Ride The Cyclone: A Final Bow

There are things that are preserved as invisible history

because I've had to keep them close, for reasons out of my control.

There are things that are preserved as invisible history

because I want to give the benefit of the doubt.

There are things that are preserved as invisible history

because of my embarrassment of them.

There are things that are preserved as invisible history

simply out of courtesy.

There are things that are preserved as invisible history

from the hope that people will learn and grow.

And then there are things that happen,

that offer me a new opportunity to pull back the curtain.

So...I pull.

I never got a final curtain call as Ricky Potts. It's felt like a peculiar purgatory since I left the McCarter that day. Like a song that ends on an unresolved chord, a show that never ended. Like that exact audience is still in their seats watching us as the stars fill the room in the finale before we explode into song for one last time. It didn't feel like there was ever going to be a way to get that closure, but the outpour of support that I woke up to has given me the courage to try to find it. This has become my chance to walk back on stage, and finish the show. To celebrate the triumph that was embodying the most imaginative boy in town, and what he has become to the hearts of many. Today, I imagine myself getting back up there one last time, rolling off the stage towards the house...and flying above it all into space, where I can leave this behind and make more room for my continued work toward dismantling the larger-picture systemic issues that experiences like mine stem from. I leave the torch here on earth, for you. Ricky lives on with it in an undying flame of love, laughter, and beauty. Because of you. Thank you.

___________________________

I remember when I decided to start #saverickypotts.

Everything about doing the show happened to me in the spring of 2022, ending on the 25th of May. The last time I had gotten a text from the Stage Manager Kelly Schwartz was the night of the 25th. The last time I saw her was during the infamous zoom call on the 26th that Sarah Rasmussen wasn't present for (for whatever reason).

Screenshot of text from Kelly Schwartz [Alt embedded]

Screenshot of texts from Gina Pisasale [Alt embedded]

Three days after I had left Princeton I got an email from Sarah, which I found to be curious since she wasn't in the zoom call and I didn't work for her anymore... I remember her telling me one day at rehearsal she wanted to be "old people friends" with me (that I would be around in her life from then on). Yet she wasn't in the call, and is instead reaching out via email the day of the closing performance, 30 minutes before the final show started without me. I was in my flat, feeling completely physically fine. The last time I purged blood was backstage on the 25th. The second I came out of the bathroom I felt completely back to normal and ready to finish the week, yet I was told the next day (by DEI of all people) that my body was "too physically inconsistent for the physical requirements of theatre...not just this theatre but the industry in general" and "what were we supposed to do...ignore the actors' concerns?" She said that to me while ignoring my, an actor's, concerns. Sarah let that happen, and then proceeded to not say anything until this email days later, where she said:

Sarah Rasmussen's last message to yannick-robin [Alt embedded]

...I really love your movement work...here for you if I can ever be...a friend.

It gave me a thought that I find funny now but at the time, I felt dehumanized: I don't feel like that's any different than if a Director was putting up The Color Purple and said 'I really love your pigment' to actors they cast for it on their way out. This was the moment I began to realize how much of a mistake it was to believe her when she called me a friend.

I don't respond, and I sit on whether I ever should. I need time, so I take it.

The Office, corporate picture meme RTC Edition [Alt embedded]

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It was sometime in late summer/fall 2022 that I caught wind of it: my reason. A casting call for the Arena run of Ride The Cyclone (**referenced with permission from Actors Access/Breakdown Services Ltd. in accordance with the access permissions Copyright.**), "*Specifically seeking actors with disabilities*" to play Ricky Potts with the same inaccessible set and the same creative team. The same people who had put me through the wringer only to tell me this production was not suitable or safe for someone with my disabilities (and told me they weren't going to make any changes to the stage when they brought it to Arena) were now seeking someone else with those same or similar physical and mental disabilities again.

McCarter disputes that they knew of my disabilities when they asked me to audition, even though both the McCarter and Arena casting calls specifically mention disabilities in the character descriptions of Ricky, and even though the production member who brought this opportunity to me knew me a year and a half before the show while they were working at the McCarter and knew I had a wheelchair and cane, to the point where they knew how to make Jasper fit in their car. That very person would go on to tell me and other people that Ricky Potts wasn't disabled despite him being described as 'speechless' and 'mostly immobile' due to a 'degenerative disease' in the character description they invited me in to read for (as well as him having been portrayed by most actors before me with fake mobility aids that they threw off stage when they died). This cognitive dissonance from able-bodied producers defines every production of RTC, and it came to a head at McCarter, where the character of Ricky (and by extension, the actor) is disabled when it suits the creative team but not disabled when it doesn't.

