Producing Theatre That Scares You with Michael Patrick Thornton

Episode Transcript
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Nicole Zimmerer (00:17):
Welcome to Break A Leg! A podcast that
explores the relationshipbetween disability and the arts.
I'm your host, Nicole Zimmerer,and on today's episode our guest
is Michael Patrick Thornton.
Mike is the co-founder andartistic director of Chicago's
The Gift Theatre. He's an actor,a writer, an improviser and a
director. And let me see, and heappears frequently on TV and

(00:39):
stage and he also happens to bemy mentor, my "Yoda," as I like
to say, Hi, Mike.

Michael Patrick Thornton (00:48):
Hi, Nicole.

Thank you for showing up.

Oh, thank you. Thanks for inviting
me.

Yeah, of course. Um, also fun fact,
you're the first guest that wehave on the show that identifies
as a male.

As a male?

Yes.

Got it. Well.

Yeah, you're the first dude.

Oh well thank you very much.

Okay, the first segment, as always, is Spilling
the Disabili-Tea, where we talkabout a historical or current
event going on in the disabledcommunity. And today's
Disabili-Tea is the fact thatJuly is Disability Pride Month.
So if you're not listening tothis in July, um, I hope you

(01:29):
hugged a cripple in July, thatwould have been nice. Don't give
us money because the governmentwants us to be poor. And put it
on your calendar for next year.
Mike, what are you doing forDisability Pride Month?
Anything?

Michael Patrick Thornto (01:45):
Talking to you right now.

That's, that's fair. That's fair.

Michael Patrick Thornt (01:48):
*Laughs*

That's very fair. Um, you should be proud.

I think I'm trying to... I think
my default position when I seethings that are very ableist is
to try to, um, you know, fomentthe spirit of, you know, hearing
each other and, you know,bringing people closer together.
And I think, I think there'sjust been some things this month

(02:15):
where I'm like, "You know what?
It is Disability Pride Month, somaybe I'm gonna throw a few more
uppercuts than I usually would,"you know?

Yeah.

So I think that's how I'm, that's how
I'm celebrating is I'm not justboxing, you know, in my little,
my 100 pound, my 100 pound heavybag in my room, I'm throwing
some punches in the in thevirtual sphere as well. So.

Yeah, punch some ableists on the internet.
That's what we we all need.
That's what the, that's what theuniverse needs.

Haha, yeah, right.

So that is Spilling the Disabili-Tea. And
for anybody wondering about lastepisode's Disabili-Tea,
concerning the bills in theHouse of Representatives and the
Senate, there is no updatebecause government is slow. And
we will keep you updated once wehear anything. So yeah. Let's go

(03:07):
USA! Mike why don't we just jumpright into it? Uh, who are you?
What are you doing? What's yourdamage? Why am I talking to you
right now?

Haha...
Um, who am I? Well that's a bigquestion. I mean, your intro
said quite a bit. I'm aChicagoan, born and raised in
Chicago. I'm from a neighborhoodcalled Jefferson Park, which is
a pretty city-workerneighborhood on Chicago's
northwest side. And aneighborhood that never really

(03:37):
had a professional artsorganization. So after I left
college, I went to theUniversity of Iowa, we decided
to put a theater in ourneighborhood. And that theater
is called The Gift. This year isits 20th anniversary on December
6, will be our our 20thanniversary to the day when we

(03:58):
opened up our first show. And Iam a C4/5 incomplete
quadriplegic. I had a spinalstroke on the day of the St.
Patrick's Day Parade in 2003,and decided that spinal strokes
are just so much fun that I hadanother one about three weeks
later. I woke up to a priestadministering my last rites, had

(04:22):
to do a year of speech therapy,you know, learn how to breathe,
talk again. I use a manualwheelchair for most of my
transportation. I can stand in awalker and shuffle a little bit.
But for the most part, it's aTiLite Aero T is the chariot of
choice these days. And yeah, Ido, I started off doing a lot of

(04:47):
theatre in Chicago and wentthrough Second City and
Steppenwolf. And then about 12years ago started transitioning
into TV and film, and have beenlucky to work fairly
consistently in that medium eversince.

Yeah, yeah. And you and I met, um, eight years
ago. Oh my god.

Wow.

I'm sorry. I'm just... passage of time. Um,
yeah. Mike is my Yoda. Mike wasthe first adult that I met who
was disabled who did theatre.
Mike is also the person,whenever I have a crisis of
faith, I guess you could say, tolike be like, "Shut up and just
do it."

Haha, I hope that's not always my
advice. But no, I'm honored toget those calls.

So The Gift and it's 20th anniversary. Wow.
That's, that's amazing. That'ssomething, 20 years.

