Episode Transcript
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Welcome to Disability Empowerment Now, Season 3. I'm your host, Keith Murfee DeConcini. Today I'm talking to Anne Marie Morelli, who is a wheelchair user, actor, and director. Ann Marie, welcome to the show.
Ann Marie Morelli: Thank you so much, Keith. I'm glad to be here.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Thank you. I'm glad that you're here, and to know you. You acted opposite me in my first production with Theatre Breaking Through Barriers in 2019.
Ann Marie Morelli: That's so great! Yes, yes, I remember.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Yes, I don't remember the title, but I believe it was written by Nico, I'm terrible with words. Niko Grelli.
Ann Marie Morelli: Grelli. Grelli.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: I played the son of either an Italian or Irish mob boss and you played the opposite, and scared the dickens out of me by how good you were. You made me win my A plus, plus, plus game. It was a wonderful experience.
Ann Marie Morelli: It was fun, yes, it was great.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: And then the whole world changed the very next year of course. So, I interviewed a man you know quite well last year, Nicholas Viselli, who is.
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah, I kinda know him.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Yeah, who, I can't even speak without laughing so much. Who is, of course, the artistic, no, who is the artistic director of Theater Breaking Through Barriers. And I just interviewed Richard M. Rose, who is a Shakespearean actor, who is also a director and actor, who actually knows both you and Nick, a very long time. Let's start there because your episode completes the trilogy and I want to connect the dots for the listener.
Ann Marie Morelli: Okay. Well, Nick Viselli is my husband. We have been together. I think since I was born. We were together.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Wow, do tell me more about that.
Ann Marie Morelli: Nick and I, actually, it's funny. I have been with Nick, honestly, since I've been in high school.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Respect. You don’t hear about those types of couples anymore.
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah, we met back home. We're both from Scranton, Pennsylvania, you know, the two of us and Joe Biden. And because I don't know how else to do that. And we met doing community theater back in Scranton during a production of Maine. And, yeah, like. Yeah, so we've been together forever. Richard, and this I find interesting, Nick has known Richard longer than he's known me.
I have not known Richard as long as Nick, but I guess Nick and Richard at one point in his many lives and his many, many places of living, lived in Scranton. Yeah, he lived in Scranton for a while, and they also met doing community theater back in Scranton. They did a production of 1776 together before I met Nick and years before I met Richard.
Yeah, and then to close the trilogy here, Nick and I both worked at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival back in the late 80’s. And Richard was in charge of the interns of the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival at that time during another course of his life when he was living in Jersey.
And I don't know where else he lived in between. I know he lived in Maine at some point. In between all that. And yeah, so we that's where I met Richard, but that's where Nick and Richard hooked up again. Yeah, so I've known Richard since 1988 or ‘89 or something like that. I've known Nick since ‘85 and I've known Richard since ‘89 when I first met Richard.
So yeah, we've known each other all a really long time.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Yeah, and that's where the trilogy comes in, because I've talked about the exact same thing with both Nick and Richard, it's very interesting to hear of a trilogy of people who have known each other in various different ways and capacities and lives, if I may follow that, and so that is why I wanted to complete the trilogy.
So let's dive in a bit more.
You have known Nick Viselli since high school. Do you remember your first impression of him back in high school?
Ann Marie Morelli: Well, that's where we digress, Nick and I. Because according to me, I met him in 1985 in Maine. According to him, I met him the year before because he came to a show I was in with another mutual friend of ours and I ignored him.
Because I was so happy to see my friend and he introduced me. Supposedly, Nick says he introduced me to him and I went, oh, hi. And then just totally ignored him after that. To me, we met the following year and I just had a crush on him from the second I started working with him.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Wow. Yeah. All great love stories start there, ladies and gentlemen. So what happened next?
Ann Marie Morelli: Well, Nick was in college. I mean, for God's sake, I was, I think I don't, hmm, 85, I graduated. Yeah, I was going into my senior year of high school. Well, it was the summer before my senior year of high school. So he went back to college and I, you know, I went to school and we kept in touch and we actually started dating later that year, oddly.
He would just come in on weekends or whatever when he graduated from college, he moved to New York briefly, and then we got into the Shakespeare Festival, both of us, and so he stopped living here for all, you know, for like a, he didn't live here again, and I think he moved back to New York, that, so he moved here, he lived here in ‘88.
