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"VSA arts is committed to changing perceptions about people withdisabilities," said Soula Antoniou, president of VSA arts. "Inside/Out is thelatest in a series of a new body of work that VSA arts has commissioned in thevisual and performing arts. This production sheds light on the disabilityexperience and shatters stereotypes."
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Participants ranging in age from 23-65 were selected for their personalexperience with disability:
-- Josh Hecht is a rising New York director whose mother had multiplesclerosis.
-- Monique Holt, performing artist, is an adjunct theater professor atGallaudet University.
-- Christopher Imbrosciano is a young actor with cerebral palsy whoapprenticed at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
-- Zazel-Chavah O'Garra is a dancer (Alvin Ailey), cover model (Essence),and disability advocate who is a brain tumor survivor.
-- Vivian Cary Jenkins is a former healthcare administrator who becamelegally blind later in life.
-- Matthew S. Joffe is an actor as well as director of the Office forStudents with Disabilities at a New York community college. He was born withMoebius Syndrome.
-- Blair Wing has her MFA in acting from Ohio State University. She wasparalyzed in a car accident at the age of 18.
VSA arts works with cultural institutions and arts organizations toinitiate programs and new works. Commissioned, funded, and produced by VSAarts, Inside/Out is the latest in a series of inclusive, accessible, and high-profile performing arts commissions by VSA arts. Recent commissions includeNobody's Perfect, a joint world premiere with the Kennedy Center (October-November 2007), and The Farthest Earth from Thee by Liz Lerman Dance Exchange(June 2007).
Ping Chong is recognized as one of the country's most significant theaterartists, having created more than fifty multidisciplinary works for the stage,including Humboldt's Current (Obie Award, 1977), A.M./A.M. -- The ArticulatedMan (Villager Award, 1982), Nosferatu (Maharam Design Award, 1985), Kind Ness(USA Playwrights' Award, 1988), and Brightness (two 1990 Bessie Awards). He isa 2008 recipient of the Urban Artist Initiative/NYC Fellowship for artists ofcolor. In 2006, he was awarded a USA Artist Fellowship in recognition of hiscontribution to American arts and culture, and in 2000 he received an OBIEAward for Sustained Achievement.
Performances are at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 27, and Saturday, June 28,and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 29. Discount tickets are available for $10* andcan be purchased by calling the Kennedy Center's Box Office at (800) 444-1324or TTY (202) 416-8524 and mentioning the promotion code 31373, or online.
For more information about the performance and to hear audio clips fromthe performers, please visit www.vsarts.org.
*Tickets regularly $20. Offer subject to availability. Not valid onpreviously purchased tickets or in combination with any other offer. Offer canbe withdrawn at any time without notice.
About VSA arts
VSA arts is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1974 byAmbassador Jean Kennedy Smith to create a society where people withdisabilities learn through, participate in,