Well, what's so crazy about it is,
it'd be hard for any artsorganization last 20 years, but
then throw a few factors at it.
So in The Gift's case, one,you're building a theater,
you're not just renting outspaces. It's a lot easier, I
think, sometimes to survive whenyou're itinerant, because you're
not beholden to a productionschedule, really. So we laid our

(06:13):
roots, and actually, you know,leased the space. So that's one.
Two, we leased it in aneighborhood that was not known
as a kind of artistic, you know,"hotbed." It's kind of a
neighborhood you drive past onthe way to the, uh, to the
airport. So that was kind of thesecond challenge. The third

(06:33):
challenge is that The Giftstorefront is 45 seats maximum.
And the ninth challenge, fifthchallenge, whatever challenge
we're up to at this point, isthat we made the decision in
2005 that we would join ActorsEquity, and that we would be a
union theater. Because we hadseen examples of a lot of our

(06:55):
friends who had started theatrecompanies and they were kick-ass
artists, and they would, youknow, get noticed from doing a
play with their friends at thetheater they started. And then
by virtue of being noticed, theywould get cast at a larger
theater around town, they wouldget their Equity card, and then
by virtue of them getting theirEquity card, they couldn't even
go return and act at the theaterthat they had helped found,

(07:19):
because that theater was stillnon-Equity.

Wow.

Yeah.
And that was kind of an earlyCassandra warning, and we paid
attention. And we said, "Okay,look, this is going to be a
reckoning someday. So why don'twe just throw our arms around
the challenge now?" And I'mstunned that we did it. I'm
stunned that it didn't bankruptus. We went from a company that
scratched out our firstproduction budget on the back of
a bar napkin and it was for 420bucks. And, you know, now that's

(07:47):
what we spend on like water fora show. And The Gift is, you
know, an annual about ahalf-a-million dollar
organization, and the fact thatit was able to kind of do all
those things well, and thenfinally, for most of our
production history to bepremieres, to be Chicago,

(08:10):
Midwest, and world premieres.
It's nothing short of a miracle.

Yeah. Wow. I didn't know, well I knew some of
that, but I didn't know all ofthat. What are the factors that
helped you throughout The Gift'srun to get you to that point, of
where you are now?

I think one, we never presumed
that we knew more than ouraudience. We never talked down
to them. We always, we assumedthat they had gone through
commensurate amounts ofheartbreak and shit that we'd
gone through. We also programplays that scared us, you know,

(08:52):
we didn't really know how wewould pull off any of those
plays. I mean, you're talkingover 70 full productions at this
point. And every single one ofthem was kind of an enigma when
we encountered it. And I thinkthat's the main thing I tell
people when they're starting atheatre company or thinking
about starting a theatre companyis, every year, you're gonna

(09:16):
come across a play that youread, and you're gonna be able
to envision who could play whichrole from your ensemble, who
would direct the hell out of it,which designers would be
fantastic for it, and you mightget a sense of how your audience
would react to it. And what Ialways say to them is, it's

(09:38):
absolutely critical that youfind the courage to not do that
play. Let another company forwhom that play is a challenge do
that play. What you should bedoing is the play that you have
no idea who's gonna play whichrole, it could go five different
ways, and three different ofyour directors would take it,

(10:00):
you know, three differentdirections as well. You know,
you want the kind of shaggy dog,you want the, you want to choose
the plays that you can't stopthinking about. And the ones
that are, are reallyinconvenient actually, for more
than one reason. Because if...
it's too hard of a sector, thatwe're in, it's too hard of a
business. A lot of theaters gounder. People change over time.

(10:21):
And if we're gonna go down, ifthe ship's gonna go down, my
feeling has always been like,"Well, then let's fucking go
down doing something that wefell in love with. And that we
supported whole-heartedly. Anddidn't know if it was gonna
work." As opposed to going downbecause we, you know, "We played

(10:42):
it safe. We played itconservative. We did a classic
in a way that was unimaginative.
And you know what, no one cameand saw it. And we bled out
financially. And then we wentunder." Like, let's go with
option A.

Yeah. Yeah.

And be able to hold our heads up high.

Let's play the violins while this ship is
sinking.

*Laughs*

Um, yeah!

That's right.

That... I would, I would rather go with
option A as well. Not that I,well, I could start a theatre
company. But I took, I took acourse in grad school that was
like planning a season,basically, as a producer, how
would you plan a season and Iwas like, "Oh!" There is a lot
like, a lot more math than I wasexpecting, planning a season.

(11:30):
Because you have to plan themoney, and then you have to
plan...

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's a lot more math. And there's, I
mean, there's no hard and fastrule, I would say. And I would
like to think that we'veexperimented with almost any,
every kind of combination onecould experiment with three
slots. You know, we've done aseason of all world premieres.

(11:59):
We've done a season with two,like a classic, a Shakespeare,
and then a world premiere. We'vedone a Midwest, Chicago, world
premiere version, like we'vemixed it up as much as possible.
The only thing I know, and cansay with confidence, is that
doing a season in an Equitystorefront theater of three

(12:23):
world premieres is reallyfucking hard. Because you don't
have, you don't have the extramarketing dollars to tell the
story about these plays that noone's ever heard of.

Yeah.

You know, and also new plays, as you
well know Nicole, need a littlemore time and attention, you
know.

Yeah.