But then we got into the Shakespeare festivals two years in a row. We were asked back in the 2nd year. And so he moved back to Scranton but after our second year at the festival there was a show going on and they needed people to help out. At that point, I was big into it. I really loved lighting and stuff and they need people hanging lights or focusing lights and stuff.
And they just needed people to help this production that was going up and I can't remember the name of it. It was like the Jewish Theater, the American Jewish Theater. I can't remember what the name of it was. Nick I'm sure knew. Because we went just this one day to help them set up everything and they really liked Nick and they asked him to be like an assistant stage manager and he ended up going on tour with this group.
Oh, gosh. Oh, it was called, what's it called? Those Were The Days. It was a review. It was really interesting. And he ended up going on tour with this company, which he was supposed to be the lead in my senior production in college, and the tour he was on kept getting extended. And I was like, you're going to kill me, I'm never going to graduate. I can't do my show without you. I needed you. But he made it back in time to do my show. But it was funny and yeah, so then I graduated. I'm sorry. It was ‘90 and ‘91. It had to be Shakespeare from maybe, I don't know, ‘89, ‘90 and ‘90, ‘91. But because I didn't graduate college until ‘91.
And the reason I graduated late is because I took time off to be an intern at the Shakespeare Festival while I was in college, which is the smartest thing I ever did.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Why?
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah, so that, you know, I mean, ‘cause I met a lot of people and it was great. Actually the Shakespeare Festivals, it's funny cause when you're there, all you do is complain about how much work it is.
And then when it's over, you're like, wow, that was the best time of my life kind of thing. I was understudying the role of Isabella in Measure for Measure. And as an intern, you're like, yeah, I'm okay. We'll have a performance later in the season, but it was like the first or second week that it went up and it was in repertory, but the first or second week that it went up, the actress playing Isabella ended up in the hospital and I had to go on for two weeks. I went on and I didn't know the show. I knew something like a speech or two because I was too busy being an intern, which means I was too busy cleaning toilets and making props and doing stuff like that. And then every night, because we were in repertory, we had to switch the set over for the next show.
But one of the actors in the show, great, he's my hero to this day. His name was T. Ryder Smith. He was playing, Angelo, he was playing Angelo in the show. And he stayed with me the entire day. He was like, at that point, I wasn't in equity. I wasn't in the actor's union yet.
It was so you earned points back then. I don't even know if they do that anymore. I don't think so, equity membership credits, and you got them during the Shakespeare Festival. But anyway, one of the equity actors stayed with me all day. And I learned that show the day before the night I went on.
And I don't have any recollection of doing the show. It's weird, I just remember going off stage and people pushing me. To where I should go where I enter next, but I got a review and I got a good review. So, hey, it was fun and Ann Marie Morelli understudy played Isabella with oh God, what did they say grace and something?
I don't know. Something graceful. And I was like, Oh, okay. That was nice.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: So and it was at that point, several years prior you met Richard M. Rose. What was your first impression of him?
Ann Marie Morelli: I, Richard, if you know Richard, I know you know Richard, you can't. There is no way you can't love him. He is just amazing. He is such a sweetheart. Everything about him is just joy. It's a joyous experience to be around Richard.
And it was great because our second year they were, I guess the theater wasn't up to code. So the three of us, it was the three of us, it was Richard, Nick and me. We spent the entire season basically rewiring the theater, which was great because it was the three of us together all the time.
So it was, it was great. Yeah, I love Richard Rose. I mean, he's so smart. That man is a genius. He I mean, he reads stage, he reads like stereo directions for fun. He's one of them and gets it, you know. But he's a great actor. He's an amazing director. He knows Shakespeare back and forth and up and down in every which way. He's a musician. I mean, he's just, you know, he's a man of many, many talents.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: So if I may ask, what is it like doing Shakespeare in a wheelchair, which shouldn't matter. It's Shakespeare, but there's a physicality and there's a lot of action in every Shakespeare production.
Ann Marie Morelli: Well alright. I wasn't in a wheelchair. When I worked at the Shakespeare festival, I always say my claim to fame with TBTB is I'm the one person who became disabled when they, who became disabled during their tenure at TBTB?