The whole reason why I ever spoke up to production during the show in the first place was to ensure that myself and ESPECIALLY future disabled actors were safe since the show team was new to having a disabled Ricky actor (and working with disabled folks in general for some reason...), and so that the theatre + co itself would gain an understanding of the importance of maintaining accessibility and safety, rather than manifesting a shoddy attempt at it last minute. So that the cycle would disappear, not so it would start over in a different place with a new disabled performer and the same team and set and show...

Actors Access Casting Call **referenced with permission from Actors Access/Breakdown Services Ltd.** [Alt embedded]

My audition invitation (that did not include a call for disabled actors) [Alt Embedded]

At this point, I don't know if anyone else knows. I tried to warn the President of Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. since it's the next place the show is going and they are producing it...and this is how that goes [see PDF below for full conversation]:

Gmail - ATTN_ Ethical violations in upcoming production of Ride the Cyclone

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Download PDF • 294KB

[Arena's President, Edgar Dobie:] ...Let me begin by saying you need not endure any fear in raising your concerns with me. My older brother Donald had severe cerebral palsy and my parents and our four brothers were his first advocates joined soon by an entire village. Many doctors predicted a life that would not extend beyond 12 years. With a will made of true grit and resilience, Don lived well into his 50s and passed of a broken heart after our Dad died suddenly. As an older brother he taught me many lessons I carry with me today...I offer these personal reflections first to hopefully convince you I take your concerns so passionately expressed with the seriousness they deserve...Although I will not speak to the specifics of your account of your experience at McCarter, I hope you can appreciate I did take time to confer with Sarah and Gina. They have been generous with their time and continue to be ultimately grateful for your time together in collaboration, learning, growth, and inclusive artmaking when at its best. They still value their relationship with you and have hopes that it can be mutual someday.

From my perspective, the constant invitations for collaboration and resources provided by Sarah, Gina, and their creative and administrative teams were extraordinary. Those sensitivities described to me new lessons that model policies and behaviors we can all learn from....In your role as an advocate for disabled actors let me give you the following assurance: You reference flaws in the script. I can confirm that none of the lines you cited as problematic are in the production anymore. The collaboration you were offered with the creative team led by Sarah and the authors was appreciated and resulted in these permanent adjustments in the script. You reference flaws in the production. Accommodations were created and tailored with your mobility needs in mind with the physical production and choreography. I can assure you that the same sensitivities will be accommodated in the rehearsal process with returning and new cast members, as new accommodations may need to be considered. This also has always been our practice at Arena Stage. With all my lived and professional experience, I am confident to report that such a workplan will be made for Arena’s production of Ride the Cyclone. We will continue with that confidence...

Because I knew the casting notice said what it said, and the stage was how it was... Because I felt these safety concerns were never addressed adequately by Arena when I presented them... Because I wasn't convinced the team understood their room for improvement as both employers of all types of people and art collaborators on pieces that involve diversity and accessibility after our experiences... Because I felt there was nothing else I could do... a movement was born.

I did everything I could to get the future to change for the better.

___________________________

I got support from Emily Rohm on Twitter. I got emailed by Scott Redmond with a message titled 'Ricky to Ricky'. I got bad-mouthed by Kholby Wardell seemingly everywhere, without ever hearing from or knowing him. The only cast members of any production that I have heard from about #saverickypotts both at that time and to this day are Emily Rohm and Scott Redmond. It meant a lot to know that there were people before me that also felt some type of way about Ricky and that there was support behind my opening up about it. Scott ghosted me after offering to set up a way for me to speak to the writers of the show for the first time. Not even an 'I'm sorry I don't think it can happen' email.

Scott Redmond emailing yannick-robin eike in fall 2022 [alt embedded]

The movement keeps moving, until it eventually begins to rust and decay. Ricky's role is changed in the script to have an invisible disability, rather than a physical one. I lose hope in the chance for an ethically written Ricky Potts or a safe Ricky actor.

___________________________

Time passes in the form of years, and it's now 2024. I get reached out to about a documentary being made surrounding the history of RTC. I meet with the documentarian, Brendon Henderson and am interviewed for the piece. Time goes on. I keep catching the wind of things with my kite (an anonymous inbox on my other blog). I need time, so I take it.