And sometimes you don't know what
they even are, until previews.
And so, you know, we like togive our world premieres two
weekends of previews. We like,you know, we used to be doing
eight weeks of rehearsal, weweren't going into tech until
the ninth week.

Wow.

Is how we functioned for about 15
years. And then we realized,"Okay, we're gonna go bankrupt,
if we keep doing this," weshorten the rehearsal process.
But, you know, the one kind ofdefault model that sort of works
is like, leading off withsomething that has some name
recognition. And then you, thenyou kind of can sneak your, your

(13:28):
batshit crazy wild-card slotinto slot three, because
hopefully you're kind ofaccumulating a little bit of
revenue.

Yeah.

You're gonna end your season on an okay
note, but you know, it's allalchemy. So much effects... so
much is out of your control,you're choosing seasons a year
out, and the world changes. Aswe've all just gone through with
the pandemic. And plays thatseemed to be about one thing are

(14:02):
inescapably about another, youknow?

Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
Wow. Okay, I'm just processing.
Oh, it's wild. It's wild. Whathave you learned being an
artistic director for The Gift?
What have you learned aboutyourself? And, you know, how
have you expanded personally?

I think, you know, one of the
biggest lessons I've learned isgiving yourself the gift of time
to... to kind of roll away andtake a helicopter's view of what
the operations are and what'sbeing iterated, is really
important. And unfortunately,you know, that was a lesson that

(14:45):
was learned too late. You know,like for, I don't know, call it
12 years of The Gift's, youknow, 19, 20... look, we had
ensemble members who, uh, wentto Ivy League schools and
ensemble members who barelysqueaked through high school. We
had ensemble members who grew upin, you know, palatial estates

(15:09):
with, you know, horse barns andwe had ensemble members who grew
up in trailer parks, you know.
We have an incompletequadriplegic as the artist
director, we have a legallyblind ensemble member, who's one
of the most stunning actors, Ithink, in the country, Jay
Worthington. So, on so manylevels of diversity, we were
executing, I think, beautifully.

(15:31):
We really fucking sucked atracial diversity. It was, it was
a way-too-white theater for waytoo long. And, you know, in kind
of having this year of pause andthis racial reckoning the
country's going through, youknow, one gift in all the horror
is to kind of reevaluate, youknow, what could have gone

(15:56):
better, you know. And I thinklike, whether you're at a
storefront theater with a$500,000 budget, or you're at a
multimillion dollar artscomplex, you know, it's always a
fucking rat race, you're alwayswearing multiple hats, and so
like the big lesson, to answeryour question, is that it's
really incumbent upon us, asindividual artists not beholden

(16:18):
to an organization, or peoplewho run an organization, to
intentionally carve out time inour schedules to step on the
brakes, take an overview, andlook what's being iterated. You
know, for years I got, I waspitched plays by the same
half-dozen agents in New Yorkand LA, and never thought to

(16:42):
think, "Well, who are theirclients?" You know? And then,
you come-to and it's 15 years,and you're like, "Well look,
we've produced a lot of greatplays, and we've produced a lot
of world premieres, and we'vebeen a welcome home for women
playwrights especially. But wereally sucked at this, you know?

Yeah.

So taking the time, so taking the
time to realize what storieswe're telling, and what stories
we've neglected, I think, hasbeen a big lesson. Another big
lesson, I think, is that like,you know, we did a play called
Suicide Incorporated, and it wasan excruciating show to do. It
was written by our ensemblemember Andrew Hinderaker. And a

(17:26):
gentleman came to see the showwho was homeless, essentially,
had lost his job, had losteverything, you know, his loved
one's story weirdly resembledthe character I played. He went
into a shelter because he wasthinking of killing himself. And
they said, "Well, what do youlove? You know, what do you

(17:48):
remember loving about yourformer life?" And he said, "You
know, I used to love plays. Iloved seeing plays." And they
were like, "Here's 20 bucks,you're in Chicago, go get a
ticket to a play." And somehow,haha, out of all the options he
had, he found a storefronttheater run out of a former shoe
store in the corner of Chicago,called The Gift. And came in to

(18:13):
see Suicide Incorporated, wroteus a letter saying that that
play saved his life. And nowhe's a counselor, you know, and
that was 10 years ago, 11 yearsago. You know, I think it's,

(18:34):
it's really easy sometimes toget caught up in a lot of the
bullshit. You know, if you'rerunning a theater, it's, you
know, you're just trying to keepthe fucking doors open most
days. But if you're anindividual artist, you know, if
you're playwright, you're tryingto... "Who's ever gonna do my
play?" If you're an actor, "DidI get the part?" You know. And I
think it's also really easy toforget sometimes that like, at

(18:56):
our best, I think we're sort ofin the missionary business. I
think we're sort of trying tosave people. I think what we are
is we're participating in like,a real ancient ritual, whether
it used to be scratched out oncave walls in animal blood, of
trying to wrestle with the samehuge questions of like, "Who are

(19:18):
we? Where do we come from? Isthere a god? How should we
conduct ourselves individuallyand as a member of a society?
What happens when we die?" Youknow, like, those are the, those
are the big ones we've beenwrestling with forever. And I
think, I think plays are theTrojan horse which usher those
questions into the public spaceof the theatre. And I think it's

(19:40):
really easy in our business,which is relentlessly and
mercilessly... can beat youdown. I think it's really easy
to forget sometimes just howpowerful we are, and just how
powerful the art form with whichwe're trafficking is, when it's
aligned properly.