I mean, it was 1988. I mean, so it was before it was like, during my tenure, I did have my, I have multiple sclerosis. So my first episode or my, you know, whatever you want to call it was optic neuritis and what that I actually lost the central vision in my left eye. And that kind of went on for about a year.
I went, you know, but the thing is, nobody knew what was wrong. I went to my regular eye doctor. She didn't know. She sent me to a different ophthalmologist. I don't know that they didn't know, but they just kept sending me places for tests and tests. So by the time I actually, and after doing all the tests for my eyes, by the time I came up with what it was, it had already started to get better, so that really wasn't anything they could do because it was like a year of testing and testing.
And when I went I had an MRI, which back in the day, it was so long. It's not that long anymore, but I went for an MRI and then I was down at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and they were doing a, I'm not sure.
I can't remember what the test is called. An EEG or something. They had all these electrodes stuck to my head and then they were flashing pictures or something.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Yeah, yeah, that would be an EEG or an EKG.
Ann Marie Morelli: No, EKG is your heart. This is like an electrode.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Yeah, it's EEG.
Ann Marie Morelli: Right, so I was, you know, I was going through that test, and in bad form, totally bad form, the nurse kind of let it slip that she thought it was MS, which is not her.
Actually, it wasn't the nurse. It was the person running the test. So I don't even know what they were.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: The tech.
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah, the tech kind of let it loose. Just here's a weird flashback and everybody, this freaks everybody out. When I was a little kid, I was probably like seven or eight. I was probably eight.
I was all excited. I got mail and I was like, oh my god, I got a letter. You know, it was a big deal and it was from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. And at the time back, especially back in Scranton, I don't know, I'm sure it was everywhere, but the Muscular Dystrophy was all, you know, doing their, always had their telethon and Jerry Lewis and blah, blah, blah.
And I got this letter and they were asking for money. And I was like, I'm like a kid. I'm a little kid. And, but I was a nerdy kid. So I went to the library and I learned about multiple sclerosis, at the time it was called the crippler of young adults, it's not called that anymore, but it was and I learned all about it and I went door to door and started collecting money for MS.
I was like, everybody collects for MD. I'm going to collect for MS. And then, you know, 12 years later, guess what? I'm like, this is wrong. This is just wrong. I gave you money.
I gave you money already. Why are you doing this to me?
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: I’m not laughing, it's just the shock. The foreshadowing is real.
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah. So, all right. So then ‘88. And then I was fine. I didn't have, you know, after my, I cleared back and it, honestly, it's been good ever since. In 1991, ‘92. ‘91 or ‘92, I went to London to study at the National Theater. It was an American actors program at the National Theater in London. And when I was there I remember calling Nick from London and it was when Doc Martens first came out, they were like a really big deal. And, I just was like, yeah, I love these shoes so much.
I said, man, they're heavy because I'm just dragging, you know, at night, I'm just dragging my feet. And it turns out it was another episode and they still hadn't technically diagnosed me because they said at that time you needed three episodes before they would give you an official diagnosis.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Wow, lucky number three.
Ann Marie Morelli: Well, yeah, I mean, I had many before then, before I got diagnosed. Then in ‘92, I moved to New York and then again, the following year, we were invited, Nick and, because Nick had gone to London the year before me and then I went to London the year after, and then we both got invited back for another program the following year, and I was good, I was good then, but then when I got back to New York I started, I really started having trouble walking, like my one leg would just, it was like lead my right leg.
I just couldn't pick it up and I didn't see, and the thing was, Nick was like, you know, we got to get you to a doctor. And I was like, no, ‘cause I know what it is. And as long as they don't tell me I don't have it. So I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't go to a doctor. I finally went in ‘95, I went to see a neurologist and he of course said, yeah, that's, I have MS.
And I said, see, I told you, if I didn't go, I wouldn't know, but if they don't say it, I don't have it.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Yeah. So, once you got the official diagnosis, but always knew in your mind, but once you got the original diagnosis, how was it adapting to the elephant in the room, per se, that was always there, and that there's no escaping me now?
If the diagnosis could talk, that's probably what it would say, and so if you don't mind, talk about that journey.
