not ready.” Her response: You are never going to be ready until you make yourself ready.

“The old saying is, ‘If you build it, they will come,’” said Linton, who has a new saying:

“Build it … because they are coming.’”