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The documentary comes out. That's when I see the McCarter decided they also wanted to comment:

Initially unaware that mirko used a wheelchair and with only four weeks until the set needed to be finished...

This is interesting, given the producer who started it all was familiar with the feeling of de-constructing Jasper to put in the back of their car. Did they fail to mention that to the theatre as a reason why I seemed fitting for the 'mostly immobile' role?

...Though email correspondence suggest mirko approved the [inaccessible] ramps, mirko claims he never did.

There is a very big difference between what happens in an email and what happens when you're in a warehouse surrounded by a production team and carpenters who you eventually grow a sour relationship with whom you asked for an ADA ramp from making you choose between the only options you are given...both of which being illegally inaccessible (I should've rolled away when I had the chance, that was a clear sign from the universe and I missed it). Here's a word from Brendon Henderson on this:

Email from Brendon Henderson about the ramps [Alt embedded]

According to emails obtained by Wait in the Wings, on April 9, 2022, the theater sent a message to playwright Jacob Richmond that highlighted “two small tweaks [yannick-robin] wanted to make to the text to help Ricky feel more empowered.”

Requests were made before the production began, weeks prior. Ricky got talked through/addressed by the cast and crew on April 12th during rehearsal after the circle talk (oh, just wait until that part), and the revisions from that day were emailed to the cast the same day. The next day, physical pages with Ricky's changes for our run were handed out. Itwas the same changes as the day before, and a few more. In total, there were changes to 8 pages of the script (for context for when in the timeline this is happening, this was Wednesday of week 3, with one week of rehearsals left before tech week. The whole project was 9 weeks long).

Screenshot of email from 4/12/2022 [Alt Embedded]

Script changes 4.12

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Download DOCX • 14KB

In reference to the line ‘born with a rare degenerative disease’, Rasmussen conveyed the suggestion of adding a script note that read ‘if actor does not have a physical disability, please consider using ‘a rare condition’...

That cop-out is still an appropriation of real-life rare disease patient medical experiences, just with a more ethical word. There are MANY rare disorders and diseases that are recognized by their communities as lived ‘conditions’ and not as problems in need of changing. I’ve written about this before, actually!

…I say 'condition' and not 'disease' with this area of the rare experience due to the harsh nature of stigma within medicine and how it impacts lived experience, said best by InterACT [on the subject of intersex conditions], "'Disorder' or 'difference of sex development' (DSD) is still a common medical term for intersex traits. Many intersex people reject the term 'DSD' because it supports the idea that their bodies are wrong, or up to doctors to 'fix.' Advocates in the United States often bring up the fact that until 1973, being gay was considered a mental disorder. Many natural human differences have been framed as medical problems, until communities fought for acceptance." Henceforth in the context of being intersex: what was once considered "disorder/disease" is now considered "condition”. (From ‘On Intersex + Rare Disease Awareness’).

The comment from the McCarter that struck me as most curious was one I bet you wouldn't expect:

According to a stage management report, the understudy covered for mirko when they missed two performances on May 20th and 21st due to feeling ill.

SM Kelly Schwartz and I had several conversations talking each other off the ledge of leaving more and more often as the production went on, leaning on each other to get through it. It was sad seeing her be as unhappy as she was, and it meant the world to me that I had someone who understood, someone who was also doing their best to keep showing up. Someone I considered a friend.

A screenshot of a text from Kelly Schwartz [Alt embedded]

May 20th and 21st I didn’t go in because tension between myself and another cast member amounted at that point to where I had to take a break from being on stage with them because professionalism began to leave their (and other actors') performance and it was really affecting the show energy and everyone’s mental health. I'm talking actors-going-out-of-their-way-to-not-make-eye-contact-with-me-during-dialogue-between-only-our-characters levels of tension. It was incredibly unprofessional to see. I was considering leaving the rest of the production and needed to talk myself off the ledge to finish the weekend out. When the zoom call happened, I asked her if she was going to say anything to which she unmuted herself and responded something along the lines of "This decision wasn't in my hands. You know I wanted to see the end of this through with you. We were so close," tearfully, if I remember correctly. I didn't hear from her again.

Take a second to consider this statement from the documentary as well:

The administrative team allegedly met with mirko to talk through a plan of what would happen should they [yannick-robin] be in physical or mental distress.

Wait a minute..if that were actually the case.....then why wasn't the understudy waiting in the wings dressed and ready to run in on my first night back/every night?!