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah, I was pretty, I was pretty good. I would have, you know, I would have lapses. So I would have you know, one time I lost the feeling in my hands, that actually never came back completely.
It's mostly there, but it never came back completely and I, you know, the trouble with the drop foot and I went numb from the waist down, but that didn't last. It only lasted a few days. In 1995, I believe, they came out with the first ABC drug for MS and they called them the ABC drugs because it was, what was the first one?
The first one was beta seron, the second one was Avonex, and the third one was copaxone. That's why they're the ABC drugs. Which doesn't make sense because it went BAC, but okay.
I never was on beta seron but in 1998, yeah, I started with Avonex, which was an intramuscular injection that was supposed to slow the progression but it really didn't do much for me.
And I was on that for a few years and then they came out with another one, which was called Rebif. And that I did for many years. That one wasn't intramuscular, it was subcutaneous. And I was on Rebif for 10 or 12 years and that, you know, self injections every couple of days. I mean, I thought I was pretty good.
I did, I started, I had a cane that I never used. I do believe in my first production with TBTB. I don't know if I used it, but I had it just in case I needed it, but I don't think I ever used it in production. And then by 2006, I think, I started really slowing down walking wise, it would take me a really long time to walk a block, it would be like a half an hour.
And then by 2007, I was in a wheelchair, I could still walk, I could still get out of it and like walk around the apartment, or whatever, or walk, you know, I could go, I can do small distances. But I couldn't do a long distance. I was, yeah, I was working in a hotel and Nick would literally ride me to work and then I would get out and go to work.
Like, I didn't need it once I was there, but I couldn't walk any long distances at all.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Hold on, let me process all of this timeline. Hold on. So where were we in terms of, you had a cane, you never really and you were talking about how Nick drove you to work?
Ann Marie Morelli: Nick, before that, Nick was like my human cane.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: I’m sure.
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah it's just everywhere we went, I was always hanging on to him and I was like, oh, there's so much in love. And it's like, well, yeah, but it's really because I can't do it without him.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: So if I may ask, are you two married or engaged at that time?
Ann Marie Morelli: At that, we got married in 1997.
No, I am lying. I am totally lying to you. We got married in 1996. I'm like, I'm waiting, I'm totally lying to you.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: I feel good that you said that because I'm having trouble keeping up with the timelines of everything. So your diagnosis and where we are, is way past.
Ann Marie Morelli: Well, ‘95 was the official diagnosis.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Oh, okay. I did,
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah, ‘95, I got the official word. ‘96 we got married and here I'll even screw you up even more because in 1988, yeah, in 1988, we're going back, which is when I had my optic neuritis, but we got cast in a production of Julius Caesar and again, it was back home it was in Scranton, but it was at the University of Scranton with Richard Harris.
And we met. We met this guy, you know, this guy, this actor who was wonderful. He's a blind actor from New York City named George Asciotis, who said, you know, we got very close with George. He was wonderful. And George had said to us in 1988, I'm working with this company in New York City called Theater By the Blind.
And we're doing a production of The Unexpected Guest. And he was starring in it and he's like, I would love it if you guys would come to see it. So the summer of 1988, Nick and I came to New York. Now, mind you, I'm still in school. I'm like a sophomore in college. But we came to New York to see TBTB, Theater By The Blind, production of The Unexpected Guest, starring George Asciutis and Lucia Puccia. She was the other actress. And that is the first time we saw anything to do with TBTB.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: And so when did you and Nick become more involved with TBTB?
Ann Marie Morelli: I believe it was 1998. The artistic director at the time, Ike Shamblin had asked us well, the thing was, when they were Theater By the Blind, what they would do is, they would bring sighted actors in to read plays for the blind and low vision actors so that they could choose their season.
So they would, you know, have us have sighted actors and that way it was easier than getting large print or braille scripts all the time. Just to make a decision so that we would read these plays to the blind low vision actors and then they would decide what productions they were going to do. We did not know at the time that that was Ike's way of auditioning actors because it was always inclusive, even as Theater By the Blind, they still included, you know, non, you know, included sighted actors in the process.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: So before you go on, didn't Ike found TBTB?
Ann Marie Morelli: He did. He did. In 1979, he used to work, I think he used to work for an ad agency. But he had his doctorate from Yale in directing and he was approached to do a program at Lincoln Center for I don't know if it was at the time it was starring blind and low vision actors or if it was a project for blind and low vision actors.