I needed a moment. Give me a... *deep
breath* Mike, how do you dothis?

*Laughs*

'Cause I am having a crisis, but I don't
want to talk about it right now.
But that helps.

Yeah.

I'm always having crisis, what else is new?

*Laughs*

Um, jeez. I mean, I've heard like "theatre
can save people's lives," butit's mostly like, theatre saved
my life, as a playwright. Likeit gave me something to do. But
like, you getting a letter fromthis man who saw your show...
That's powerful stuff. You know?
That really like...

Yeah.

You think about that on bad days, and you you
power on through. Um, yeah,yikes. Not "yikes" in like a bad
"yikes," but like a...

Yeah.

Wow, we really are, you know... Even though
it's a lot of bullshit in theindustry (because it's a lot of
bullshit in the industry), thereare moments like that, that is
like a gem of humanity. Um, youknow, I need a second to think
of another question. Um!

Haha, yeah, you got me in tears a
little bit, but...

*Deep breath* Yeah. So how was, um... How did
the pandemic affect The Giftduring the past year?

For, COVID for the gift was a wild
ride, you know. Everybody has afriend at the CDC these days,
but we actually do. And there'sa fantastic woman, brilliant
public health thinker, and...
Dr. Christa-Marie Singleton.

(21:51):
And, you know, Christa wascoming to The Gift for years,
and it was only like after thesixth show where I realized that
she was flying back and forthfrom Atlanta, for each show.

Oh my god.

And she was flying back and forth,
because she worked for the CDC.
And Crista used to be in chargeof the public health policy for
the city of Baltimore. And soanyway, my point is that, when
this shit started hitting thefan, you know, I would call her
and I would say, you know,"Look, we, you know, you've been
to our theater, it's small. Whatare we... what are our

(22:24):
responsibilities?" And it wentfrom, "Look, as long as people
aren't packed in your lobby, andyou can kind of stagger that a
bit. And as long as you're kindof, you know, wiping down the
theater and disinfecting thebathrooms and the, you know,
commonly-touched places. Itshould be fine." It went from

(22:47):
that to, "You need to shut thefuck down," in like 24 hours--

Yeah.

--is how fast the messaging was
changing and... and not to throwthem under the, the CDC under
the bus like, they arescientists and they're adjusting
their recommendations as thedata comes in. But we were six
weeks into what was supposed tobe an eight week run of Martin
McDonagh's The Pillowman. And wewere... I forget if we shut down

(23:20):
on a Saturday or a Sunday, butthey, they knew. I mean, one of
the actors, their partner workedin a building where on three
floors above and across thebuilding, someone tested
positive, so it was just amatter of time before it was
like we wouldn't responsibly beable to have people do the show

(23:41):
anymore. And so what we did is,you know, we shut that down, and
we essentially mothballed theorganization. We only have one
full-time staff member (and it'snot me), and they went on
unemployment. And what we didcreatively is we set up a
Tuesday night Zoom hangout,where people could just drop in
whenever and say hi, which wassuper cool because it kind of

(24:04):
activated the out-of-townerGifters, we have people who live
in LA and New York and Austinand Frankfurt and... so people
were able to pop in and and seeother ensemble members that they
just don't get to hang out withon a regular basis. And then I
returned to my first love whichis writing and I wrote a 10

(24:27):
episode radio drama for The Giftcalled Mud City. Which is this
you know, kind of noir-styledetective story. So we started
recording that and, and we'rereturning to recording that in a
couple weeks and hopefullyrelease that this fall.

Okay, good, 'cause I've been waiting for it.
Ever since you told me about it,it's been in the back of my mind
like, "When is it coming out?
When is it coming out?" BecauseI'm a sucker for a noir
detective story. I really am.

Well you have three styles. You have
1930s-40s Chicago noir detectivehard-boiled; you have 1840s Wild
West; and then there's 1960sHollywood. And what was so wild
about that project was that, andwe haven't finished it but, you

(25:19):
know, when we were firststarting and first, A,
workshopping it and, B,recording it, is we made a
decision early on to turn offour cameras. And so this piece
that was born out of a once in alifetime, hopefully, experience,

(25:43):
a pandemic, which forced us allinto a state of isolation, you
know, it was born out of thatloneliness and it was born out
of that yearning to connect, andmissing people. And we recorded
it in the way in which the piecewas generated, right? People

(26:03):
were, you know, by themselvesand alone and isolated, and not
looking at each other. And so,as actors I think it was
beautiful for the ensemblebecause they've done so many
plays with each other, and totake away the visual component

(26:24):
of our art form, and for them tosimply have to react to what
they're hearing in the voice oftheir fellow ensemble member was
so intimate, and intimacy issort of the aesthetic-north-star
of The Gift as it is anyway. Sothis thing, this story that is,

(26:46):
you know, frivolous and kind ofwhimsical in a very strange way,
I think is going to be a perfectambassador for what we do.