JUST TO MAKE SURE THAT IT IS ABUNDANTLY CLEAR: I NEVER TOLD ANYONE THAT MY DAYS OFF WERE RELATED TO BLOOD OR THROWING UP + I DID NOT HAVE ANY SYMPTOMS OF THROWING UP BLOOD ON MAY 20TH OR 21ST AND EVEN IF I HAD ANYTHING ON THOSE DAYS, THEY WOULD NOT RELATE TO THE 25TH/INCIDENT. 

My bleeding had nothing to do with either of those days that I was not there. I can tell you that for a fact because that's not how chronic bleeds work. The medical discoveries I've made in the years since corroborate this. My doctors have told me that if I ever have a prolonged bleed I should be in an ER because I would be on my way out of this Living Plane. I cannot BELIEVE that time and time again I am forced to use my own medical history as a reference so as to not exploit others (this is not even the last time in this blog post that I do this).

...I feel stripped of my physical autonomy through their narrative of events, which is just a perpetuation of the behavior I was trying to flag in the first place. They love to claim the intrigue of a rare disease (oop, sorry Sarah...'condition') for a show while knowing nothing about the lived experience, and making up how they think it works to aid their narrative with a construct of my disability that they could never respect to this day as evidenced by what they decided to use their time with Brendon for.

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Screenshot of text from Kelly Schwartz [Alt embedded]

Since they decided to open a discussion about my body and the events on set at the McCarter RTC run, I've decided to open up about what really happened in order to preserve the point of speaking out. Do keep in mind that this is just the tip of the inaccessible iceberg, and the entire reason I opened up in the first place was to illuminate the dangers of working under someone in a position of power who is underqualified to work with people on every part of the spectrum of ability, and how little awareness of this there is in the room beyond the disabled person (if you've ever seen the Jordan Peele movie Get Out, it's giving "I'd vote for Obama a third time if I could" while running a Black brain hijacking camp vibes. They think that what they are doing is enough and is correct).

On April 12th, 2022, the cast and I headed to rehearsal with a goal to speak to the production team across the table about how we weren't going to move forward with rehearsals until things changed. We congregated in a hotel room the night prior after rehearsal and all understood that things the choreographer, Jim Litchtscheidl, was doing had gone too far and needed to be different. A decision was made to reach out to someone at the theatre so they would be aware of what we were thinking about, and Gina Pisasale, the DEI person, seemed fitting for the cause. I let her know that we thought it might be helpful to have her there (because I thought she was a friend to the cast), but that it might be too late for that to happen. I never got a reply.

I have recently anonymously acquired a video that's dated April 11th, 2022, among other things to be mentioned and displayed in a brief moment (no, I wasn't making a documentary about this, asking people for evidence. I simply spoke up and have since had very busy inboxes. People reach out with support, and it occasionally comes with an attachment). The ableism around that time was beginning to affect all of us, and unfortunately, racism entered the room pretty soon after, which I think contributed to our need for a stand/sit still. It's a recording of Sugarcloud, and as you can see from the thumbnail we are circled around the piano without chairs or music stands, and there's a platform up that represents the different parts of the stage. One of the actors is standing on it, singing. The only person in the picture who's reading off of a script (or even is near a script) is the swing, who had to learn all of the AFAB parts at once so it's understandable. The work schedule email sent out by Kelly also stated we should be off-book by this week. I say all of this to say that by the time we made it to the third week of rehearsals, April 11th and 12th were both days where it was already atypical to show up to a room of chairs because we had already learned the music and lines and started doing work-throughs. This is why I and other cast members were shocked to find ourselves in a room with a massive circle of chairs housing the production team waiting with Gina and several other theatre staff outside of the show on the 12th when she never responded to our courtesy ask, and the schedule for the day started with dancing (which requires an empty stage).

Screenshot of April 12th Stage Manager email [Alt embedded]

Screenshot of Sugarcloud video [Alt embedded]

When everyone got to a seat and the circle conversation started, a lot of people spoke about how they were feeling, and some said things I'll never forget: good and bad alike. Some left the room feeling victorious, but the cast left feeling empty. You can see how I turned out in this screenshot from my text thread with Sarah on April 12th (I wrote to her this way because I believed her, so pardon my vulnerability.)