Like for an audience of blind and low vision. But anyway, Ike I guess growing up his grandmother was blind. And he used to, you know, he loved his grandmother and he used to read to her and they used to go to the movies together and he would explain what was going on to her in the movies. And the year before this is a little step into Ike’s psyche back in the day.
The year before, I guess the Oscar went to, gosh, what is the name of the movie? Starring Marlee Matlin.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Children of a Lesser God.
Ann Marie Morelli: Children of a Lesser God. There you go. And he said, hey, if deaf people can win an award, why can't blind? So, he started Theatre By the Blind in 1979. I believe their first production didn't happen until ‘82, I think.
And like I said, in ‘88, we went to, and it was an amazing production. I mean, I just, it was all, it was stairs and like different levels and everybody in the cast. I mean, I guess somebody wasn't, somebody was sighted, but I don't know who. And I just remember George who was blind and Lucia who is also blind.
She, I just remember him on the top level and she had pulled out a cigarette and he walked down with a lighter and lit her cigarette. And it just was like, wow, that's, I was like, wow. And on the first try, I was just amazed at that. I was like, how did you do that? And I, and I asked him, I was like, you're not blind.
You've been lying to us. He was like, no, he's like, it's like, how did you do that? And he's like, practicing a lot. A lot of practice.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: So, Ike was auditioning both you and Nick. You two didn't know it at the time, which is very sneaky, but brilliant of Ike, not being in the room where it happened. What not, to Hamilton, in case that wasn't obvious. What happened next?
Ann Marie Morelli: We actually, I mean, we did a, he was doing a production that summer of like original plays or something. And we were in that. I don't remember the name of the play. I know that Pete McCutcheck wrote it, who, if anybody watches us now, he now goes by Peter Mark. But I remember that I, that I was in a play for that. And then in 1999, yeah, ‘99, we did our first production with TBTB.
We did a production of Vasa, which was a Russian play that Ike had paid someone to translate and we were both in that. So yeah, our first production was Vasa Village Nova.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: And then when did you and Nick move up into management of TBTB?
Ann Marie Morelli: Well, I did, I don't know that I did much for the next few years. I did a lot of readings, but I wasn't really in production. Nick was in a lot of shows with TBTB and in 2007 I was in a wheelchair and. I was actually cast in their production of Midsummer Night's Dream as Hermia, Titania, and one of the actor troupe, but I don't remember.
Which was amazing and then, and the thing was Ike had been trying to get a grant, a big grant, and the person who was ahead, the head of this grant, had come to see it and we actually got a great review in the New York Times and there was a picture of me in the wheelchair and George, who was blind and she said, use that picture and that review and we got this grant.
So then we ended up, yeah, I don't really it kind of just happened somehow.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Since we're talking about so many timelines.
Ann Marie Morelli: It's just such a long time. Yeah. Yeah then we ended up changing the name. And Nick and I were big on that.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: When was that, by the way?
Ann Marie Morelli: I believe that was somewhere, somewhere between 2007, 2008.
And the whole point was we wanted to keep the moniker TBTB, because that's what we all called it. Anyhow, nobody wanted, nobody wanted to say Theater By the Blind, Theater By the Blind. So we just said TBTB constantly. And Nick and I came up with the Theater Breaking Through Barriers. I know that because I remember the day we were just going, we were just like TBTB, TBTB, TBTB.
What does TBTB mean?
And so I remember that and the whole purpose was, obviously, I'm in a wheelchair, and I just did a show with them, so they, it's not that we were not inclusive, but the name Theater By the Blind made it feel exclusive, like you had to be blind or low vision, and it was never, it was always an inclusive company, but no one really, you know, nobody, if you had someone in a wheelchair, you had someone that, you know, was congenital amputee or an amputee or someone who used crutches or they're not going to automatically go, oh, let me audition for Theater By the Blind because it was just. And we had mentioned that to Ike, and it's like, you know, it's.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Well, what I remember that Nick told me, in actually one of our first meetings, we were driving in his car down to Union Square or somewhere, for some reason, and I think he said he took over from Ike in 2015?