Yes. That sounds amazing. Intimacy is also
I think, one of the greatestgifts that theatre can give you,
because I've had very intimatemoments with complete strangers
in the theatre. And I think, youknow, I love... do I love big
shows or was I just raised withbig shows? That's the question

(27:18):
I'm constantly asking myselfnow. But I would much rather be
in like a 45 seat theater thanlike, you know, a Broadway
house. Because you know, you canjust connect with humans better.
Better?

Yeah.

I don't know.
Can I ask what was, what wasyour moment? What has been the
most important moment for you, amoment in theatre where you're
like, "This is why I do what Ido," where you were seeing a
show, and you were like, "Oh, Ican make a career out of this."

*Deep breath* What was the moment that
convinced me that I could dothis? Or what was the moment in
my career that was like, theturning point?

Um, let's do the turning point, I'm much more
interested in that.

Haha.
You know, I think there weretwo. You know, right before I
had my spinal strokes, I was inChicago for about two years, you
know, and I had done a show atSecond City and I had gone
through the school atSteppenwolf, which is a very
prestigious 10 week trainingprogram at which I've taught for

(28:32):
a decade now. And had got myEquity card at Northlight
Theatre, things are happening.
And then, you know, boom. Therug gets pulled out from you and
this medical fluke happens. Andso getting back on stage that
first time post, post, you know,"injury" is probably the wrong

(28:56):
word, but... I did a play calledThe Good Thief by Conor
McPherson, which is a one personshow. And, you know, it's
important to kind of recognizethat there was a good year after
I got sick where, you know, mydiaphragm wasn't getting the

(29:17):
message from my spinal cord,"Hey, dude, you need to take a
breath now because we don't haveany oxygen." So I would start a
sentence and like, I would justpass out!

*Laughs*

You know? And so like a lot of
speech therapy was like learninglike, how to breathe and talk
again. That's something thatlike, it's a skill that if I
get, you know, too animated orexcited still goes out the
window, you know? And so, thepoint being that the idea of
getting on stage post-injury ina one hour and five, six minute

(29:47):
monologue was crazy. But I didit. And opening night, I
actually walked out in my walkerand sat in a, in a chair, my
grandma's old chair, to tell thestory. And opening night I walk

(30:08):
out there, and the house manageraccidentally left the air
conditioning on. And so, it'snot a quiet unit, I mean, this
is like an old like rundown shoestore. So it's like, now I have
to do like double the work--

Yeah.

--to compete with the sound of the
air conditioning. And it was aworkout, you know. But that was
a turning point of like,re-entering the world as an
artist. You know, I had aweird... my perspective is, is
different than folks who wereborn disabled, right? Like I
had, I had one, you know, footor one passport to the

(30:48):
non-disabled world and I had alittle bit of a life there, and
then I popped over to the otherworld, you know?

Yeah.

So it was, that was interesting,
right? That was an interestingkind of re-entry, rebirth
really, in a way. So that's thetheatre side. And then honestly,
I think on the TV and film sideit has to be Private Practice,
and what Shonda Rhimes and LindaLowy did for me of like taking a
"nobody" from Chicago who hadnever done television, and being

(31:18):
like, "All right, let's, let'sgive this kid a chance." And you
know, what turned into what wassupposed to be... I think the
original thing was two or fourepisodes, turned into two years
of work, and a masterclass inacting on camera, and lifelong
friendships. And a career that,you know, thankfully is

(31:43):
continued to this day.

Yeah, um, I would love to talk about Private
Practice, if we could. For ourlisteners, Mike was Dr. Gabriel
Fife on Private Practice for acouple seasons. Um, what kind of
doctor was Dr. Fife? Because Idon't remember the specifics.

If I remember correctly, he was a
geneticist.

Yes, yes.
'Cause I remember, there was anepisode where you had clients
that were little people and theywanted to make sure their fetus
also had dwarfism.

Mm-hm.

And then you got into an argument with Audra
McDonald, the great AudraMcDonald. Um, yeah, that's what
I remember...

The queen, the goddess herself.
And... and I would be remiss ifI didn't point out that the
gentleman who played the husbandof that little person couple is
an actor named Nic Novicki. AndNic is the head of the the
ReelAbilities Festival, and hasjust done spectacular work of
really advocating for disabledartists and he's just such an

(32:51):
ass-kicker.

Yeah, I've heard of the ReelAbilities. I
need to do more research,obviously, because I'm always
interested in like, disabilityrepresentation. And you're
always on lists, when I look upgood disability representation,
Gabriel Fife is always on there.
And I'm like, "I know that guy!I've made fun of that guy to his

(33:12):
face."

Ha, yeah. Yeah.

But, uh, yeah, so--

*Laughs*

--you know, you have a career in television and
film. So what was the path fromPrivate Practice to where you
are now in TV and film?