I've got you!!! Let me work with you on this, friend

Disability consultant Dr. Roger Ideshi came on the 21st (the Thursday of the 4th week of rehearsals) to speak to the cast and crew while I drank wine on the tab of Gina's McCarter card that she happily swiped at the end of our stay in The Dinky since I wasn't the one who needed to hear what he had to say. I don't remember very much of this, but I have a strong feeling that this was the moment when Gina said to me, "It's always the hardest on the first one..." I have a memory of a glass of wine and a direct view out of the window to the theatre, as the phrase was offered to me as validation for both how insane I felt and how inadequate they were. A shield for the McCarter's weaponized/strategic incompetence.

I'm mentally brought back to a statement from someone from the cast who spoke during that meeting as I looked out of the window. It still reminds me of this quote, even now. Written as best as I can remember it:

I want to react, but then I also have to go through the filter. Okay, I'm a young man of color. If I go to rage right now, the white people are gonna think I'm fucking crazy, so then I can't do anything and I hate that feeling and that's not okay. I know I'm not gonna pretend to speak for everybody but I know I'm not the only one feeling this way about this situation.

The word used for me in meetings behind closed doors at the McCarter was explosive. Gina said it to me in a way that scarred me to where I once replied something similar to, "you know, it's even worse coming from you. From one misunderstood minority to another. You're gonna sit as a person of color and perpetuate those stereotypes of people like me instead of address the fact that I am being driven to a point of escalated that I cannot de-escalate from without enough time to self-regulate."

At the time of the show I wasn't aware of the acronym DEAR MAN as a communication strategy. In the years after the production through some personal medical discoveries I've had, I now understand the situation to be that I would become what I now call 'Un/Non-DEAR MAN-able', and was unable to communicate that, as well as being put in a situation where no one - not even the DEI person (who I thought would be the book smart enough to be mindful of escalation continuously as well as it's relationship with CPTSD as it pertains to how a work environment could affect diagnosed folks and what to do to mitigate that) - could read the room and recognize that this behavior was a symptom of the Complex PTSD that escalated past the point of oblivion due to the continued inequitable treatment of my physical AND mental disabilities, as opposed to someone 'being explosive.'

When I was a kid, I knew people who would tell me I was attitudinal, and that it would ruin my future. Being called explosive at the McCarter reminded me of that for the first time in a while. I tried to understand why while I was in Princeton/everything was happening. I realized that both parties using those words against me were ethically/morally out-of-touch, and my failing to get them to understand that in a calm and patient way at the start would turn into escalation several weeks into trying things a softer way with little to no success. Instead of wanting to learn through the growing pains, they all decided to use my "attitude" or "explosion" against me instead of my behavior being seen as a part of a mental disability that a person needs help with preventing/avoiding the experience of by being in environments that are accessible for them and all of the ways that their disability can manifest so that they don't escalate so much? Do people only want to cast people with disabilities they deem as 'doable'? Are my legally protected rights and needs not 'doable' for you? Who does that reflect on, really?

___________________________

Since this turbulent experience, I have had many wonderful stable experiences on and behind the screen, on and off the stage, in a trauma rehabilitation center, that have shown me the escalated version of me in Princeton, stays there forever. It was the only place I have experienced anything like that apart from childhood, and the only time apart from then that I acted that way. Now, I visit the town every so often to stop at some shops I like (namely the record store, thrift shops, and ice cream). I was just there last week. I'm not afraid of bumping into anyone, and I take my time and enjoy roaming the streets in my wheelchair. If I can choose bravery in Princeton years later, I can choose bravery from my own home today. And so I will, by sharing the audio I acquired of the April 12th circle conversation that represented a breaking point in the McCarter RTC production.

Is there more out there? Maybe. For now, I hope this recording gives some insight into: how the whole cast had a problem with how things were going (at that point at least), what it's like to escalate and be misunderstood, how the production team and McCarter staff react to feedback, and how sweet tones of voice saying the "right" keywords amount to empty promises and inaction. I'm not proud of how I sound, but there's no way I'm the only person who will feel that way once the reception of the audio is more public than it has been.

I don't know who you will believe. I just hope that by putting these facts in the hands of others, they will set history straight and allow me the opportunity to leave this small production in my past, to make room for changing the macroscopic inequities in entertainment at large.

Screenshot from an email by Brendon Henderson [Alt embedded]

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~ allegedly ~

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DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT A MONETIZED BLOG POST. NONE OF THE CONTENTS IN THIS ARE MONETIZED. THE PUBLIC AUDIO FROM APRIL 12TH IS NOT MONETIZED. NO ONE IS MAKING MONEY OFF OF THIS.