Ann Marie Morelli: Yes, yes, but we had both been, you know, I'd become a stage manager and I did, we had already been doing little things administratively just a little, I mean, nothing. Nick more than anyone.
Nick was starting to write grants and do things like that. But, yeah, so, Ike became ill, he developed cancer and that happened earlier and he was okay. But then it came back and, yeah. So in 2015. 2014, it came, that was our first, that was our very first trip to Japan.
And Ike was supposed to go and his wife and Ike, the cancer had come back and he's like, I can't do it. So we went to Japan and Nick was in charge of everyone in Japan and we came back and Nick was like, I'm going to go down to see Ike you know, basically to tell him everything to have to give him a report and Ike stopped him and was just like, you're going to have to take over.
Which was bizarre and we had already cast the next show that we were in and it was, they were reviving the unexpected guest and Nick was the lead. He was the male lead, I was Benny in it, and Ike was going to direct it and he just got very sick, very quick.
He needed someone and I, you know, I knew a friend of Ike's because we've been working there for so long. And I was like, what about, I'm so sorry, my phone is ringing here. Ah, I'm sorry. Eek.
Sorry about that. And things happen. Yeah, so I, you know, I'd mentioned a friend of his, and he was like, oh, that's a great idea. And she took over. I thought she was gonna help, we thought she was gonna be like an assistant director to him. And he just couldn't do it. And then by, I think he died early February of the following year, like right before our production and Nick was now not only the lead, but he was the producer.
So, yeah, and that, yeah, so. That was a, that he, he kind of, and the thing was he kind of had to learn everything by fire, like, because Ike was very ill and didn't really have time to show him a lot of things before he went.
So it was kind of a learning while you're doing type thing.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: It's very interesting, sorry I lost my train of thought for a second. It is very poetic in a sense that the production was a revival of the first production.
Ann Marie Morelli: That we ever saw.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Yes, which is just perfect in a way. Nick is so full, pardon me for gushing about your husband.
Ann Marie Morelli: Gush away.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Nick is just so full of life and creative sparks and energy. How is it being around that energy? As a fellow artist, I don't want to get too personal, but as a fellow artist, how is it?
Ann Marie Morelli: It's amazing. He is such, he is, he’s a spark. And he, the ideas that he comes up with are just mind boggling. I'm like, where, you know, where did that come from? He's like, oh, it was in the shower. You know?
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: I mean, every time we do a hybrid or a virtual intensive, he leads off every production with just this bombastic creative energy, and the point I'm trying to make is that's not an act, that is not forced at all, that is not him just performing for the camera. That is literally who Nick Viselli is in real life.
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. He believes in the mission of this company wholeheartedly.
And people, you know, the thing is people are like, oh, well, he's a straight white, non-disabled man. Why is he heading this company? And it's like, because no one else could do it. Not like him. Nick has been around disability his entire life. You know, growing up, he had a neighbor with down syndrome that was like, always it was at their house every day.
He used to go with his father on the weekends. His father used to help the blind. He used to go shopping with them or whatever. And Nick would go with them. He had two siblings that had medical issues. He has a wife with MS who is in a wheelchair. His heart is so into this company that it's, I can't imagine this company with anybody else at the helm.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Neither can I. He just steers the ship in such a way that I think Ike, who I never met, would be so ecstatic.
Ann Marie Morelli: Oh absolutely.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: That he seeded the company control. There is no one Ike could have seeded creative control of the company at that time or any time. And I am thinking of all things that I have no idea about, but he knew that the company that he founded was going to be just fine without him as long as Nick Viselli, his protégé whether Nick knew that at the time or not, given that Ike auditioned both you and Nick without you two knowing, which is again brilliant by the way. Yeah, it's just a professional match made in heaven.
Ann Marie Morelli: And he worked, I mean, Nick works so hard. He's the only full-time employee of the company still. So we're still very small. Um, and he likes to say it and he's right. We're the best kept secret you know, on Off Broadway in New York.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Absolutely. I would say, I would go a step further and say the best kept secret of New York City itself, creatively and otherwise. But you were an actor, before you became disabled. We've already talked about the adaptation of living with MS. How was it first returning to acting with MS?
Ann Marie Morelli: It was, you know, it was really hard. I mean, obviously I work with TBTB, but I mean, I was auditioning for other things.
