University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020- 2020 Playing Disability Daniel Romano University of Central Florida Part of the Acting Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd2020 University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020- by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. STARS Citation Romano, Daniel, "Playing Disability" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-. 124. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd2020/124 PLAYING DISABILITY by DANIEL ROMANO BFA New York University, 2016 AA Delaware County Community College, 2013 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts of Theatre in the Department of Theatre in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2020 Major Professor: Cynthia White ©2020 Daniel Romano ii ABSTRACT Disability in performance has a long history, starting with fictional characters such as Shakespeare’s Gloucester/Richard, progressing through the freak shows of the early twentieth century, and finally with artists such as Neil Marcus, Mat Fraser and Deaf West Theatre in the past twenty years. Looking to the work of disabled artists, activists, and theorists such as Petra Kuppers and Carrie Sandahl, I will examine the history of both disability in performance and the performance of disability. I will discuss my performance of Garret, a man with muscular dystrophy, in my original play, The Sick Parents Club.