Well, I don't know if this will answer
your question directly, butinside that Private Practice
experience of being cast in thatand how the writers wrote that
character, were embedded severallessons I think that would lay
out a template of what projectsto choose in the future on what

(33:50):
to avoid. And, you know, I'll bethe first to admit that in
2008/2009, you know, I was notwell-read on like, the tropes in
disability representation in popculture, right. And here was on
primetime television a smart,funny, sexually active,

(34:15):
confident guy. And hisdisability was not a subplot. It
was not a dramaturgical thing tosolve for. It simply was. And by
virtue of not really beingcontextualized, a beautiful
magic trick happens where thewriters and the producers...

(34:36):
you're forcing the audience tokind of give up the need to
figure out like, "Well, what'sup with the wheelchair?" Right?

Yeah.

And that, that I think is so
powerful and so like, that haskind of been... [clacking sound]
That's my, that's the... that'sme, uh, my creaky wheelchair
back that you're hearing in thebackground. Um. But that's kind
of been my litmus test ofchoosing projects going forward,
like... you know, if thedisability is like the only

(35:07):
thing about this person that weknow about, that's not really
interesting to me. And I thinkthe more we can force audiences
into context-less experiences,the more it quote-unquote
"normalizes," and humanizeseverybody. And, you know,
sometimes, sometimes they'resuccessful at it sometimes are

(35:28):
not so successful at it, but Ithink I'd like to think for the
most part, folks are trying. Butafter Private Practice it was...
I got a new agent. And that wasa big, a big stepping stone.
Paula Muzik at Innovative is myagent. And I don't know, it...

(35:50):
things just started stacking up.
You know, it's kind of like howwe were marveling it's been
eight years since we first met.
It's like, you know you lookback, you're like, "Jesus."

Time.

And the year before... time, right?

Yeah.

It's a thing. The year, the year before
the pandemic was wild. I mean Iwas, I was shooting two
different TV shows at the sametime. One was called Away, which
was a TV show about going toMars with Hilary Swank that was
on Netflix, and the other was ashow called Madam Secretary that
was on CBS with my PrivatePractice friend, Tim Daly. So I

(36:25):
was bouncing around fromChicago, Vancouver, New York.
And there's, there's a... I dida meeting in Los Angeles, I flew
to Vancouver, shot in Vancouveruntil about nine o'clock at
night, went to the airport, flewon a red-eye from Vancouver,

(36:49):
British Columbia, to New York,landed in JFK at six in the
morning, went to the studio inQueens, shot in Queens until
about four-thirty, five atnight, went to LaGuardia
Airport, flew back to Chicago,got on my porch with my wife,

(37:10):
Lindsay, and I was like, "Am Ialive? Am I real? Am I a fucking
ghost right now?"

Yeah.

Because I had been in 1, 2, 3, 4 cities
in 24 hours, you know?

Damn.

And then so like, my point is like
that 2019 was very much likethose travel schedules. They
were, it was insane. So to gofrom that to--

Nothing.

Michael Patrick Thorn (37:34):
--hitting the wall at 200 miles an hour of
the pandemic, and nothing--

Yeah.

--was a wild adjustment.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, you were talking about
your travel schedule and Iliterally got tired.

Yeah.
Haha.

I'm exhausted for you, even though it was like
two years ago. Traveling on oneplane is a lot for me. Um, so
you talked about this, but Iwould like to, um, you say...
well, you said and I don't knowif, you know, things have
changed. But you say you don'tlike to say you're a "disabled
artist," you like to say thatyou're an artist, and then the

(38:12):
disability comes afterwards. Isthat, is that still true?

I think so. You know, I think...
and, you know, it has nothing todo with, you know, not being
proud of who I am or wanting tohide anything. I just think that
like, the industry puts enoughqualifiers on us already--

Yeah.

--that I don't want to help them out.
Haha. So, you know, it's like,you know, I just did this show
and, you know, three times inone fucking day, three different
people from all levels, youknow, an extra to a producer,
came up to me and, and said,uh... "You're a really good

(38:58):
actor!"

Oh, Jesus Christ.

And you know, and like, so this is a
podcast, I'm trusting thateveryone can kind of hear what
that lilt is in my voice, right?
It's not like, "Hey, you're areally good actor." Right? It
was like--

Yeah.

Michael Patrick Thorn (39:12):
--"You're a really good actor!" Like
they're like, they're likefucking stunned by it. Right?

Yeah.

And I think like... and I've done,
I've done like almost, I don'tknow, I don't know how many
episodes of television... I'vebeen doing this for 12 years.
And it's like, I didn't, Ididn't win a contest to be here.
I'm not a Make A Wish kid.

*Laughs*

Like, this is what I do for a living,
you know? And so like, that'swhy I don't say, "I'm a disabled
actor." You know, I say, "I'm anactor who uses a wheelchair,"
you know?

Yeah.

Um, but like, you know, it's like I
don't, I don't say, "Oh, you'vegotta meet my Korean dentist."
It's just like... right, right?
He's just my fucking dentist.

Yeah.

So I just, I don't want to give them
any, any more reasons to notcast us.