And, you know, and even a little bit to this day, you come in in a wheelchair, you might as well not show up. Even with Ike, when I did Midsommar with Ike, he was very reluctant to put me on stage. Initially I, it was Pamela Sabah who was not in the production. She wasn't going to be in the production, but she was, she's been with the company as a little, slightly longer than us by like a couple months and, and Nick well not, no, not so much Nick because he didn't want to seem prejudiced, so to speak, but Pamela really pushed Ike to put me in it. And yeah, I mean, he got the grant. He got it. We changed the name. We did everything. So because he was like, what am I going to do with that chair?
It's like another character but we thought about it and we were like, well, Hermia is the small one. So I'm automatically smaller than any other actress. He's going to cast because I'm seated. So that already and the whole minimum is small, blah, blah, blah, where they start. It's like, it's so much more when you've got her in a wheelchair, it's like, oh, that's, that's a really mean kind of thing.
And Titania is the fairy queen. So she was riding in her chariot. So we are, we made it work. And the fact that we made it work really was amazing. I really, I, yeah, but getting, getting at, you know, acting was really hard. I mean, it still is. It's very hard in the chair.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: How is directing? Could you also a direct
Ann Marie Morelli: directing a chair is fine.
It's a, you know it 'cause I don't, you know, I just have to be there and, and tell other people what to do. And I like it and I like telling other people what to do. I didn't even start directing until 2015 or something. Something like that. I think that was the first time I directed anything. And yeah, I mean, I could do that. I could do that. And I told Nick and this is, you know, I'm saying this online and I probably shouldn't cause somebody might hold me to it cause I'm not sure I'm, I'm really capable.
But I told Nick for the next, next intensive, I said, maybe I want to write. So I don't know about that. We'll see. Maybe I'll be a writer too.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: So in case there are any advocates who are listening or watching this episode who are just making their way into the professional world, what would be some action tips you would give?
Ann Marie Morelli: Acting tips?
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Preventional advocacy.
Ann Marie Morelli: You know, you just, I never, and to this day, I mean, now it's been 10, 17 years since I'm in a wheelchair but I still don't, I still don't like to admit that I'm disabled, which is why I said wheelchair user. It's like, I use a wheelchair, but that doesn't make me disabled, does it?
It kind of does, but.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: That's a topic for a whole number of episodes. You opened yourself up to that. Okay.
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah. So, I mean, it's just, you just have to bring you and every person is special and there is no other you. So as long as you bring you to the, to the table, then that's what people are seeing.
They're not, they're not going to like, even like with the wheelchair. Yes. Audiences in general will be like, oh, a wheelchair. But if you, if you embody your part.
Five minutes into the show, they're not going to see whatever, a wheelchair, a walker, a cane, a crutch, whatever. They're going to see, they're going to see the character. They're not going to see anything else. So you have to, you just have to get through that first five minutes of knowing. I mean the last, when I did, when I did The Unexpected Guest.
And it happened a few times. People would come up to me after the show and ask me why I didn't stand up for the curtain call to which I answered, oh, my gosh, you know, I have to do that. Don't I? Because they just assumed that it was part of the play. And that is the ultimate compliment as far as I'm concerned.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Wow. Okay.
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah, yeah. So, what I mean just. You know, I don't really, my only advice is to be true to yourself.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: So we've talked a lot and soon.
Ann Marie Morelli: I know there's just not enough time.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Timelines. In other words, really the head history of TBTB theater breaking through S and the Utah Shakespeare vegetable where everyone met. There's a lot in this episode, and I like to think that both advocates went. disabilities, and people who have yet to discover and embrace their own disabilities, listen to this podcast.
But I'm not naive enough to think that both groups take exactly the same things away from each episode. So, as my guests, what do you hope that advocates with disabilities take away from this episode? What do you hope that people who have yet to embrace their own disabilities take away from this episode?
Ann Marie Morelli: Yeah, again, you know, I know, you know, obviously, I know More than anything, I know a lot of people with MS, and I'm just gonna stick to that because that's what I know. I know, I know a lot of blind people from, obviously, I know a lot of people with various disabilities, and I know a lot of the people that I know are, they don't feel comfortable doing things.
