The metaphor of an open circle exemplifies a meaningful ideal for building community. Within a circle, everyone — no matter age, race, national origin, identity or ability — comes together on equal footing, forming a shared and collaborative space that erases hierarchical intent.
For actor and director Suzanne Richard, the idea of an open circle has become the way she lives her life, as well as the founding principle for her small-yet-influential Open Circle Theatre. As she tells it, Open Circle Theatre brings together artists with and without disabilities to create professional productions in the Washington, DC, and Maryland region.
People with disabilities are the largest minority in the United States — 27% of U.S. adults have some type of disability. That alone is enough for Richard and her colleagues at Open Circle to practice what she calls radical accessibility: breaking down barriers to full participation in the arts for people who may otherwise not be able.
Over the past 20-plus years, the Rockville-based company, run on a shoestring budget, has been recognized for its innovative work. This includes regional Helen Hayes Awards nominations for Washington, DC, metropolitan area professional theaters; numerous grants; and invitations for national convenings on disability and the arts. Most recently, OCT was awarded a groundbreaking $1.1 million grant from the Doris Duke Foundation to develop a multiplatform performance experience that merges new technology within a traditional theatrical setting, breaking down barriers to accessibility for those who may not be able to leave their house for a live experience.
“It’s huge,” Richard said, still trying to wrap her head around the amount and the scale of this new project, which has been in the making for five years already. “We’re creating a … big, beautiful musical for artists and people with disabilities [to perform and work on] and for audiences … with and without disabilities.”
“Theater,” Richard said, “is a bunch of people sitting in a room, telling another bunch of people a story, right? But if you can’t be in the room with them, you’re just watching a movie. It’s not the same thing.” This grant for the “VitaNova” project will allow those who can’t attend a theater to access a fuller experience online, with an avatar and interactivity across digital and live platforms
Richard’s life-changing theater experience
Suzanne Richard (pronounced “Ri-shard, a la francais) grew up in the county, attending College Gardens Elementary, Tilden Jr. High and the old Woodward High School, before graduating from Walter Johnson. It took a lot of support, courage and hard work to build a career in the theater while navigating life on crutches or a wheelchair.
While she thrived in her Rockville elementary school, even with a complex health diagnosis, by middle school Richard had to leave her neighborhood because the local county school wasn’t accessible. “I was suddenly the girl in the wheelchair at Tilden,” she said. “I grew up with kids who just thought of me as ‘Susie who happened to use a wheelchair, who happened to use crutches, who came to school sometimes with a cast.’ I’ve had over 60 broken bones in my life.” But she was completely mainstreamed, she noted.
“I was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bones disease. I like [the term] osteogenesis imperfecta, because you don’t say cystic fibrosis is chunky lung disease,” Richard said. “I prefer the real name.” The youngest of four siblings, she recalled that her family never cut her any slack growing up: “My family had the same expectations for me as everybody else.”
Richard recalled wanting to be an actress as early as five years old. “Nobody knows why. There are no actors in our family,” she noted. “I talked my mother into going to an audition at Glen Echo Park after seeing a show there.”
Her mother, she said, proved to be the opposite of a stage mother. So much so that one of the adult actors in the show told her mom, “Your daughter loves theater. And she’s quite good. You might want to encourage this.” Richard added: “That guy changed my life.”
After earning a theater degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Richard returned to Maryland and began performing. Often, she was cast as an elderly person or a little person, playing Tiny Tim for multiple years in Ford’s Theatre’s “A Christmas Carol.”
Open Circle was born when Richard hired then-young theater artist Arianna Ross to run the sound system at a show. They ended up as roommates for nearly three years. Ross, the current Open Circle board treasurer, also founded Story Tapestries, a Bethesda-based storytelling and arts education non-profit.
Accessibility with a twist
“Susie could do everything,” Ross emphasized. “I would see her acting, stage managing shows … doing all kinds of stuff. But I felt like there was so much more that she could do if people took note of her …. She didn’t just have to be the little person in the show.”
Ross dropped a suggestion: “You should found your own theater company.
Susie said, ‘Well, you should found a theater company with me.’” Open Circle was born.
Over the years, the company has produced musicals including “Evita,” “Songs for a New World,” and, in 2004, an acclaimed version of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” as well as straight plays like the company’s first show, Christopher Durang’s “Laughing Wild,” and Bertolt Brecht’s “Caucasian Chalk Circle.”
“Suzie really knows theater. She has great ideas and knows how to execute them,” said Joel Snyder, a Takoma Park-based actor, expert on audio-description for theater, and former OCT board member. “She’s fantastic as a performer: stellar, intuitive and creative as a director … doing ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ with the accessibility twist was a great idea.”
“VitaNova,” OCT’s Duke Foundation-supported new musical, leans into cutting-edge technology and radical accessibility. Written by California-based playwright and disability advocate Lisa Sniderman, the piece will feature both actors live onstage and what Richard calls “a theater in the metaspace or in the unreal engine.” She adds, “In the metaspace, if you come to the theater that way [online], you make an avatar, you can move around and talk to people in the lobby. Then you sit and watch the show.” This type of live interactive access has rarely been done on this scale, allowing the audience to make choices that don’t slow the show down.
Playwright Sniderman, who has the progressive muscle weakness disease
dermatomyositis and primary immune deficiency disease, is unable to attend workshops and rehearsals in person, but via robot with an iPad attached, she’s takes part from her California home collaborating with the actors, artistic director Richard, the videographer, sound, light and set designers. For audience members unable to get to the theater, it will be similar.
Open Circle means open access
This latest innovation underscores Open Circle’s importance as a driver in the disability and general community for open access. “There just isn’t enough awareness of the abilities of people with disabilities, even today,” Snyder said. “Suzie’s mission has always been to provide a place for artists with disabilities to shine… The two biggest barriers for people with disabilities to participate in the arts are money and transportation,” he pointed out.
Open Circle’s cofounder Ross added, “It’s critical for this organization to be based in Montgomery County. We pride ourselves on being innovative and thoughtful in working together … creating spaces for organizations to really grow and thrive…. At the same time, I wouldn’t say that the public schools and the county as a whole is at the forefront of accessibility. I think we still struggle as a community so we need an organization like Open Circle Theatre to model best practices because that creates a ripple effect both here and
across the country.”
For further information on Open Circle Theatre and its forthcoming Open Doors Festival, visit https://opencircletheatre.org/open-circle-main-page/mission-and-vision/.
Award-winning arts journalist Lisa Traiger writes from Wheaton, Maryland.