Yes, very true.
I just find it... When peopleask me, what do I write, um, I
want to say "plays," but... Idon't know, I just find it
easier to say "disabilitytheatre," because they're like,
"Oh, I understand that," becausethey can look at me and they can

(40:21):
be like, "Got it." But at thesame time, I'm like, it's not
just for, you know, the disabledcommunity, it's for everyone.
But it's about the disabledcommunity, because we do need to
make out our space. But I wouldalso... I'm thinking about that
qualifier a lot, because, youknow, I am proud of who I am.
And I know you are too. I don'tknow. It just, it's also like,

(40:45):
it's that "disability card,"like, when do I play the
"cripple card"? Because, youknow...

Yeah, and it, and you want to be a
good ally and advocate. And youknow, I really underestimated
what being in front of 9-12million people a week does in
terms of the expectation ofbeing an advocate all of a
sudden, which I wasn't preparedfor.

Yeah.

And, and having to work through my
own thoughts and my ownfeelings, which you know, people
change over time.

Yeah.

And it is really fucking tricky.
Because if you have a group thathas been marginalized, and with
disability you're talking aboutthe largest minority in the
world that is--

Mm-hm.

--least represented, right?

Yeah.

You've got 1-in-4 people in America, at
least, who admit to having adisability. And given our
national penchant for arroganceand pride and shame, you'd be
wise to assume that number'shigher than being reported.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

And yet, what was it last year? 1%?
2% of the characters on TV andfilm were disabled? And out of
that 1 and 2%, how many, whatwas the percentage of times that
they were played by an actorwith that, with a disability?
Like, I think it was also 2%? Imean, the numbers are, are
woefully depressing.

Yeah.

And so I get that when a group like
ours finally gets their time inthe spotlight, that it's like,
"Move the fuck aside. We're justtelling our stories now. And
you're gonna have to listen,because historically you
haven't."

Yeah.

And I think there's value to that. And
I think, you know, I think it'sall in the timing. And I think
it's just having, you know, I'vebeen boxing a lot at home, and I
think it's, I think it's havingenough combinations of punches.
Like, that's an uppercut, andyou also need to have some jabs.
And sometimes it's great to dostories where... and this is my

(42:51):
personal feeling, sometimes it'sgreat to tell stories where the
wheelchair's never evenreferenced with dialogue.

Yeah.

And we just fucking force people to
either like fixate on it, or getover it. And when they get over
it, like a beautiful thinghappens. And then there are
times to tell stories that areabout recovery, or relationships
with parents, or loved onesleaving us because they can't
deal with it like... it'sinescapable.

Yeah.

You know. I'm trying to, I'm trying
to write a project, or I amwriting a project about FDR
right now. And like, man,there's a fucking riddle,
because how do you, how do younot roll into the trap of
inspiration? Right?

Right.

Like, it is astounding. Like, the dude
almost died of whatever he had,some think it was poliomyelitis
and it may very well could havebeen, and like, became President
of the United States and helpeddefeat Adolf Hilter. Right?

Yeah.

But then the moment you're like "And
he did it all from, from awheelchair!" You know? It's
like...

*Laughs*

That, then you're right back into
like, the problem! You know?

Yeah.

It's like, well, how do you...? And
that gets, so that's verytricky. But hopefully we'll
figure it out.

You'll figure it out, you've been wanting to
play FDR for years. Years.

Yes.
And thank God, the brilliantpeople... they just cast as FDR,
uh, Kiefer Sutherland!

Are you kidding me?

Kiefer Sutherland. Kiefer Sutherland,
everybody. Haha. No.

Ugh! Okay. You know what?

So that, that is one of the upper
cuts I'm throwing. I'm justlike, usually stuff like that
I'd be like, you know, "Sameshit, different kind of
ableism."

Yeah.

But uh, this thing I'm like, you
know what, this is fuck, this isfucking wrong. And--

Yeah.

--this man has more money than God. He
doesn't need to do this role.

Yeah.

And, you know, I'm not, it's not
advocating for me to play it.
Like I just... Just, you knowwhat? It'd be great if you
auditioned people for it.

Yeah.

Why don't we just start with that?

Right, right. I mean, a poster for HBO Max's
Titans came out, and they'reapparently adding Barbara
Gordon. So I googled who wasplaying Barbara Gordon, because
I was like, "Oh, they're gonnado..." They did it right! They
got a disabled actress andeverything. And I was like,
"Yes! Good. I don't have to beangry about this one." But now,

(45:24):
now I get to be angry about thatone. I'm, I'm not... well, I am
angry but it's, you know, we'regonna fix it. We're gonna write
a very strongly-worded letter.

Haha.
I have a T shirt that says, "Ibelieve in Barbara Gordon."

*Deep breath* Mike, I figured out what I want
to do with Barbara Gordon. Ihave decided I don't want to be
Barbara Gordon, like I wouldrather not be cast as Batgirl--

Mm-hm.

--or Oracle.
But I want to write and producethe movie. I want to write and
produce. So I'm putting it outthere to manifest. I will do all
the research, DC can call me.
Um, yeah. That's what I want.