They don't feel comfortable going out. And they're always like, wow, how do you do it? How do you do it? And it's like, you just do it. You just get out there. You have, you can't,
there is no, there is no reason for anyone with a disability to hide. There's no reason there, the world is not perfect.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Far from it.
Ann Marie Morelli: Right. But again, why do you just have to get out there? You just have to be part of life. You have to enjoy yourself. There are things you can do.
They go to a movie for goodness sake, you know, go out to dinner everywhere. Everywhere is not accessible, but there's enough places that are. That you can enjoy life. You just have to enjoy your life.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: So what do you hope that people who have yet their disabilities are to discover? Learn from this episode and about acting with a disability because you mentioned earlier you might as well not show up, and that's incredibly unfortunate, because as I said at the top of the episode, you made me bring my triple A game, and I believe at the first virtual intensive, I Said Nick, on air, your wife's acting ability is terrifyingly brilliant.
When I acted with her, he took that with the great you would expect, really, Chuck. At the moment, I don't remember, but the question stands. What do you hope that people who don't have disabilities take away from this episode?
Ann Marie Morelli: Right. Well, again, when I went into a wheelchair, again, 17 years ago, it was, I want to say it was a different world because it is.
It has been a different world since then. There have been advances. There are, you know, there, there have been people with disabilities on Broadway at this point. I technically, and I didn't, I don't know if it's true. I know somebody told me that I was the first wheelchair user off Broadway. But I don't know about that.
Somebody told me from Korea, we met, we have some people from. South Korea. And they're like, so you and you were then I was like, okay, if you say so.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: Hold on, hold on. Let me do that question again. Okay. Hopefully they'll sit in post cause that was a long windy lead up to the final question.
And it's like, I can do better. So, I remember. Telling that the first Virtual Intensive is your acting ability, which just made me bring my own AAA game, Tim. Tim, finally. Brilliant Witched. Absolutely what do you hope? And so that will lead from the top. So what do you hope for people without disabilities all who have yet to discover their own disability.
Take away from this episode and from acting with a disability or observing actors with [01:07:00] disabilities in general. Okay.
Ann Marie Morelli: Um, again, I, you know, I've been in a wheelchair a long time and it was Different, not a lot different, but there have been advances there are, you know, actors on Broadway with disabilities.
Um, there and I think it's more acceptable to have a disability and be an actor at this point. I don't think it my, my issue is, um, generally they use. People with disabilities to play people with disabilities. Um, and I, what I would like is actors with disabilities to be considered for any role, because we do exist in life.
I think everyone knows someone that has a disability or know someone who knows someone so I don't see why it's such a scary thing anymore. And I would just like as far as acting goes, I would like the powers that be too. See the talent rather than see the disability, which is a huge thing. As far as just regular people, I know, if you took all of the disabled people in the world and you put them in one country, they had their own country, it would be the third largest country.
On the planet so obviously, yeah, you know, only only surpassed by China and India, and not by much. So we're there, so we're just people, you know, we're just people just like you. That's what I would hope for people without disabilities or people who have not come into contact with their disability. And the thing is, people are living older, people are living longer lives.
And the potential of becoming disabled in some way is really high. So, you know, just people are people. That's all I want. That's all I want people to see.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: And so if you've made it that fall in the episode, to loop back the timeline in my debut acting job with theater breaking to Barriers, I wait opposite and, and we really, who played a mob barge?
And she wrote so much menacing embodiment pageant that I told her husband years later on camera that I still remember that debut production and that you all write the late. So in that production time, finally, William. And so thank you very much my friend, for everything you've shared in this episode and for everything that you, Nick.
And Richard, we cannot forget Richard, you, for Peter breaking through barriers and for the disability community in general.
Ann Marie Morelli: Thank you so much, Keith. I appreciate it.
Keith Murfee-DeConcini: I'll see you very soon. Absolutely. Take care.
Ann Marie Morelli: You too, thanks.
Keith: You have been listening to Disability Empowerment Now. I would like to thank my guest, You, our listener and the Disability Empowerment Team that made this episode possible. More information about the podcast can be found at DisabilityEmpowermentNow.com or on social media @disabilityempowermentnow. The podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts or on the official website. Don’t forget to rate, comment, and share the podcast! This episode of Disability Empowerment Now is copyrighted 2024.