There's a comic, and I don't know if
it's just called "Oracle," Ihave it in my library. But I
remember being stunned and itshowed her just doing a transfer
from her wheelchair to theshower bench. And it was like,
beautifully drawn, humane,moving, sexy. It was like all,

(46:37):
it was like the wholecornucopia. You know?

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, but I remember just fucking
swooning over that comic.

I mean, I love it when that kind of thing
happens to us. But it's alsovery sad that it happens to us
at all, because we're not usedto that happening. Reading
something--

Yeah.

--or seeing something, like on the
television, or you know,anywhere and being like, "Oh,
they got something right foronce." Um. Mike in terms of like
casting and writing and overallrepresentation, what would you
like to see in Hollywood?

I'd like, I'd like to not see Kiefer
Sutherland fucking play FDR.
That's what I'd like to not see.
Um, I would like to see acommensurate representation of
disabled characters played byactors with disabilities, you

(47:40):
know, that matches with theratio of disability in our
country. I'd like to stop seeing"triumph over adversity"
stories. I'd like to see morestories where the disability is
simply wet-wired into the fabricof the environment and not a

(48:01):
plot point. I'd like to not seestories where we wonder if
someone's going to recover, atthe end of the show. Um...

There are a lot of those.

There are a lot of those. Um...

Yeah.

And I don't know, like, I found... My
wife, Lindsay, and I went toParis and London for our
honeymoon and... Paris, Ifound... I was really nervous
about going there, I'd neverbeen there before, and I was
trying to learn the language alittle bit before we went, but I
was a little scaredy-cat. And Ithought that it was going to be

(48:38):
so kind of retrograde, and likethis place that like loves
beauty and like, you know...
like, beautiful bodies andwhatever, that they would kind
of like look at me in thewheelchair and be like, "Ugh."
You know? And then I was like, Ijust can't wait to get the Paris
part over to get to London.
Because like, you know, "Theyget it." You know? Um. And the

(49:01):
exact opposite happened, likeLondon could not have been like,
less friendly, in terms ofarchitecture, in terms of
accessibility of transportation,in terms of just people staring.
And Paris was like, unbelievablywarm and welcoming. And what I'm

(49:23):
driving at is, I feel likethere's something weird about
American culture, in particular,when it comes to disability. And
I don't know if it's thatnon-disabled people see us as
like, uncomfortable remindersthat like, their body is

(49:45):
fallible or something like that,you know?

Yeah.

Like I don't know what it is, but it is
unique to us. We are a countrythat like, thinks like, you
know, "Workout and pedal on yourbike in your room that doesn't
go anywhere, and you'll liveforever." And we have a city on
the west coast is like, "You'llnever age!" You know, like,
we're kind of weird. And...

Yeah.

And so I wonder if I want... to answer
your question, I more want theculture of like America to
change and I want non-disabledpeople to kind of shift their
biases in order to, to have ushave more nuanced and
representative stories, youknow?

Yeah.

A little more Paris, a little less
London.

I think in a weird way COVID is helping with
that, because during COVIDeverybody was kind of living
like, disabled people live everyday. Well, some of us. Because
they were stuck in their house.

Yeah.

They couldn't do anything, they couldn't go
anywhere.

Mm-hm.

And I was like, "Welcome to the Thunder Dome
y'all!"

*Laughs*

Mike, it was so great hearing about the history
of The Gift Theatre and like howit all got started. If listeners
want to get more involved, wherecan they go?

I would say you know, if you're in
Chicago, definitely, you know,keep up with what The Gift is
doing, join our mailing list, goto thegifttheatre.org. And we'll
be producing live back in 2022,but until then we'll have
in-person events, somestorytelling events and pop-ups

(55:03):
here and there. And then, I justwrapped a show for AMC called
61st Street with Courtney B.
Vance, and a smaller role inthat, playing a judge but it's a
hell of a story, a Chicago storyabout justice, and I think that
comes out in 2022.

Well, Mike, I just want to thank you again for
showing up. And I love you, andI'll talk to you soon. And, um,
for everybody listening, followThe Gift on social media, they
always do great, great work.
They produce me, so you knowthey have taste. Um...

*Laughs*

But yeah, thanks for talking to us. I
always love talking to you. And,uh, yeah.

Thanks for having me, this was a real,
real pleasure. And I lookforward to reading what you're
working on, now and in thefuture.

Yeah. Same.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Break A Leg! And
thank you to our guest, Mike,for joining us today.
Follow us on Instagram andTwitter @breakalegpod, that's
break a leg, P-O-D. Let us knowwhat you thought of the episode
or tell us who you think weshould have on next. For a full

(56:19):
transcript of each episode, usethe link in the episode
description. The easiest way tosupport this show is by leaving
us a review on Apple Podcasts.
And make sure to click thatSubscribe button! Break A Leg!
is produced by Scott MacDonald,and our cover art was created by
Sasha and Alexander Schwartz.
I'm Nicole Zimmerer and I willsee you next time.

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